ErikW Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I set up a small field course using a stage that killed me at my last match. I got all choppy, slow, and out of rhythm, as I am wont to do on these stages where I struggle to acquire 1-2 close targets through a port, then move on to the next port with 1-2 close targets. I'm like Elmer Fudd with an Open gun: "Shhh! Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting tawgets! heheheheh" 20 rounds, and most of my runs were 18 As, 2 Cs. I shot the Cs on the same place on the same targets in each run. They were full targets, one the first of a pair, the other a second of a pair. On the second "C" target, I was coming off a partial where I always shot a tight pair of As. Just a few feet to the left and I'd yank it into the C zone prematurely. On the target where I was shooting the C coming in to it, following it with an A, the target became visible from left to right. I was yanking on the C instead of waiting for the A zone. Reconfiguring the stage, putting a pair of targets just outside hosing range, I had no trouble transitioning to the A zone. It's only on the close ones. What can I do to rid myself of this horrible affliction? Put some black or white tape in the center of the A zone and practice transitioning to it? I'm sure the answer is some form of "visual patience" but when I'm patient I end up shooting like Elmer Fudd. P.S. As usual, I was deadly on the partials. I shoot crazy Alphas on them. Something about the contrasting color draws my muzzle to the A zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Where the eyes go, the gun must follow. I'd be willing to wager you aren't forcing yourself to ever focus on the close targets. Look for the A and shoot the A. You know you won't miss, so you are having trouble making yourself look at those targets, just point an shoot those .10's At least that is my problem. But try that after the Oregon Open, I am shooting L10 and have a harder time keeping up with you open dudes with the 10 round mags This is my last L10 match for awhile, Back to Open and Limited. Woohoo!!! Big stick here I come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted July 11, 2003 Author Share Posted July 11, 2003 I can't see fast enough to look for the A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Either can I, but the key is to look for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Maybe burn the a-zone into the eyes during the walk thru? It's possible (likely?) that you are pulling when you see brown and not even processing the scoring face of the target... In dry fire, try postcards or business cards in the center of the A and drill wide fast transitions. Good luck. SA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Ninety-eight per cent of the available points is a horrible affliction. I'll take them, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 First I would say that shooting 18 A's out of 20 is fine. If you shot 20 out of 20 I believe a normal assessment would be that you now need to speed up. Second - you've probably cured your problem by posting on it. Clearly you can do the task that you need to do. You now acknowledge that you may be getting a bit of buck fever on a couple of transitions, and next time you'll make a point of getting the points. Last - I've experienced this problem several times at several different stages. I remember one match where all of my pairs were pretty tight, but not all of them were centered on the target. I was in the zone as it related to punching the target - problem was that I wasn't focusing on the correct target (I wasn't specific enough). I've always struggled with the A zone being off center of the mass, its something I've continually had to work on. I do believe though that you have the cure already. It simply sounds like you are jumping the gun a bit (and only on two targets I might add) If I could blow through a stage with a competitive time, and drop only two points, I'd be jumping for joy. If I lost - so be it, the performance would be at a level that I could accept. Sounds awesome to me - but I can relate to your feeling of wanting to perfect it. JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trey Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Being a newer shooter, I don't often post unless I feel I have something to contribute. I did find a similiar problem in my shooting. I did notice C hits on close targets during matches. So went and practiced/analyzed my shooting. I found that on hoser targets, I find myself yanking into C's when I'm not paying attention to my index. Now, I just make sure I'm lined up and let it rip. Hope that helps. BTW, Good job at the Oregon Open! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted July 14, 2003 Author Share Posted July 14, 2003 OK, so at the Oregon Open they had this stage, "LTD" with some longer paper and steel, and two hoser arrays behind low walls. Just a row of four targets almost close enough to blow the tape off. I aced it; didn't drop any points on those 8 targets. Oh yeah, and splits of about .12. Last stage of the match, across from the start table are four targets laying sideways, upper A/Bs on the inside. I spazzed out, took extra shots, still had Cs and a Miss, putting the transitional shot in between two targets. That last stage I was tense and ... what's the word... unfocused? I had just the general idea of "I'm going to hose the living shit out of these four targets" with no real plan of how it would be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 I can't see fast enough to look for the A. Now that's the biggest line of horseshit I've ever read. You just haven't trained yourself to do it, yet. WHENEVER you shoot shots in the c-zone on your way to the a-zone, ("shoot your way in"), it is because you did not look exactly where you wanted the sights/gun to go BEFORE THE GUN/SIGHTS GOT THERE. The good news is that it doesn't take any longer to do it properly than it does to lazily watch your gun floating across brown while furiously cranking shots into the c-zone. This reminds of a practice drill Matt McLaren told me he did years ago. He set up an El Presidente and did a bunch of runs on it to establish a baseline time/score. He then put no shoots on all the targets so that only the A-boxes were visible. I distincly remember his words - "I then shot faster." I had no doubt as to why. be (Erik - I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted July 16, 2003 Author Share Posted July 16, 2003 OK, so I can't see the A zone fast enough, when I'm impatient and rushing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 Brian said what I didn't have the guts to say... How bout this... You don't choose to see the a-zone first. SA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Now that's the biggest line of horseshit I've ever read. I erased my post...it was along those same lines. I am convinced that seeing the A-zone is what seperates the greats from the second tier. (Especially after some of the performances that I have put forth. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 Here is Brian talking about this very thing...on Burkett's DVD. (Click here for video clip.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 30, 2003 Share Posted July 30, 2003 Cool Flex. What was "driving" that video clip? It launched kinda weird on my Mac. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted July 30, 2003 Share Posted July 30, 2003 Matt has linked that stuff to QuickTime 6 or something. I had to download the newest version to be able to play his video clips. They USED to work on whatever version of QT I had on my system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted September 8, 2003 Author Share Posted September 8, 2003 On those arrays at today's match, I really looked for the A zones. I believe I dropped a single C somewhere. It felt a little slow and Elmer Fuddish, but I guess anything below absolute-maximum-hose-speed is going to seem slow. Sure was good to the hit factors though. I've noticed a lot of people have the same trouble... them come in and drop 4 Cs or even a D or two on four targets that are right in front of their face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Keep working with it. A good exercise to train yourself to see quicker is the first half of an El Pres. Shoot your first 6 or 12 runs "normally"; that is – just crank away as quickly as possible. Note your times, scores, and hit factors. Then, re-orient yourself to shoot two A’s on each target as quickly as possible. At the buzzer, quickly find the A box of the first target. See it. Then become peripherally aware of your sights heading there, without losing track of where the A box is. See your sights "bounce" in the A box, and, simultaneously on the return of the sights for the second shot, quickly grab the A box of the next target with your eyes. Without losing track of the A box, become aware of your sights, peripherally, as they are heading there. (They should be coming in on a little bit of an arc.) See them land and bounce in the A box, then repeat. If you train to keep your eyes moving long enough, you’ll find that you will shoot faster and more accurately - while seeing everything. This is because quick, precise, deliberate movement is more effective than movement that is (usually unconsciously) embedded with doubt. But this is very important - You must train this in practice until you have no doubt that it is "the way," before you can implement it in the more stressful environment of competition. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 As I was watching an absolutely amazing Arizona sunset last evening, I became aware of a "visual activity" that relates to "keeping your eyes moving." I was standing on a bridge with an obstructed view of the entire sky. There were just so many different color cloud formations and configurations to look at, I was LOL as I noticed that I just couldn't look in all the different directions quick enough to keep track of all the changes. That's when I realized the analogy to shooting: If your eyes just remain focused on one thing, or worse - just blankly staring, not seeing anything in particular, it's very difficult to notice any change in what you're looking at. But if you keep shifting your focus from one thing to another, and back again, you very easily notice all the subtle changes in what's going on. And since when you're shooting a pistol, everything in front of your eyes is constantly in motion, this analogy made total sense. Maybe a way to think of "using" your vision is to notice EVERYTHING that is happening, without necessarily seeing any one thing at any one time, in particular. Yea, I think I like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 That is what snipers recommend doing (ala Hathcock.) It is has helped my shooting emensely, trying to see absolutely everything I can. I hope I get the chance to meet you next week. Thanks to your wisdom and the generosity of this forum my shooting has reached levels I had only once dreamed of. I am jacked-up to see how the leasons I've learned over the last 11 months stack up against the best. Only 5 days to go ~ Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckS Posted September 11, 2003 Share Posted September 11, 2003 Hi all, I tried the see the A box thing last night. Pretty cool. We had a hammer-time like stage with 4 targets left and 4 right. Reload between. I reallty don't remember much about the draw, but I do remember the gun coming up into view real pretty like. T1 2A. I snaped the eyes to T2 and when the gun got there, shot T2 2A. It was working so well that I decided it was time to go back to "the old way" (why do we do things like this?) and followed the gun over to T3: 1A 1C. Realized what I had done and forced the eyes over to T4 first. Again, 2A. It looks like it works pretty nice. Just got to get it burned in... Thanks all! Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocket Posted September 12, 2003 Share Posted September 12, 2003 Brian , since you brought up the sky and clouds analogy , I thought I'd continue on that . Flying an airplane in the clouds requires you to control the airplane with reference only to basic flight instruments of which there are 6: Attitude Indicator(Artificial Horizon) , airspeed , altimiter (altitude indicator) , directional gyro (compass), vertical speed indicator and turn coordinator. As you fly along in the clouds with no outside visual reference, each of these instruments are giving you input into what the plane is doing. The trick to doing this is the visual scan of each of these seperate flight instruments. The more rapidly you can shift your focus from one indicator to another while simutaneously interpritng the information , the more precisely you can control the plane. In other words , to get the big picture of what is happening you have to process multiple instrument snapshots as quickly as possible. If your scan slows down the plane becomes more difficult to control. If you focus in on just one instrument and stop scanning you may loose entire control and graveyard spiral. Anyay , to do it well requires a fair amount of training as does shooting. It's analogous to your saying "keep your eyes moving", and I would add seeing. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 12, 2003 Share Posted September 12, 2003 rocket, It was cool... As I was reading your post, I felt I was totally relating to your analogy. Perfect. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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