Differential Training

Has anybody else come across? It’s becoming more popular in other sports like golf where I first heard of it, but I haven’t seen anybody in the shooting world talk about it yet.


The basic idea is that in addition to practicing the perfect movement you also learn and practice how to produce bad results as well. The basic idea is that you learn what bad feels like to so you can more easily identify and self correct. I’ve found a few articles online that back up the idea that this is a faster way to learn athletic skills than simple block practice where just you’re trying to do the same movement over and over.


A variation that seems applicable in the shooting world, but I haven’t tried live fire, but have done some with dry fire is that you would purposefully have yourself practice bad trigger pulls that make you hit both left and right of the target. Another I’ll probably play with a bit is purposefully drawing to a bad index with the dot either high or to the right or left.

I have seen instructors demo something the wrong way and ask you to identify it. I get the idea but not sure how much actually doing something the wrong way is going to help? I don't know but at this point I am willing to try almost anything.