DRY FIRING AND "SEEING THE SPOT"

[Sac Law Man]

I HAVE RECENTLY BEEN DRY FIRING AT REDUCED SIZED IDPA TARGETS. I AM WORKING ON TRANSITIONS AND SEEING THE EXACT SPOT I WISH TO ALIGN MY SIGHTS WITH, THEN SEEING MY FRONT SIGHT AND LASTLY SQUEEZING THE SHOT OFF AND FOLLOWING THROUGH. I KNOW THE TECHNIQUE IS SOUND, BUT IS THIS WORTHWHILE TRAINING AND SHOULD I SEE A DIFFERENCE IN MY SHOOTING? WOULD ANY OF YOU DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT?

Edited June 9, 2008 by Sac Law Man

[shooterbenedetto]

After dry firing during the week, monitor you performance and see it in Live fire! compare the dry fire times with live fire. I think you are doing great.

[Phil Dunlop]

I rethought this approach after a recent match experience.

I had told myself to find the centre of the target and call the fastest acceptable shot.

I shot very precisely, but too slow.

The A zone is the target, find that, is what I'm now telling myself.

P.D.

[webbo]

Yes!! I do think this is worthwhile training and it should transfer to live fire. I've found that through calling my shots on reduced ipsc targets in dryfire I was suddenly able to call my shots on ipsc targets in live fire. I'm not saying I can call all of my shots perfectly but calling my shots made sense after what I would have thought was far too much dryfire.

[Jake Di Vita]

First thing I'd do different is lay off the caps lock.

Yes that is worthwhile training, just make sure you don't fall into the trap of never exceeding your comfort zone.

[Flyin40]

Like Jake said don't be afraid to push yourself. Along with that you still have to make sure your being honest with yourself in dryfire. Read this topic a couple of times and make sure you understand it. If you don't understand something just ask, a ton of helpful people here

Dryfire Follow Through

I also wanted to add that I'm "seeing the spot" in dryfire. It takes up about all my dryfire routine and visualization. This yr I have shot less than 200rounds in practice and part of that was sighting in the gun twice. Literally I'm doing zero live fire and my match performance is far better than last yr. The only thing I do is dryfire and visualization.

Flyin

Edited June 17, 2008 by Flyin40

[Flexmoney]

I rethought this approach after a recent match experience.

I had told myself to find the centre of the target and call the fastest acceptable shot.

I shot very precisely, but too slow.

The A zone is the target, find that, is what I'm now telling myself.

P.D.

I'll bet you have a hitch in your technique. Precise, but slow shouldn't be the outcome.

It is vitally important to snap the eyes (they will be ahead of the gun) to the target spot. This locates and defines the target spot.

If your eyes stay on your front sight/red dot during the transition, then the target will not be properly located and define. It will be vague, thus slow.

It is also important to call the last shot well on the target you are leaving.

Call the previous shot. Snap the eyes ahead...locate the target spot.

[Jake Di Vita]

Chances are, if someone has 100% perfect technique, their score sucks. You can't possibly perform well and have flawless technique. The closer you get to your barriers is where technique starts to degrade. You should always be pushing yourself to where form degrades to around 90% efficiency in practice - the only way we improve is by exceeding our comfort zone.

[benos]

I like the way your post made me think.

Chances are, if someone has 100% perfect technique, their score sucks. You can't possibly perform well and have flawless technique.

That's a good attitude to keep you focused on continuous improvement.

And I would say it's true, up to a the LOHF (Limit of Human Function) point.

I have some LOHF performances stored in my brain. In each one, everything was perfect. Physical technique, visual recognition and physical responses, could not have been improved.

be

[Phil Dunlop]

Flex, and Jake, I've been looking into this for a few weeks, reviewing my technique and analsing that performance and I think you are both right.

Since that match, I went back to Brian's transition drill and noticed, particularly dryfire, that there was a definate delay in the eye snap.

Why that had crept into my performance, I don't know, I guess we might digress into the trust issue here, but I do know, I hadn't been shooting much and I might just have let my expectations slip too. Again. that is now work in progress.

Jake is absolutely right, about complacency, I have not challenged myself for sometime, and that was beginning to show in my performance.

I have posted some suprising results over the last couple of years, simply by shooting with an accuracy bias. There are matches where that just doesn't work, and in hindsight I think this was one to just let it all hang out.

So Sac law Man, please disregard my previous post.

P.D.