What was your "aha" or breakthrough moment?

My "aha" moment came when an instructor asked me "when are you going to stop showing off, and work on what you suck at?"

For me, I've always been blessed with a decent draw (in my heyday I could pull off solid A zone hits from concealment in sub 1.0), and a fast trigger finger (when I was shooting a lot I could consistently hold accurate sub .15 splits with a G19 shooting NATO FMJ). What I sucked at was REAL accuracy (3x5 at 25 yards, for instance), and off hand shooting. When I took my "look at me" ego glasses off, I realized that as fast as I was, there was a lot of work for me left to do.

I'd LOVE to tell you that I'm still shooting fast, and have reached my accuracy goals and off hand shooting skills, but that would be a lie (on the Internet - GASP!). What I realize now, 20 years later, is there's a WHOLE LOT more to this art than just shooting fast or straight. If I had unlimited training time and money, I'd spend the entire next year doing two things: physical conditioning (as I get older, my grip strength is fading, and that has a REALLY BAD effect on my shooting), and force-on-force, decision oriented scenario training. I've never been in a shoot house and failed because I was too slow, or not accurate enough, or missed a shot weak-hand only; but I've failed A LOT OF TIMES because of bad tactics (use of cover, clearing dead spots, etc), bad target identification (it really sucks to shoot the no-shoots, especially when they're your team mates), and just plain going too fast.

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Originally Posted by GJM

A lot of timmie drills are tactical shooters trying to compete at something without really competing where the heat is in USPSA.

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QFT

Call them drills, call them standards, same same.

I have an a-ha moment every match. They show me what I need to train on.

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Originally Posted by Clark Jackson

If you want something that translates to the real world I would say - without hesitation - the answer is "The Standards."

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While those standards are not trivial, it's difficult to see how they relate so closely to "real world" performance when they lack:
1. Shooting while moving
2. Moving (significant movement, not one side step or shuffle) then shooting
3. Shooting, moving, shooting again
4. Tight targets (like a partial A zone)
5. Leans/shooting around cover
6. Wide transitions
7. Distance change up/change down

It's really odd that the more "tactical" or "real world" someone says a set of standards is, the more those standards consist of standing in one place and shooting at one distance. On top of that the addition of completely unrealistic distances (50 yds) really makes it hard to understand the correlation to the practical use of a handgun.

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Originally Posted by Alpha Sierra

Difficult to see how that relates so closely to "real world" performance when it lacks:
1. Shooting while moving
2. Moving (significant movement, not one side step or shuffle) then shooting
3. Shooting, moving, shooting again
4. Tight targets (like a partial A zone)
5. Leans/shooting around cover
6. Wide transitions
7. Distance change up/change down

It's really odd that the more "tactical" or "real world" someone says a set of standards is, the more those standards consist of standing in one place and shooting at one distance. On top of that the addition of completely unrealistic distances (50 yds) really makes it hard to understand the correlation to the practical use of a handgun.

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Totally agree.

Let's add:

-poor light
-heavy rain or cold
-dealing with a malfunction under time pressure
-performance while injured
-unexpected need to stop shooting

and so much more.

I've encountered all of these many times during competitive shooting and training for competitive shooting. As well, some of the excellent classes I've done have pushed me to and beyond my limits. Gabe's class was one of the best of these.

Drills just aren't important in and of themselves. They're just an exercise you do to improve, or a test to figure out where your weaknesses are.

I think it's a mistake to make your ego a slave to drill scores.

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Originally Posted by ASH556

I've been a member of this site for 7 years now, and an active participant for at least 5.
5 years in and I've still not accomplished the following things:

1. Coin-level FAST runs on-demand from concealment
2. 100 on a 25yd B8
3. Turbo-pin level on Gabe's stuff (with our without concealment).
4. A sub-2.5 Bill Drill clean

Some here have said I am a good shooter. When I look at those I encounter at the range in the real world that seems to be the case by comparison.

Then again, I'm not hanging out with GM's all the time.

I hear a lot of talk about a lot of things. I see guys win awards. I've been in classes with some high level shooters, but 2 things stand out to me:

1. I don't see guys who can pull off the 4 examples (not a conclusive list, just my current list) I listed above on demand
2. I don't know how to get there either

Maybe the first 90% is easy and it's the last 10% that takes hours, and hours, and thousands and thousands of rounds. If that's the case, cool just tell me and I'll keep plugging away. However, if there's a magic switch that I'm missing somehow, someone have mercy and tell me what it is.

This is something @karmapolice and I have talked about at great length and there seems to be this idea of this mystical level of ninja pistol performance, but can people really do that or did they just happen to do it once or twice at the right time in front of the right person or camera?

At the risk of excluding someone who should be on this list (so please forgive me) the guys on this site that I think probably can shoot at that level on-demand are, @SLG, @Mr_White, @Kevin B. , @DocGKR, @Surf, @GJM, @Duke, @nwhpfan. Interesting also to note how none of them really post anymore (GJM excluded) too.

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Have you ever thought of measuring your skills using the practical pistol competition yardstick? If you haven't I encourage you to do so.

If you do try it I'd be interested in reading what you discovered about your current level of skill.

To be brutally honest I think chasing the narrow set of standards you've chosen is good for bragging rights and not much else.

A bunch of years ago, I remember shooting a pair of sub 4.0 FAST runs, thinking I was pretty spiffy, and when I went to shoot an accelerator drill that had USPSA targets at 7, 15 and 25 yards and couldn’t hit crap fast at 25, I realized that I was a 7 yard “expert,” and a lot of the rest of my skills sucked. USPSA matches test a wide range of shooting skills and positions.

It was learning that expectations kills performance, at least for me. In the Stone Age revolver era, I was one a pretty decent Master class PPC shooter and an LSP pistol Team member for a few years. I shot a Master class score in the first competition I entered, and don’t think I ever shot below M in a match.

A couple years later I was occasionally shooting High Master scores in practice. Try as hard as I could, that never happened in a match. Expecting to shoot to that level on match day was a sure guarantee to not make that happen.

I’ve shot my best when I worked hard in practice and then just let it happen on match day. That includes tactical shooting also.

Edited to add, it was much easier to tell myself to drop the expectations than to actually do it. The weakest part for me was always mental.

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Originally Posted by Duke

Wow.

Well I’m not sure I’m qualified to be listed with all those guys and I’m really not sure I could do any or all of those drills on demand. @PREDATOR (Sir Keeper) is probably there. @jetfire (Caleb) and the Jedi too

I’m almost always better/faster and less error prone cold or having not shot for a week than I am at say the middle day of a set of classes. Knowing what to do without having to think it helps me a lot.

My personal progress was accelerated when I stopped remembering the bad shots and focused on the good ones.

Everyone misses. So what benefit comes from hyper analyzing a mistaken shot I don’t want to repeat? The book “with winning in mind” covers this.

I’m the type of person that seeks to do everything to the best of my ability - yet i have to pull a hard stop when doing or being the best at something begins to dominate my life.

As a person I struggle for life balance very heavily and healthy obsession is not a good thing for me.

As to posting less - for the most part I don’t feel as though I can add much to most discussions. Along with that - work travel, kids, land ownership deal out constant time constraints.

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Thanks for the legit shout out!

To the original topic as it pertains to "ah-ha" moments in the shooting sports, there hasn't been just one. There have been several, and they've come at different points in my career. One thing I do think is true, and that a lot of good shooters would agree with is that big performance gains come easily when you're first starting out. To use IDPA classification as an example, getting from Marksman to Master class is challenging, but anyone can do it with sufficient practice time. Becoming a Master class shooter that is consistently in the running to win State matches and is match-heat at Nationals is a lot harder. That last two or three % of skills can be a real tough orange to squeeze.

My most recent "ah-ha" moment was right before my coin run. I was shooting fewer rounds than I had in the past, but I was getting waaaaay better quality of reps in. For the skills I was trying to develop, the 5,000 or so rounds I shot in 2018 was a way better time investment than the 50,000 rounds I shot in 2012.

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Originally Posted by jetfire

My most recent "ah-ha" moment was right before my coin run. I was shooting fewer rounds than I had in the past, but I was getting waaaaay better quality of reps in. For the skills I was trying to develop, the 5,000 or so rounds I shot in 2018 was a way better time investment than the 50,000 rounds I shot in 2012.

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The tricky part, early on, is knowing what exactly are quality rounds (or dry fire reps). Without a coach, sometimes you need to shoot a lot to figure out what is most important. This is also completely dependent upon what you are trying to accomplish — defense, duty, bullseye, IDPA, USPSA, Steel Challenge.

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Originally Posted by GJM

The tricky part, early on, is knowing what exactly are quality rounds (or dry fire reps). Without a coach, sometimes you need to shoot a lot to figure out what is most important. This is also completely dependent upon what you are trying to accomplish — defense, duty, bullseye, IDPA, USPSA, Steel Challenge.

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I think that back when the earth was still cooling in the early days of IPSC, dudes like Robbie and Brian had to shoot a gajillion rounds to figure out what the "best" way to do stuff was. Fast forward almost 30 years later and thanks to on-demand publishing, the internet, and the travelling instructor, new shooters don't have to go off on a square range and blast 100,000 rounds down range to figure out what's best. You can just take a class with Scott or JJ or Ernest or any one of the amazing shooters offering classes, and they'll get you on the right path. Then Mike Seeklander's training book and do that.