Originally Posted by
OrigamiAK
I don't want new students' minds poisoned with the idea that in order to press the trigger well, that they have to do it slowly. I want students to recognize early on that the quality of a trigger press is not inherently connected to the time they take to press the trigger.
The trigger can be pressed fast or slow, either well or badly.
It's not that I tell beginning students to press the trigger quickly, it's that I don't want them thinking that it has to be done slowly to be done well. I want them thinking in terms of pressing through the trigger without making the gun move, rather than being speed-focused (trying to do something slowly is a form of speed focus.) I make sure to demonstrate in dry fire, pressing the trigger both with and without disturbing the gun so they can see the difference. When I do this, I don't take a long time to press the trigger. The students also work on this dry right before we first go live.
I also don't emphasize a surprise trigger break. It's fine if that happens while continuously improving the sight picture and continuously adding pressure to the trigger, but it's not a concept I want them concerned about adhering to. It will break down under enough external or internal time pressure. Shooting in smaller amounts of time will ultimately have a person firing at a moment of their choosing. They need to be able to choose to stroke right through the trigger without inducing extra movement. That development can be started pretty quickly with a little bit of dry fire.