Printable View
I checked back a few pages to see if this topic had been discussed already but didn't see anything. I am looking to focus my range trips to support becoming a better shooter. How do you experienced shooters go about planning your ranges visit, planning your drills. How do you do your warm ups? I like to shoot 150-200 rounds per trip but want to get more focused in order to improve.
Todd wrote a great article on performance tracking here: http://pistol-training.com/archives/3439
You have to know what you want to improve to start. Pick a standard and write it down. Perform drills related to those standards, practice what you're worst at even though it's the least fun.
And honestly, some of the best ways to maximize live fire effectiveness is to get as much down with dry fire as you can.
ETA: Also, don't do warm ups. Shoot some standards cold so you know your cold limits. I always start with something like long range accuracy on a B-8 target or a timed drill (like FAST). That way I know my cold accuracy limits and my cold limits at speed. Get a timer if you don't have one.Trying to limit myself because I could say a lot, but I'll wait for you to get more specific.
That's a great article that Todd wrote. I was happy to read it again. Thanks for posting that.
The particulars of a training program depend on what you want and the context. How one gets better at IDPA is different than how one gets better at surviving an armed robbery. There are similarities but not the same.
Make a list of what shooting is to you. What physical and mental acts are required to do that list perfectly correct.
Don't get better at shooting, get better at your list.
Don't get better at your list, get more consistent at them(it's not how fast you do each, it's how fast you do the screw ups).
Don't get more consistent at them, get more particular on what your definition of each on the list.
Then get more consistent at that.
So taking the time to make that, "What is shooting" list and then taking the time to define the physical and mental acts that constitute each act on the list can make us all improve.
After you do that, then just do what Todd said. Keep doing it until you stop making progress.
Of course you can use the exact same mental process to expand past, what is shooting into, what is self defense, IDPA, etc.
My number one goal right now is speed. I want to do a fast Bill Drill as an example. In order to do this- I need to shoot a baseline and then concentrate on dry fire being fast. Then work in other drills during live fire that concentrate on speed. Would be what I gather from reading.
My assumption would that I could go thru old DOTW thatwork on speed??
My advice would be lots of dry fire to get the draw and first shot quickly, but make sure you do not compromise grip to get the first shot off or the next will suffer. In my experience, people's draw time is harder to improve than split times and is often longer than shooting five shots. People can get to .25 splits pretty quickly, but 2 second or less draws are more difficult.
After that grip and sight tracking will likely affect your split times the most. I would work on grip strength as well.
Sight tracking: http://pistol-training.com/archives/88 http://pistol-training.com/archives/94
Grip is a bit more nuanced and as I get more experience I realize it can be pretty specific to the person and the way they "fit" the gun. The initial advice is always your left hand should provide most of the pressure and squeeze as hard as you can. However, it's definitely worth trying some nuanced changes to see if you notice changes (measured on timer, not feelings). For me, the pliable hands idea that you can look into that helped me get more purchase on the grip with my left hand and less feeling like I was trying to grip my sweaty right fist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by holmes168
Perhaps we're saying the same thing but, IMO I think first find an accuracy standard (target) that fits what you believe will allow you to attain your goals. I use a six inch body and three inch head circle. Many use a eight and three or a four and two.
Then with that standard I can shoot two different goals, on command where everything is in the target and pushing it where I start to miss with a few (say 10%) rounds. One lets me know how to control my shooting and the other allows me to learn to shoot faster in a more controlled manner. In this way I am always pressing speed while retaining accuracy and control during each session.
For safety, I don't push any speed on the range that I have not spent time pushing during dryfire. My range sessions would include a cold test with everything in/on command (many will use Todd's FAST, a bill drill or whatever you want.) This is the test that I track for my, "Improvement". I like my tests to use multiple skills combined. i.e. movement, presentation, easy shot, hard shot, etc. After the cold test then I will use drills that isolate the skills I want to improve on. Because I care more about how I perform when I screw up over when everything goes well, I use a lot of chaos training. I find that my improvements stay with me session to session more than just concentrating on shooting just one drill over and over. I will go back and forth between pressing the speed and on command during the drills. At the end of the session I use another test or the same cold test again, slowing down and trying for on command speed where everything is in.
I think the above is a pretty common framework that many good shooters use. It is adaptable to whatever your goals are while keeping in control.
When you speak about concentrating on speed I worry that some people concentrate on it too much and get sloppy. I know as a new shooter I did. I wasted a lot of bullet spraying down range. I wish I had concentrated on chaos training sooner in my development. When I started using it I not only made better improvements but I compressed my times from, "I smoked that drill" to "I totally screwed up that drill". For my goal of self defense I found that to be far superior than just chasing speed. I guess you could say it was speed that was more usable due to improving it while maintaining control (accuracy).
FWIW I don't know if I'm considered experienced, that said I (try very hard to) reserve the first 50 rounds for my core skill exercises.Quote:
Originally Posted by holmes168
(3) Cold FASTS - 18 rounds
(1) Slowfire 25 round group at a B8 Repair center - 10 rounds
(1) Defour Test - 10 rounds
(2) Bill Drills - 12 rounds
If I'm doing poorly I might run extras of whatever feels lacking.
From there it's often DOTW stuff or whatever I'm currently fixated on.
Just my $0.02