Economy of motion, doping stages...

[Ron Ankeny]

I did a search and I can't find the information I am looking for. When I came into this sport, I could already shoot a group. My immediate challenge was to learn how to shoot at speed without eroding the fundamentals beyond repair. Then came economy of motion, shooting on the move, and so on. Lastly, came doping stages. In short, when I started, I shot all A's and my time was terrible. Sound familiar?

The turning point for me was when I was a C shooter coming in way down in the pack at local club shoots. It was tough being a Master class PPC revolver shooter and getting whooped up on by C class IPSC shooters. My ego wouldn't tolerate that for very long. I got the IPSC Secrets video and I started working on economy of motion, and most especially, shooting as I was leaving a box, and being ready to shoot when I got to the next box/area. I immediately started winning my class. I learned the hard way what most forum members know, economy of motion is absolutely vital no matter what class you are in because the majority of classifiers don't test that skill. We all know that if you take two shooters (any class) with identical skills in the stand and deliver mode (speed shoots from one box) the shooter that can move the best will prevail in a field course and dominate the other shooter through out the course of an entire match.

It seems like most shooters tackle the elements of motion about the time they get to be high C class or low B class. I have been told by a couple of GM shooters that shooting while you leave a box, shooting as you step into a box, shooting as you come to an area while you are still extending the pistol, etc. shouldn't be emphasized until shooters have been around the sport for quite a while and have mastered fire control, sight picture, etc.

Why do most shooters wait so long before working on the very skills that they need to win? When should the new shooters in our club be working on movement? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

[Jake Di Vita]

I think it is very important to understand the fundamentals before you move up to that higher level. You must crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run, I don't think it is wise for a new shooter to automatically start shooting while leaving and entering a box, etc...  On the other side though, it is just as bad to be well versed in only one discipline. A shooter will almost never win his or her class until they can put everything together in relatively seamless motion.

I say always work on the fundamentals and work on your economy of motion whenever you can. A new shooter is just that, new. It's impossible to learn if you don't practice.

My .02.

[Thomas Moore]

well said jake.

[Ron Ankeny]

I certainly understand the importance of such fundamentals as grip, balance and stance, fire control, calling shots, and so on. Those elements are vital to performance and there are way too many shooters, both new and old, who do not have an adequate foundation upon which to build.

However, I think the vast majority of shooters neglect learning and practicing the most critical elements of winning within their class. I also think the more experienced shooters underestimate the importance of teaching the less experienced shooters the value of economy of motion, being ready to shoot when you get there, transitioning between targets, etc. early on.

[shred]

I'm not sure what's best taught when, and it probably varies by individual (any pro-teachers want to chime in?), but as TJ says "There's a whole lot going on..", and since you can't focus on all of it, you need solid experience with the fundamentals before you can start seeing what else there is going on.

I liken it to driving a car-- when you're 16 and just learning, everything is zooming everywhere and you're bombarded with what's going on, working the clutch and gears and you aren't even out of the driveway yet. A few years later and you're doing 80 at night in the rain, drinking coffee and fiddling with the radio.

In my experience with some local shooters, winning C class means cutting out the no-shoots and not throwing so many misses. Winning B takes seeing the sights on every shot, no matter what. After that it's time to work on consistency and only shooting A's.

[benos]

Ron,

A big difference between you and the "average" C shooter - probably from your PPC experience, you know what it takes to hit the target (and call the shot). If you have no doubts about your mastery of the fundamentals, IT IS TIME FOR YOU to work on the subtleties of movement and positioning. On the other hand, if you don't know what is required for you to hit any target you find yourself shooting at, and you just happen to be pretty quick at speeding around a stage and winning C class (which doesn't test shooting skill) - you'll never progress and reach the higher classes because in the end you have to know how to shoot. I think your confusion stems from the fact that you are an unusual case in IPSC shooting - you can shoot. So basically, you need to learn to move your gun more quickly between targets, and your body more efficiently between positions. That's you though. Most though, like most GMs will tell you, need to learn how to shoot first, then learn the subtleties of movement. That's if, however, you'd like to make it out of B or C class and smash your way into M class or possibly GM.

be

[vluc]

Here is what might be a prime example.  Production shooter, shot a COF on Sunday that had you engaging 8 targets through 4 ports...all adjacent to one another.  You started in the 2nd or 3rd bay...your choice.  Each port/opening had two targets in it...no more than 3 feet away, yet no other targets could be engaged due to the distance, etc.  One head shot, all other targets with varying degrees of hard cover.

When i first looked at the stage, i planned on starting in the 2nd port from the left...engage those two, get the first port as one target was a head shot, reload, then go on to three and four.

Then I watched an A class shooter run it.....(I'm not one, btw!).  He started in port 3, stepped back, engaged one target in that port, swung to port 4, took those 2, then on the way back to 2 and 1, took the second target in port three.  his final two were shot the way i started the others.

Now when i talked with him after his run, he gave the explanation of the number of steps to take to do it my way versus his...he saved a few.

Until that point, i never would have thought of that...and that may be why a lot of us 1-2 year players don't work on that as it is outside of our thought process until we see someone do it.  I occasionally get an epiphany on a walk through where something form a similar type stage forces its way into my consciousness.

For me, shooting production, I go for the hits.  Now I "won" that stage over the other production shooters, shot all A's...yet that "A" class shooter got mostly Alpha-Charlies and kicked some butt.

So now i have some new things to try to think about...along with everything else, when I go to the line!!

[shred]

I came to another realization this morning-- there's a couple different kinds of excess movement, which, for lack of better terms, I'm calling 'extra movement' and 'inefficient movement'.

(Getting the right stage plan and order of engagement is separate for the purposes of this discussion.)

Extra movement is the totally unnecessary junk that lots of beginning shooters have-- dipping the gun way down Miami-Vice style between targets in an array, for example. Big time wasters, easy to see and fairly easy to eliminate. These kinds of things can save seconds per stage.

Inefficient movement is that last 50% that separates the B's and A's from the M's and GM's-- getting in and out of position exactly right, moving the gun only as much as necessary, and instantly indexing. It's only a few tenths here and there but takes much longer to acquire and requires more work to get right.

So, from the point of view of 'Value to shooter', seconds are definately worth working on early, but until you're hitting your A's, tenths are less important than accuracy.