Modifying drills for less experienced shooters

[CMG]

I know that his board is oriented toward more experienced pistol shooters but I was wondering what could be done to some of the drills to make them more approachable to less experienced shooters. To give you a perspective of where I am coming from, I have started "seriously" shooting over the last 9 months as a hobby. Before that I was the once or twice a year shooter with basic marksmanship training from the Army almost 20 years ago. I have taken a couple of NRA based classes and private lessons from a local instructor to get a handle on my fundamentals. I just got into IDPA where I have shot the classifier as SSP/Marksman and one match. In that match, one of the stages was a Double Bill Drill with a slidelock reload which I completed in 13.21 with zero points down which put me as second best for that one stage for SSP/Marksman.

Taking last weeks DoTW as an example, the 99 Drill, what would be the preferred way to modify the drill for a less experienced shooter? I can see three aspects that you can change to make the drill "easier":



Target Size - The drill allows you to choose 3x5 or 4x6. Is 6x6 (IDPA Head box) another valid option?
Distance - Changing the distances to 3/5/7 or 5/7/10
PAR time - increasing PAR times. I could run the drill to establish a baseline for PAR and decrease the times as I get more comfortable at speed.



Is there any one preferred way to change a drill or does it really depend on the drill?

[JodyH]

I think the drill should be modified depending on what the drill is meant to accomplish.
To do that you really need to know why and how the drill was developed.
That's why in the Dotw "99" thread I posted what my goals for the drill were and what each string of fire was designed around.
That way your drill modifications can be informed decisions.
Often novice or new shooters think they know what a drill is meant to accomplish, but sometimes they miss the "hidden" intent in some drills.

For speed drills I would start by changing the pars by 10-20%.
For precision drills you could change target size by 10-20%.
Increasing or decreasing distance does't make as big of a difference in my experience.
Moving from 5-7 yards is a huge percentage difference, but it's not a tremendous difference in "reality".
The only time I've seen distance make a big difference is when you're beyond 10 yards and changing things by 5+ yard increments.
That's just my observations.

[ToddG]

CMG -- As you can see in the DotW10/99 Drill thread, this very issue was raised. It's a tough drill even for highly accomplished shooters.

Personally, I like the idea of adding two more target sizes: half a sheet of paper (about the same as a 5x8 card) and full sheet of paper. Once you can get 85-90 on one size, move to the next smaller. It keeps the drill itself consistent and follows the theme of different sizes already established by using a 4x6 or 3x5.

Having said that, most of the drills that we've used for DotW have been extremely open ended in terms of skill level. Part of the goal is to give folks reference points for comparison. So while you could do the 25yd bullseye stuff at 5yd, that's not really the same as doing your best at 25yd and seeing where you're at, wherever that may be.

[CMG]

I could of sworn that I read through all of the page in the 99 DotW thread :o

I did not mean to imply that the forum is not new shooter friendly but I was looking for some general rules of thumb for how to modify any drill and the 99 had the most variables.

JodyH - Can you explain the reasoning behind your recommendations for changes based on speed or precision? My first instinct would be a larger target for speed and longer time for precision. To me giving a person a larger target area would allow them to feel more comfortable going faster and once they got a faster they could reduce the target size.

[BaiHu]

I think the drill should be modified depending on what the drill is meant to accomplish.
To do that you really need to know why and how the drill was developed.
That's why in the Dotw "99" thread I posted what my goals for the drill were and what each string of fire was designed around.
That way your drill modifications can be informed decisions.
Often novice or new shooters think they know what a drill is meant to accomplish, but sometimes they miss the "hidden" intent in some drills.


The last sentence in this quote is the bingo statement for me. All of these drills have been pushing so many things in my novice shooting ability, that it was good to hear JodyH explain the '99' to the forum.



Having said that, most of the drills that we've used for DotW have been extremely open ended in terms of skill level. Part of the goal is to give folks reference points for comparison. So while you could do the 25yd bullseye stuff at 5yd, that's not really the same as doing your best at 25yd and seeing where you're at, wherever that may be.

I find that trying to do the drills as they were intended, first, really helps to create an outline for where I am and where I want to be as a student of the pistol. I feel like I could take any of these drills and spend a year(s) breaking them down and improving them until I can make a consistent 'advanced' score and still find myself wanting.

I only wish I could get range time in more-this cold and lack of daylight sucks for my live fire training.