Practicing Going Faster

[EZ Bagger]

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;

While this sport has a massive mental component, it's not JUST mental. A new shooter can't just take his or her first ever shot at a match, go home and picture that draw for the next year and magically come back and shoot a one second draw on a 15 yard plate.

Even if your brain may not be able to differentiate between real and imagined, the brain...and the body...must first learn the process and movements otherwise the brain has no way to fill in the myriad missing pieces. While it is theoretically possible for the brain to magically imagine the correct process and physical mechanisms, that doesn't appear to have happened for anyone yet.

[CHA-LEE]

Become one with the Force and you won’t need any practice. Let the Force flow through you. Feel the Force all around you and call upon it to whip your buddy on the next stage

[BritinUSA]

While this sport has a massive mental component, it's not JUST mental. A new shooter can't just take his or her first ever shot at a match, go home and picture that draw for the next year and magically come back and shoot a one second draw on a 15 yard plate.

Where did I mention that this was for a new shooter ? I was responding to a question from Lugnut. If my opinion is just going to be trashed each time then I'm done with this forum.

[lugnut]

While this sport has a massive mental component, it's not JUST mental. A new shooter can't just take his or her first ever shot at a match, go home and picture that draw for the next year and magically come back and shoot a one second draw on a 15 yard plate.

Where did I mention that this was for a new shooter ? I was responding to a question from Lugnut. If my opinion is just going to be trashed each time then I'm done with this forum.

Come on, it's all good constructive dialog, thanks for the good ideas. It doesn't mean that good ideas won't be challenged from time to time.

I think that different folks simply do different things that work for them... I'm simply looking for the most effective way to achieve my goals- like SA is I assume... and the thing is... lots of much better shooters than I don't all do the same things at practice. What I always try to do is emulate the things that ALL good shooters do.

[Walküre]

To me, it comes down to this:

You have to train going fast, but you cannot train too fast.

Some speed will come on its own, as you get more familiar with your equipment, the sport, etc. But it will only go so far. As others have said, you will then end up stuck at a certain level, even though you possess the potential to go further. So you have to start training yourself for speed, pushing yourself faster.

But you can't push yourself too fast. The main one being that if you are running drills faster than you can reliably maintain a good clean sight picture (remember Brian's focus on vision ), you are going to end up training yourself to perform poorly. Why? Because that becomes what is "the norm" for your subconscious - you are accepting bad overall performance, and with continuing this practice, you will end up with "bad" becoming "normal".

The key is to push yourself a little each time, so that you are forced to improve to keep up, while not completely outpacing your ability to learn and adapt.

Think of it this way - let's say you are doing some basic weight lifting (bicep curls or whatever). For your set regimen, you're comfortable with some certain weight - let's say only 10#. Now you want to improve your performance. Do you just start trying to lift 40# instead? No, that would not result in a good improvement in your performance, since you would be far overtaxing yourself. You would instead start slowing increasing the weight - just enough so that you are continually stressing yourself to improve, but no more. Maybe 15# or 20# for a while, then some more, eventually working up to the 40# goal.

[eerw]

Become one with the Force and you won’t need any practice. Let the Force flow through you. Feel the Force all around you and call upon it to whip your buddy on the next stage

I do a lot of shooting with the force...you draw...mash the trigger as fast as you can..

shoot fast..the hits will come

[EZ Bagger]

While this sport has a massive mental component, it's not JUST mental. A new shooter can't just take his or her first ever shot at a match, go home and picture that draw for the next year and magically come back and shoot a one second draw on a 15 yard plate.

Where did I mention that this was for a new shooter ? I was responding to a question from Lugnut. If my opinion is just going to be trashed each time then I'm done with this forum.

Paul

Yes, I was challenging your assumptions, but that does not mean that I meant to trash you or that I want you to stop playing. Quite the opposite. I firmly believe that we all get better if we are willing to challenge each other to more clearly state what we are saying/conveying.

Hope you can take my comments in that spirit.

Todd

[G-ManBart]

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.

I'll just clarify that I only was talking about how video applied in that situation. It's a wonderful tool for working on a lot of things, but not everything.

You're right, the question (or one of them), is how do you explain all of this to someone? I'm not sure and I'm certainly not done chewing on it!

Funny thing that just occured to me. In many, many, many cases, the shooter trying to get better (most of us right?) doesn't need to shoot faster (splits and maybe transitions) they need to do them slower, more accurately and do everything else faster if they want to improve.

On more than one occasion I've watched a D, C or B shooter that I know run a stage and called a probable mike on a target without being able to see the target...just watching the shooter and the gun. In most cases they were blazing fast splits on a tough or long target and I thought "that's way faster than I could do it". Sure enough, they've had a mike right where I expected it to be.

[Flexmoney]

While this sport has a massive mental component, it's not JUST mental. A new shooter can't just take his or her first ever shot at a match, go home and picture that draw for the next year and magically come back and shoot a one second draw on a 15 yard plate.

Where did I mention that this was for a new shooter ? I was responding to a question from Lugnut. If my opinion is just going to be trashed each time then I'm done with this forum.

Come on, it's all good constructive dialog,

No...it's not.

It's been pretty shitty, from what I've read.

People are here...volunteering their experience...sharing things that have worked for them...getting nothing in return but arguementative banter.

I know what constructive dialog is. This is more like deconstructive circle logic. It's quickly leading to a monologue.

[G-ManBart]

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.

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.

Man, I've said almost the same thing many times. I know some folks that like to set up stages and run them a bunch of times and they're only looking at total time and points. If they are faster on one run they don't know exactly why they were because they're not breaking it down into small parts with the timer.

A stage is just a bunch of individual actions strung together like a movie is just a bunch of still images connected to one another. In the same vein, a single shot is really a bunch of individual actions strung together. Break down those actions into individual pieces and work on them...that's where the gains will come.

If somebody works on a skill...say just their first shot from the holster and get it to a set level...say 1s flat for an A, dead cold, they can take that and build until it's two shots in 1.2s, two A's, dead cold....now work on transitioning to a second target, etc, etc. If the most basic of skills are solid they'll transfer over into everything else you do. Heck, work on box entries....that's going to help even when there isn't a box but you need to set up in a very particular spot. It's all connected, but until you (not you in particular) break it down into small bite-sized parts improvement will be hard to come by. R,

[lugnut]

No...it's not.

It's been pretty shitty, from what I've read.

People are here...volunteering their experience...sharing things that have worked for them...getting nothing in return but arguementative banter.

I know what constructive dialog is. This is more like deconstructive circle logic. It's quickly leading to a monologue.

Flex- Being one that has been attracted to this thread, and possibly one who has been skeptical, I would disagree. The thing some of the better shooters may be missing is that some of us are having a hard time understanding and relating to some of this. I learn by asking more and questioning more sometimes. I've tried things in my practices that just weren't intuitive but yielded surprising results. I'll certainly incorporate some of these ideas in my training for sure but I don't want to misinterpret anything.... although I still may not fully understand... or even agree yet.

This sport seems simple on one level but seems like an endless puzzle once you dig into to it.

[eerw]

I think I know how hard it is to understand what is or takes to go faster.

cuz its hard to describe it, it's hard to translate it. as I have talked with SA, Cha-Lee and EZ Bagger about this stuff. I like to explore more.

this is what I know..for me.

when I practice..and sometimes I use local matches to experiment. I usually try to work in two states..one I push..I experiment with what I see when I push, what the sensations are, what the inputs are, when the gun is moving as fast as I can physically see. I want to say its like I am trying to overload my mind with too many inputs..I am pushing myself to process as much as I can till it freakin blows up.

then I also practice perfection. I want to know what it is to shoot perfectly. burn into my mind what that process is, what those sensations are, what is to do that.

I do most of this with limited use of a timer..most of time for a start only. I use/record times for some benchmarks, but other than that i minimize it so I don't build in expectations.

then I find when I am at a match..I replay in my head the perfect runs. the 'movie' I play is perfection. what I will see. the drills, and speed stuff I use to instill confidence and the knowledge that I pull the trigger fast..so I don't have to go fast. because my body knows how to do that. my mind just plays perfection.

I also use this as my pre-shot routine. it helps keep me from getting nervous and from rushing myself.

My latest practices have been working with smaller targets and farther distances and pushing.

[VegasOPM]

First off, I agree that the most time is to be found in the non-shooting actions. Matches aren't often won on splits. There is a funny little conundrum built into the phrase "go as fast as you can see what you need to see". I realized when shooting in Limited that I wasn't trusting my sight picture. I would double and triple check it before taking the shot. On the rare occasions that I would force myself to trust the inital sight picture, my hits would be about the same. I was seeing what I needed to see, but I didn't have the confidence, so it did me no good. That is where pushing myself helped. I would force myself to trust my first sight picture while practicing.

I recently switched to Open, and the trust issue is pretty much gone. If the dot is where I want the bullet to go, I press the trigger- nuff said. Now going faster is all about working on my movement, driving the gun and training my index so the dot goes right where I want it to.

[Flexmoney]

The thing some of the better shooters may be missing is that some of us are having a hard time understanding and relating to some of this.

Nobody is missing that. Nobody.

[EZ Bagger]

then I find when I am at a match..I replay in my head the perfect runs. the 'movie' I play is perfection. what I will see. the drills, and speed stuff I use to instill confidence and the knowledge that I pull the trigger fast..so I don't have to go fast. because my body knows how to do that. my mind just plays perfection.

I also use this as my pre-shot routine. it helps keep me from getting nervous and from rushing myself.

This seems like an extremely powerful visualization tool. Not only are you visualizing the stage, but you're applying a subconscious ovelay of actual memories/experience to the whole thing.

WOW

[lugnut]

The thing some of the better shooters may be missing is that some of us are having a hard time understanding and relating to some of this.

Nobody is missing that. Nobody.

Maybe that is why there is so much unconstructive dialog. I have heard some good things I'll try... wrt other things... I'll just have to try to experience it.

[BSeevers]

I have stayed away from this thread because I believe that all the answers are posted.

That said the comments that "some of us don't understand" makes me wanna help.

Tough Love alert: Mako Mozo

Some of you are not fast at all.

Some of you have no idea how to shoot fast.

Some of you fast shooters have no idea how you got there.

Some of you know exactly what you need to do to improve and shoot fast and in general you have done it.

Some of you want to get better.

Some of you will never will get better.

Here is how I approach it.

I could be right or wrong but could post for hours on how to shoot faster. I would rather talk about it and go to the range.

You must learn fundamentals of anything to later become a Master of it.

Golf, Basketball, Horseshoes, Shooting all have some basic core stances, grips, techniques and the like.

Never be dogmatic because an open mind is a growing one but if Phil Mickelson shows you a grip its probably a lot like Tiger Woods.

I venture to say that NOBODY(sure some do, You could waste time proving that to me I am sure) starts driving it to 290 yards on their first golf swing?

That's related to the "let speed come" quotes. Most people that is directed to frankly suck and can't accept the fact that they do. The real strong ones know their abilties and decide to get better. Then THEY DO THE WORK TO GET BETTER.

Everybody doesn't want to do that one. I think I'll say MOST don't want to do their work or scales. Doing your scales on the guitar is boring and don't get you chicks but is a very important step towards mastery of the guitar.

Now as you progress you need "leaps of faith" That's where you close your eyes and .13 splits into the berm to feel a fast shoot or you hang it out at a club match to see if you can do it in 15 sec like the top dog. Usually the top dog does it in 15 and drops less than 7 points but that's a different lesson. Uh no wrong its kinda the same one. Soon, hopefully, you will learn if you want to win that you must hit the target and call your shot. What is calling your shot? Seeing what you need to see to know where your shot went. Heres the rub. You can ignore the shot calling and even make M( I have seen a lot of them) Cause you worked real hard at dryfire, hang it out there, have lot of athletic ability but guess what. You are not winning. Why? Cause you either thought you "knew it all" or never listened to the people who tried to help you.

Read Glenn's article in Front Sight this month. His drill shooting precise groups, half fast and balls out fast says it all. You are trying to get your cold runs like your grooved in ones. Yes proper practice is how you get there. That's why Masters raise their hackles when someone talks "I need to hang it out there" They have been there and know you probably are wasting time/effort IF you really want to be a great shooter. Probably sounds like a contradiction but when you "get there" you will understand it isn't at all. The answers are on here and available.

Visualization is a tool that usually comes later. It doesnt have too at all, but if you can't hit a USPSA popper at 26 yards with one shot, fast, cause you never work on trigger prep, followthrough, group shooting, stance, grip, sight picture, transistions, dryfiring, match fatigue issues, match nerves, you dwell on the negative, it doesn't matter how you run the stage through in your mind. It all counts. Sounds like a lot? It is, but it isn't.

That's what the hackle raisers mean. The match is like a concert or recital. Its where you show your fruits of labor and perform. You already practiced.

You aren't going to show up, man up and tough it to a win with your determination and ego. The one who usually wins is out practicing while you comment on the forum, buy that new fancy gun part, buy a new gun, try to find the "secrets" or any of other distractions. Its about the shooting.

Mako Mozo

PS I really don't get into that Mako Mozo stuff but know that saying, says it all for me.

[CHA-LEE]

BSeevers> Nice post!!!!

[lugnut]

BSeevers> Nice post!!!!

+1 Thanks again for everyone's help.

[benos]

As a beginner, and after 20 years, I always shot each target as soon as I knew I would hit it.

Of course in practice now and then I'd push over that a bit to define some visual boundries. But overall I like to keep things as simple as possible.

be

[Supermoto]

As a beginner, and after 20 years, I always shot each target as soon as I knew I would hit it.

I think this is the key, as soon as you know. I struggle with my first shot on steel, I know the dot is on the steel but I feel the need to confirm that its on.

I have a quick conversation in my head

The dots on the steel

yep it's on

then pull the trigger

Ok

I'm working on just knowing the dot is on the steel and pulling the trigger.... knowing is difficult

Edited July 10, 2009 by Supermoto

[benos]

As a beginner, and after 20 years, I always shot each target as soon as I knew I would hit it.

I think this is the key, as soon as you know. I struggle with my first shot on steel, I know the dot is on the steel but I feel the need to confirm that its on.

I have a quick conversation in my head

The dots on the steel

yep it's on

then pull the trigger

Ok

I'm working on just knowing the dot is on the steel and pulling the trigger.... knowing is difficult

Yea, you gotta get rid of the "conversation." Even the quickest conversation is slower than molasses in winter, when it comes to shooting. Or doing anything really.

The conversation will go away on its own when you get more skilled in seeing and doing. In the sense that doing (pulling the trigger) is an automatic response from seeing (the dot on the plate).

Think of firing the shot like the draw. When you hear the buzzer you draw. You don't "think draw," then draw. You just draw. Same with the dot. When you see it on the target bang.

be

[G-ManBart]

The conversation will go away on its own when you get more skilled in seeing and doing. In the sense that doing (pulling the trigger) is an automatic response from seeing (the dot on the plate).

Think of firing the shot like the draw. When you hear the buzzer you draw. You don't "think draw," then draw. You just draw. Same with the dot. When you see it on the target bang.

be

I had a revelation related to this a couple of years back. I was shooting a stage where you moved through a tunnel and the first thing you could see was a decent sized round plate straight ahead. I'd planned on hitting that as I set up at the end of the tunnel (final position). When I shot the stage I was coming to the end of the tunnel, bringing the gun up a step or so out from the end and the front sight was centered exactly on the plate. I hammered it while still moving. Afterwards I realized I shot without thinking....the front sight was there and the shot broke. Why wait to shoot it? It sort of startled me to think I was taking shots without thinking about it, but after a while it started to make sense.

At that point I realized that when things are really clicking we (as shooters) are acting based upon visual inputs, not thoughts. We've trained ourselves to break the shot when the conditions look right and nothing else. All of this talk about "going faster" is really just talk about developing the ability to more quickly determine that the conditions look right and teaching your brain to recognize it faster. R,

[benos]

Afterwards I realized I shot without thinking....the front sight was there and the shot broke.

That's the goal exactly.

At that point I realized that when things are really clicking we (as shooters) are acting based upon visual inputs, not thoughts. We've trained ourselves to break the shot when the conditions look right and nothing else. All of this talk about "going faster" is really just talk about developing the ability to more quickly determine that the conditions look right and teaching your brain to recognize it faster. R,

There ye go.

be

[bdpaz]

All of this talk about "going faster" is really just talk about developing the ability to more quickly determine that the conditions look right and teaching your brain to recognize it faster. R,

Speaking from the low experience end of the spectrum, I'd change that to "...more quickly make the conditions look right...". I am often too passive when trying to avoid thinking of "going fast", and I forget other things like snapping the eyes and driving the gun.

I need to be patient and assertive/aggressive at the same time.