Mr_White
02-26-2014, 05:40 PM
Training To Win, available on DVD and Vimeo, is USPSA National Production Champion Ben Stoeger's latest in a series of works on improving technical performance for competitive shooting, particularly USPSA. I opted to buy the download from Vimeo, which was very convenient.
It was a very enjoyable video. I think Ben did a good job speaking directly to his target audience. He didn't cover the very basics that a viewer of this particular video probably already knows. Instead it is oriented toward those who already have at least a basic level of skill and already compete, and want to improve their performance in USPSA competition. More fundamentally, that means to improve the technical skills that underlie a good USPSA performance.
After the introduction, the main body of the video starts off a lot like Ben's class starts - by shooting a stage and analyzing the choices that were made. It then covers some foundational aspects of safe and effective dry fire, and gets right into the very important and recurring dry fire-live fire loop, interspersed with related stages.
Training To Win takes an orderly approach in showing a stage that emphasizes a certain skill, shooting that stage a few different ways and comparing the results, then goes to a dry fire setting to do the foundational work of developing and refining that skill, and then finally takes it back to live fire to test and validate what's been built in dry fire. This is the dry fire-live fire loop Ben is well known for, and is a pattern repeated throughout Training To Win. This whole system is oriented toward what an average person, who cannot afford tons of ammo or range time, can do to bring their skills to a high technical level.
If you've taken Ben's class, many of the drills shown in Training To Win will be familiar, though the class has much more than what is shown in the video.
I liked that a range of skill levels were represented by the featured shooters. Ben was not the only shooter - Matt Hopkins (GM) and Chris Kozell (A at the time of filming) also demonstrate the drills and stages, and it broadens the perspective offered to the viewer.
Training To Win frequently references Ben's other works and shows where in those works the viewer can find additional information on the drill being shown. Training To Win is presented as part of a larger body of work, though it certainly stands on its own too.
The production quality was very good. It was edited and mixed in a stylish way that I didn't find annoying, and I often do find that kind of editing annoying in an instructional video. An element they managed to make work was cutting from one camera shot to another mid-action. For example, I have seen instructional videos with other top shooters, and there are parts where I am trying to discern finer points of their draw or some other technique, but as soon as their hands start to move the camera cuts to a close-up of their strained face and I can't see what I needed to. Training To Win employs similar editing at times, but keeps the cameras where they need to be to still allow me to see what I was looking for.
It may be an overly picky point, but I did appreciate how viewers' potential safety concerns were addressed right away at the beginning by noting that remote cameras were used for the many uprange views of the shooting.
I love how Ben embraces the negative aspects of his public image and has fun with it. The air humping in the outtakes was funny.
It was a very enjoyable video. I think Ben did a good job speaking directly to his target audience. He didn't cover the very basics that a viewer of this particular video probably already knows. Instead it is oriented toward those who already have at least a basic level of skill and already compete, and want to improve their performance in USPSA competition. More fundamentally, that means to improve the technical skills that underlie a good USPSA performance.
After the introduction, the main body of the video starts off a lot like Ben's class starts - by shooting a stage and analyzing the choices that were made. It then covers some foundational aspects of safe and effective dry fire, and gets right into the very important and recurring dry fire-live fire loop, interspersed with related stages.
Training To Win takes an orderly approach in showing a stage that emphasizes a certain skill, shooting that stage a few different ways and comparing the results, then goes to a dry fire setting to do the foundational work of developing and refining that skill, and then finally takes it back to live fire to test and validate what's been built in dry fire. This is the dry fire-live fire loop Ben is well known for, and is a pattern repeated throughout Training To Win. This whole system is oriented toward what an average person, who cannot afford tons of ammo or range time, can do to bring their skills to a high technical level.
If you've taken Ben's class, many of the drills shown in Training To Win will be familiar, though the class has much more than what is shown in the video.
I liked that a range of skill levels were represented by the featured shooters. Ben was not the only shooter - Matt Hopkins (GM) and Chris Kozell (A at the time of filming) also demonstrate the drills and stages, and it broadens the perspective offered to the viewer.
Training To Win frequently references Ben's other works and shows where in those works the viewer can find additional information on the drill being shown. Training To Win is presented as part of a larger body of work, though it certainly stands on its own too.
The production quality was very good. It was edited and mixed in a stylish way that I didn't find annoying, and I often do find that kind of editing annoying in an instructional video. An element they managed to make work was cutting from one camera shot to another mid-action. For example, I have seen instructional videos with other top shooters, and there are parts where I am trying to discern finer points of their draw or some other technique, but as soon as their hands start to move the camera cuts to a close-up of their strained face and I can't see what I needed to. Training To Win employs similar editing at times, but keeps the cameras where they need to be to still allow me to see what I was looking for.
It may be an overly picky point, but I did appreciate how viewers' potential safety concerns were addressed right away at the beginning by noting that remote cameras were used for the many uprange views of the shooting.
I love how Ben embraces the negative aspects of his public image and has fun with it. The air humping in the outtakes was funny.