Practicing Going Faster

[Morgan]

Friday - You've noticed that I have someone video me on almost every stage - like Charlie said, it's a fantastic tool.

To build in your basic handling skills - transitions, reloads, draws and the like - dry fire is king. On a par timer. Pay attention to what makes it easier to call your shots before the par time ends, and keep bringing those par times down. Sometimes it's gripping differently, what you're looking at/seeing and when - often it's just economy of motion, which the par timer helps you see and keep track of. Just make certain you're calling your shots in dry-fire, or you'll be sloppy in live fire.

Keep a journal of what you're trying, how it feels, how it works on the clock, what you see and feel when a practice (dry or live) or stage goes well.

[BritinUSA]

+1

Video is a great tool for providing input on mistakes. I would say that it's just as important to video a better shooter as well as yourself. Ideally have someone tape you shooting a stage and get the same person to tape the best shooter on the squad using the same positions/camera angles. Then you can make a one-for-one comparison between what you are doing compared to someone whose level you want to attain.

Not all aspects of it will be visible, but it will give you a clue where to direct your attention so you can work on those aspects.

Video cameras are getting pretty cheap these days, I've been thinking of getting one myself.

[Chris iliff]

When I shoot a stage I visualize the whole thing, every target, every position, every shot. At some point I leveled out or plataued. After some time spent in this I decided to get ants in my pants, hustle, move quicker, whatever you want to call it. If you play the movie in your head and it's a certain speed, you'll get that speed. I had to speed my movie up. I don't think of speed per se. I think of flowing water, now my water moves more efficiently through the stage, and I have better times while maintaining my hits.

If you don't fall off the edge in practice once in awhile, you are not going anywhere worthwhile.

I increased my movie speed by increasing my speed consciously during practice and some local matches. Like everything else (skill), it first it has to be calculated and done with a purpose. After practice it is done with less and less thought, it becomes subconciuous.

So, in my experience, #2 is still crap. You can't magically get more efficient with time. You have to break it down and give each component its due consideration, that means thinking of speed. Plenty of shooters out there shooting every week and still not progressing, well I bet they have one of those MANTRA'S stuck in their head and look forward to the day they magically get faster........I hope they are not holding their breath!

Now, I'll say that the whole "SPEED FOCUS" mentality has no place in your thoughts if you are looking to do your best at a match. The match is for flowing like water and calling the shots.

I think that the Mantras are great once you figure it out. That's why they make so much sense to the M's and GM's. That's why they can be so frustrating for everyone else,......... SLOW IS SMOOTH, SMOOTH IS FAST!!! Damn near genius..... my favorite one. I had to speed up in practice before I really got it!

[G-ManBart]

YES!!! This is what I'm looking for. Stuff like this. Your break-down of having a faster reload is exactly what I'm talking about. Those minute details of the physical attributes broken down into pieces to observe and reflect upon. This is working through the physical pieces that can be processed into the mental aspect and absorbed. Once absorbed, then the understanding sets in.

That works well for things like reloads, movement, draws etc, but not so much for things like splits and shot calling.

Video is definitely very helpful for stuff you can break down (like reloads or movement) since they're large, complex movements with lots of areas where you can shave a little here and there. R,

[rvb]

... just paying attention to one minute detail at a time. After a while my reloads started really improving as I realized things I could make more efficient. And strangely [or not] after a while of focusing on each individual detail, I began to develop the skill to "observe" or "be aware" or "see" so many of the details at once, and I began to get an understanding of what I had been reading in BE's book and here on the forum.

-rvb

YES!!! This is what I'm looking for. Stuff like this. Your break-down of having a faster reload is exactly what I'm talking about. Those minute details of the physical attributes broken down into pieces to observe and reflect upon. This is working through the physical pieces that can be processed into the mental aspect and absorbed. Once absorbed, then the understanding sets in.

Hmm... not quite sure the message you took from my post was the one I was trying to convey. My goal was to understand where I was not efficient. My plan was to focus on minute details. The added result was that I began to understand all the "mystic jedi faith crap."

So what started off as a method to improve something technical really became a method to improve my over-all awareness.

The technical aspect of breaking down actions, as in my reload example, is still valid. When I started on my improvement plan, I had to perform a reload while focusing on my weak hand, perform a reload while focusing on hitting the button, perform a reload while focusing while shifting my grip, etc etc. Only now I just perform a reload; I more able to be aware of all the different components simultaneously. I was hoping to convey that I learned more than just the technical details of making a reload efficient, but was able to understand the "seeing" stuff. This is what I was hoping to answer:

Shooting faster, becoming more efficient is about seeing. OK, think about this, think about that, think about everything. So, what can I do physically to become faster, more efficient? ....

What do you see, and how did your seeing these things get faster?

I feel the frustration. I was there. Once people experience this type of awareness, it becomes obvious, but hard to explain. Hard to say "do these drills and you'll be aware and see more." I was hoping my experience would provide an example of how to get there. But that may be my own personal path. It may not work for anyone else. [shrug]

[SA Friday]

That works well for things like reloads, movement, draws etc, but not so much for things like splits and shot calling.

But there's the crux of the matter G-man and why I have begun looking for this different way of explaining what is physically happening to make one's sight... better for shooting. So, what do you tell someone? I think a way to explain how to improve a shooters ability to see faster is to get them to speed things up outside their comfort zone, regularly, until their body compensates for the forced input. This is why I believe that you have to practice going fast, and an occasional local match doing this will assist many shooters.

Then the understanding sets in like RVB was talking about in his last post.

[CHA-LEE]

Go slow and get your hits and the speed will come on its own

Thats what I do, I always go slow

Edited July 9, 2009 by CHA-LEE

[SA Friday]

Go slow and get your hits and the speed will come on its own

Thats what I do, I always go slow

Hey, you're one of the horrible influences on me that got me thinking about this whole thing . What, three months from B to Master? Guess we'll see next posting.

[eerw]

Go slow and get your hits and the speed will come on its own

Thats what I do, I always go slow

Hey, you're one of the horrible influences on me that got me thinking about this whole thing . What, three months from B to Master? Guess we'll see next posting.

just got to be a big angry panda with a trigger finger..

[lugnut]

Here's an example of something a friend and I have done at practice recently.

At one practice we spent 3 hours on mostly disapperaring swingers. At first I could not get two good hits on the swinger. When my friend help me realize that I was shooting static targets much faster we analyzed the data. It turned out that I "DID" have enough time to get good hits but my mind was making me rush and panic- hence poor reckless shots. When I slowed down to move more efficiently and slowly it turned out that I was making the shots I needed. Once we did that we tried to engage the swinger with three shots instead of two at each appearance... at some time during every drill we progressed and pushed ourselves. Not to the point of being wreckless but pushed.

At another practice today- another friend and I worked on draws and transitions. We started by focusing on good A hits only... but then pushed each other till we weren't getting enough A's. Funny thing is when we backed down to what we needed to get As... it was almost always faster than the first times on the same drills! Same thing on draws... my friend was drawing for a particular drill at about 1.5s. He is a very strong shooter so I was surprised that he wasn't much faster. We did 10 draws looking for all As... then a whole bunch of draws while really pushing it. Well as expected he started dropping points but he was getting draws in the 1.1s range. Then we did 10 draws again- but going back to a goal of all As- wouldn't you know... his draws were averaging about 1.25s with good shots! A whole .25s/draw faster!!! He said it felt slow to boot! Getting faster comes from improving every single thing we do during a COF... everything. I just wish I could learn faster!

Sometimes you just need to push yourself at every practice! Or course at no point should you push yourself beyond safe limits.. ever.

[CHA-LEE]

You can practice your ass off in a session and end up ankle deep in brass and see improvement in whatever you are doing. If you don’t, then that is a real problem. Just like shooting the same stage over and over and over your time and hits will usually get better with every subsequent run. Matches only allot for a single run through the COF and no matter how much you mentally practice it or dry fire it the end result while shooting is usually different to some degree. Lately I have been doing live fire practice where I will mix up the COF and only shoot it once or twice and if I do it a second time I will change up my actions during it like adding reloads or trying a different shooting function. To me that’s where the rubber meets the road. How well can you execute your skill sets COLD. Who cares if you can do a sub 1 sec draw/first shot if you need 10 “warm up” tries to do it?

I think this is where a lot of shooters frustration comes from. They go to the range to practice and then shoot 987598797397494 rounds doing the same thing over and over and over to achieve this magical Time/Hits goal they have set in their mind. They get excited about achieving this magical time/hits goal and then in the next match when they have to do it cold it does not work out as expected and they get all bummed out. “What went wrong?”, “Yesterday I was shooting this in X seconds and today I did it in Y seconds, what gives??”.

You have to practice the unknown. The “Cold” situations. Mix it up while practicing, shoot a drill or COF once, then change it around. If you screwed up on your cold run, dig deep inside yourself and figure out what went wrong and why.

I like practicing with 3 – 4 people that way there is a built in down time between shooting runs. Kind of like being at a match. If you stand there and shoot a drill back to back to back to back you are just building up your mechanics for that given task. You can save a bunch of ammo and do the same thing in dry fire practice. Save the live fire practice for exploring the unknown, “Cold” and awkward shooting conditions or known issues. Also save a certain portion of your live fire practice to have fun. That is hugely important. If you make your live fire practice routine some ultra disciplined “march until your feet fall off” style session then you will not enjoy it and start closing down your receptiveness to learn. You end up just wanting to grind through the drills, instead of being creative and trying stuff for the sake of trying stuff.

These are things that I do for me as that is how I learn and get better. For others this process may be completely opposite of what works for them. Its up to you as an individual to figure out what you need to learn and get better. Don’t shoot a specific drill just because Joe Blow does it and he is good. Shoot whatever you need to get better, but always keep an eye out for diminishing returns on your activities. I always take 500 rounds with me to a live fire practice session and I never set a goal to shoot it all up. Some times I will shoot 100 rounds and other times I will shoot 400. I don’t base a productive practice day on round count. I base it on shooting until I cease to be creative or feel open to learning. Once I am out of that mode, I pack it up and head home. THEN the real homework begins to processes and analyzing what your experiences were for that given practice session. This reflection on your practice gives you new ideas and things to try the next time you go practice. At least it does for me.

[EZ Bagger]

... shoot 987598797397494 rounds doing the same thing over and over and over to achieve this magical Time/Hits goal they have set in their mind. They get excited about achieving this magical time/hits goal and then in the next match when they have to do it cold it does not work out as expected and they get all bummed out.

If the goal is to hit some magical hit factor then you're absolutely right. But, if you're shooting something and you know you're not doing it to the best of your ability, then changing to something else before getting it right might just be running away from a problem.

No, I'm not saying that's what you're doing...and I've never seen you run from a problem, so get over it

[lugnut]

Cha-Lee

I don't entirely disagree with you. Of course shooting "cold" is hugely important as that's what matches are about as you mention! However I don't believe that just shooting COFs alone is what helps builds solid foundations and in the long run- better match results. In an average COF there are dozens of things going on- draws, reloads, splits, transitions, awkward positions, movments, etc. Sometimes breaking down a certain task and practicing it is vital. Sometimes working on putting it all together is the practice. I hope you aren't disagreeing with this.

It's like body building or working out. Sometimes/days you focus of bicepts, sometimes on legs. But that doesn't mean you lose sight of the big picture and ultimately you need to put all the pieces together so you don't have pencil legs with a 60" chest LOL!

FYI- we do group practices as well where someone will set up a decent COF. We too like to run it "cold" and see what we can do... but we run it a couple other times to see where we "could" run it. To each his/her own I guess.

EDIT: On running the COF multiple times- sometimes running a COF in a different way than may appear to not be optimal may surprise us...

Edited July 10, 2009 by lugnut

[CHA-LEE]

EZ Bagger> I totally agree with your stance on that. If you KNOW you are not optimized on something and are trying things to get better then sure, repeat it until you find what the bottle neck is and explore solutions. But really, how many people REALLY do that? To REALLY practice with the goal to constructively critique and change their mechanics to get better. Very few. Most will shoot the same thing over and over and then once the repition of the actions start settling in and their time/hits improves they feel that they are "learning" something. They are not, they are just getting better at hammering the same round peg into the same square hole.

This is why so many of the top shooters keep repeating what most of us think as Jedi Force mantra's of "Experience it", "See it", "See only what you need to see", and so on.

This sport ALL about dealing with the unknown in a cold, unpracticed condition. But many shooters that are trying to get better practice the complete opposite conditions. The same drills, the same thing, the same whatever, over and over and over and over. That is the wrong approach. Or at least I think so.

Don't get me wrong. We do need to practice the basic mechanics of shooting, reloading, running, moving, etc a TON in order to get the mechanics optimized and burned in to become subconscious actions in the heat of the moment during a stage run. But just as importantly we need to know how we react in cold shooting conditions. When your only warm up is your mental preparation before the stage run.

[CHA-LEE]

Lugnut> I agree with your stand on breaking down the individual things and practicing those on their own. As I said in the last post, a TON of practice is needed to ensure solid basic mechanics. But usually most of that can be ironed out at home in dry fire practice.

I also agree on shooting the same COF in different ways to see which way is best. This is a learning process and worth while to do. But if you are running the same drill or COF over and over in the same way just to see if you can get better times or hits, its pretty much useless practice. Of course you will be able to get better hits or time when you do the same thing over and over.

[EZ Bagger]

If one never takes the time to get it right in practice, is one practicing or is one just playing?

[BritinUSA]

This sport ALL about dealing with the unknown in a cold, unpracticed condition.

But just as importantly we need to know how we react in cold shooting conditions. When your only warm up is your mental preparation before the stage run.

+1

You'll learn more from the first stage at a match, the first draw, the first reload than you will by repeating all the above a hundred times. At a match you could be waiting an hour or more between shoots, so the cold performance is the only one that counts for score.

[EZ Bagger]

You'll learn more from the first stage at a match, the first draw, the first reload than you will by repeating all the above a hundred times. At a match you could be waiting an hour or more between shoots, so the cold performance is the only one that counts for score.

Huh? You mean I never have to practice? Why dry fire? Why watch video?

[lugnut]

This sport ALL about dealing with the unknown in a cold, unpracticed condition.

But just as importantly we need to know how we react in cold shooting conditions. When your only warm up is your mental preparation before the stage run.

+1

You'll learn more from the first stage at a match, the first draw, the first reload than you will by repeating all the above a hundred times. At a match you could be waiting an hour or more between shoots, so the cold performance is the only one that counts for score.

Yeah- so how does one get better at shooting cold? Hmmm. Preparation??? Certainly not by going to the range, setting up a COF, shooting it once, change COF, wait an hour, shoot it, then repeat....

I'm being facetious, but I hope you get the point.

[BritinUSA]

By learn, I mean identifying weakness, once the weakness has been identified then it can be worked on to remove it with practice. But determining improvement at the end of the practice session may not always imply improvement for the cold condition.

[CHA-LEE]

lugnut> Why not do just that? Even better take a couple of shooting buddies with you and you each get to setup a stage. That way you don't have a preconceived idea of how the stage should be shot for its one and only time you will shoot it.

You can still optimize your practice time and shoot “Cold” stages. Setup a COF, Dry run it, program it, then shoot it just like you would for a match. Reflect on your experience and change around the COF. Then practice the mechanics of a given shooting situation for 20 - 30 min, mechanics you know you need to work on. Then come back to the COF and run through it. You can repeat this process the whole time you are at the range. You also don't need an elaborate stage setup to be a challenging COF. There are many ways to shoot a "Stage" with a single wall that has a port, some fault line, and a hand full of targets.

Yes you need to practice mechanics. But you also have to practice cold, unknown, situations much like you would experience in a match.

[lugnut]

But determining improvement at the end of the practice session may not always imply improvement for the cold condition.

How does one "practice" for the cold condition?? Seriously. I think this can only come from experience, mental preparation and good training.

[lugnut]

Cha-Lee,

While it sounds like we're not in agreement- I think we might be, I just focus more of my time working on certain skills in smaller groups- but get cold training at our club's group training and local matches. I think of it this way. If I can't move efficiently from box a to box b in practice- doing it cold in a COF/match isn't just going to happen. In practice my friends can work with me on making sure my gun is up upon entering a box and foot placement is good for example. In a match or cold practice- I can't think of this it has to just happen.... subconscious as we discuss so often.

[BritinUSA]

How does one "practice" for the cold condition?? Seriously. I think this can only come from experience, mental preparation and good training.

I think it's mental... Try this experiment;

At your next practice session, set up a simple target array. Without warm up (ie. COLD) , shoot the stage, record hits and time.

Next practice session; Set up the exact same target array. Before shooting, picture yourself shooting that stage perfectly, the draw (perhaps a reload), every shot hitting the 'A' zone, smooth transitions to each target etc.. Rehearse it in your head over and over for a few minutes. Then shoot the array, compare your times/hits with the first run.

I suspect the second run will be better... As I mentioned earlier, the brain can't differentiate from real/imagined images. By shooting the stage in your head (in theory) it should be the same as actually shooting it over and over.

[benos]

This sport ALL about dealing with the unknown in a cold, unpracticed condition.

But just as importantly we need to know how we react in cold shooting conditions. When your only warm up is your mental preparation before the stage run.

+1

You'll learn more from the first stage at a match, the first draw, the first reload than you will by repeating all the above a hundred times. At a match you could be waiting an hour or more between shoots, so the cold performance is the only one that counts for score.

I spent a year, with the goal of shooting a 2 second, 15 yard Bill Drill (clean) for the first 6 shots out of the gun for the practice session.

I learned A LOT doing that. Lots of warm up draws, and getting my grip pumped up. After many months, I finally did one, once.

To adjust the drill goal to your skill level, pick a distance that you could shoot maybe 2 or 3 clean Bill Drills, if you shot them all day. And make it your goal to shoot one for the first 6 shots out of the gun. I guarantee you if you take it seriously, it will be worthwhile.

be