Shorting the practice/match performance gap.

[Luke]

I've been struggling with this my whole time shooting competitively. At home im awesome (in my own mind) At a match I suck.

The better I get at home, the better I do at matches, but the gap is still there! On bens last practical pistol podcast he talked about this and had some awesome points. One thing he mentioned was when your practicing, there's no pressure. No ones watching, if you sling a D or a M it's not as big of a deal because you can run the drill again, unlike a match, what ever you run you run..

I've tried to maintain the same mental focus, but no matter how hard I try I can't convince my brain that when I practice it's the same as a match.

Possible solution!? Punish yourself! Could you come up with some way to make it actually bad to screw up in practice? IE: you throw a mike on a drill, practice is over? Run laps? Eat broccoli? At a match I really don't want to screw up, and when I do I hate that I did that.. So could making practice the same way help?


Possible pros:

More match like pressure to perform.
Do better at matches because you train under the same desire to do good.

Possible cons:
Less time spent practicing?
Now your even more mad because you have two things you hate to suck at?
PF secretly things your an idiot and you should just go train..


I don't really know of a way to simulate the same desire to do good with the same amount of pressure. I'm not really sure this would help either, but it's a thought I had while listening and I wanted to get yalls opinion before I start spanking myself during practice sessions lol.

[BN]

I love broccoli. :)

Shoot practice at 110% and shoot matches at 90% of your ability. Go into a match with no expectations. Let your subconscious shoot the match. Zen. :)

I like to shoot a clean match with no mistakes and let everybody else screw up. A win is a win. ;)

[taadski]

What Bill said...

I'd spend some time really embracing the different "modes" of shooting.

My take, looking at some of the numbers you put up in practice, is that some of those are pushing it a bit. Meaning shooting faster than you can guarantee your results (I call that "the gray zone"). I think that's great. Practicing there is important to building speed and getting faster. But developing a consistent (see every sight picture/call every shot) match mode is equally important to having consistent performance on game day.

You have to learn to TRUST that the speed will be there even though the shooting might FEEL slow. Part of match work up for me, in particular if I've been pushing speed hard in practice, is spending some time really overemphasizing vision.

I suspect some of the discrepancy you're seeing is because perhaps you're comparing your speed mode practice with your match mode. Those two SHOULDN'T be the same.

[Appalachained]

I shoot better at matches than I do alone. Go figure.

[Luke]

I shoot better at matches than I do alone. Go figure.


I hate you

[GJM]

Here is something Robbie Leatham told me. In practice, before you shoot each drill, declare whether you are shooting match pace, or in "the gray," and then have the discipline to shoot that way.

I have spent the last two years mostly not increasing my peak speed, but rather being able to consistently shoot a high percentage of my peak speed, on demand. That has helped my match consistency a lot. So much so, that I am now starting to focus again on increasingly peak speed.

[ST911]

I found that my starting, cold practice performance more accurately reflects my match results. I started using those metrics and setting objectives based on them, striving especially for consistency. This is true even if I've warmed up before a match, or in later stages.

[Smitty79]

I'm a fat old guy who will probably never win Production, even at a local match. I regularly win Senior, from among the 3 of us who show up. In matches, I'm really competing against myself. I care how I place against the local hot dogs. Since stages are different every month, it's the best metric I have.

When I shoot "match mode" in practice, I'm still competing against myself. For me, the fact that I document everything I do in practice, and stress over screw ups, keeps the stress in the 2 venues about the same.

[Luke]

i receiced a "like" for a post I made on this thread.

So, here we are almost 5 months later. My practice still usually goes a little better by myself, but my match performance has gone waaaaaaay up from when I posted this.

My mental game has increased and I have been able to trust that the skill I have will be there. I'm in a good place now.




So, for those struggling with this, keep practicing like a hero. Trust in the skills you develop in live and dry fire. Also, go listen to Steve Andersons podcast.

[John_bud]

First post!

As a recovering newbie, one thing learned from a class was the dry fire time should be the same as live fire. I "fail" because I don't hold sight picture long enough. (Fail =miss) guess what? I dry fire and pull off the target too soon too....duh! In the class (Ben Stoeger) the whole class dry fired a drill faster than Ben. But he live fired it faster than us....AT THE SAME EXACT SPEED he dry fired it. Maybe that's why he hits so many Alphas?

[Luke]

I think there are a few different methods of dry fire practice and you can achieve different things from them. I think there is value in dry firing very fast, almost out of control. Just like there is value at dry firing at the same pace you would shoot things.

[John_bud]

I think there are a few different methods of dry fire practice and you can achieve different things from them. I think there is value in dry firing very fast, almost out of control. Just like there is value at dry firing at the same pace you would shoot things.

I agree. Pure aggressive speed mode, throwing caution to the wind teaches the body to move fast. But, precise accurate but still quick also needs to be done.

In January, 2016 I started real DF with Anderson's book, R&R, my draw time was 1.5+ DF. At steel matches first shots were 2.4-2.5sec. Now in speed mode I can get the gun out and POINTED (not aimed) with a par of 0.7 and almost 0.6. Visual processing still lags as the 56 year old peepers don't change focus fast enough. At class, I hit 1.87 Bill drill with a 0.92 first shot all A at 7yds. Not great, but not bad for an old geezer C class scrub.

My big "failure" was not practicing accuracy mode. Now I'm breaking bad habits of pulling off targets while firing, not changing eye to the next target correctly, etc. Speed's great, but missing fast hasn't won any matches. That's why the focus is now more accuracy.

[Luke]

I think it's harder to get faster than it is to get more accurate, so atleast you got the speed thing!

[John_bud]

I think it's harder to get faster than it is to get more accurate, so atleast you got the speed thing!

At least for me, it's hard to maintain accuracy at even match speed. Especially with my "style" of shooting which was discribed as being "like a rabid squirrel on crack".

Actually, my biggest issue is holding concentration and being patient enough to finish the shot. I'm too eager to snap to the next target or slap the trigger that my buddy "Mike" shows up.

[Luke]

Got any video?

[John_bud]

http://s28.photobucket.com/user/john_bud/media/1%20match%20videos/videocompress-067-20161030_121657_zpsahgbx5he.mp4.html

I did ...ok on that one, except for moving at glacial speed. . Oh, and forgetting one target. oops.

[John_bud]

http://s28.photobucket.com/user/john_bud/media/1%20match%20videos/videocompress-067-20161030_141132_zpslw4mge5s.mp4.html

First half of a classifier.


http://s28.photobucket.com/user/john_bud/media/1%20match%20videos/videocompress-067-20161030_141158_zpsnrwe21n4.mp4.html

2nd half.

Times were ok. Hits pretty good, but I lost focus and pulled the friggn last shot into mike-land.

[JCS]

Luke I know you listened to Steve Andersons last two podcasts but for those of you that didn't he talks about this topic.

Luke where do you think the gap is occurring? Is it accuracy or speed? Is the gap in time or shot placement?

[Luke]

Not sure what's going on with the link but it's trying to force me to download something.

[Luke]

Luke I know you listened to Steve Andersons last two podcasts but for those of you that didn't he talks about this topic.

Luke where do you think the gap is occurring? Is it accuracy or speed? Is the gap in time or shot placement?


I don't have much of a gap anymore. If I can dry fire it and not cheat, IE I saw my sights and mashed the trigger while the sights remained aligned, I can do it in live fire with almost the same time.


Edit:I made this thread in April as a basically new shooter with tons of issues, still have issues but I'm worlds apart from bscknin april lol

[John_bud]

Not sure what's going on with the link but it's trying to force me to download something.

It should just take you to photobucket.

[JCS]

Link worked for me but I'm on my phone. Good videos.

[Luke]

You got a YouTube? Still no worky for me :(

[John_bud]

You got a YouTube? Still no worky for me :(


I don't... don't even know how!

[Luke]

What's your Photobucket name? It's killing me not seeing them lol

[JCS]

What's your Photobucket name? It's killing me not seeing them lol

It looks like john_bud

[Luke]

You are correct. Got it to work on my wife's phone. Looks good man.

[John_bud]

You pushed me to get a youtub account.
https://youtu.be/aHyplSPN9lE

[Luke]

Still not showing up. Do you have Instagram?






Kidding! Looks good man. I subscribed to your channel.

[John_bud]

You funny guy...

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/john_bud/1%20match%20videos/20161102_080209_zpsry84yskg.jpg (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/john_bud/media/1%20match%20videos/20161102_080209_zpsry84yskg.jpg.html)

On that reload I pinched my palm. for the 2nd time that day...

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/john_bud/1%20match%20videos/20161102_080209_zpsry84yskg.jpg

[Luke]

The speed your shooting in those videos look fine to me. I'd work on grip and trigger control of it 'twas me. Still lookin good though. The guys who are your age at my club don't shoot near as good lol

[Sal Picante]

I've been struggling with this my whole time shooting competitively. At home im awesome (in my own mind) At a match I suck.

Possible solution!? Punish yourself!



I do this a lot, but the punishment is more of a quirky thing to help figure out the issue:

Example, bury a target into the hard cover on 12 yard partial? Ok... How about you transition hard under time pressure from a static steel to a 20 yard hard partial and force yourself through that situation. OK, Now do it one handed. Ok, Now do it in the par, one handed proned-out.

I flow through my drills, then assess penalties when I goof up - constantly mixing the type of penalties = goofy positions, goofy engagement order, etc.

[John_bud]

The speed your shooting in those videos look fine to me. I'd work on grip and trigger control of it 'twas me. Still lookin good though. The guys who are your age at my club don't shoot near as good lol

Yup. I'm figuring out my grip isn't hard enough, which impacts trigger.