Fixed Time Courses, Are they Beneficial?

[AGR416]

My first post on here. If I missed an intro-thread, I apologize. I tried searching but didn't find anything.

My background is 11 years active duty Norwegian military (infantry and reconnaissance), and I started shooting competition (IPSC) when I left the military in 2013.

I think having fixed par times for both drills and standards is a good thing, as it gives you quantifiable goals to strive for and it gives you feedback on your current skill level.
Standards are skills tests where a minimum score and time has been defined. If you don't pass it, you need to identify the components that resulted in failure and work on these.
We used a tiered standard system, rated from Level 1 (worst) to Level 4 (best) on certain drills.
Even if you pass the standard, it is important to strive towards further improvement.

When it comes to drills, it is important to always push speed. With enough practice most people can make good hits out to say 25 meters with no time pressure. Working proper fundamentals under pressure is the most demanding, and adding a hard par time will help you reach those milestones. That said, I am a proponent of shooting sooner, not faster. This means that I try to be fast and efficient when not shooting, in order to have more time available when actually shooting, to facilitate better hits. As opposed to trying to play catch-up with super fast splits.

As far as accuracy requirements go, my goal is to shoot 80% Alpha in both matches and training. If using other targets and accuracy requirements, I will follow these as far as pass/fail or penalties go.

When it comes to time standards and real life situations, I think it is important to separate between drills and scenarios. Drills and/or standards are designed to develop/test marksmanship skills, and do not necessarily translate into a "what to do in a real life shooting".

[TGS]

My first post on here. If I missed an intro-thread, I apologize. I tried searching but didn't find anything.

Hey man, glad to see you've migrated over here.

[AGR416]

Hey man, glad to see you've migrated over here.

Hey! That's a familiar "face".
Gotten serious about my pistolero skills, and this place came recommended.

[Kyle Reese]

Hey man, glad to see you've migrated over here.

Ditto. Glad to have you here, AGR.

[BN]

More thoughts on par time courses.

The other day I shot the Warren 3 second Standards. Times seemed pretty tight, but I made them most of the time. It didn't seem like I put myself under a lot of pressure. I just aimed.

I just restarted dry fire. It seems like par times are necessary here.

Back when I first started shooting IPSC, timers weren't common. So almost everything was a fixed time standard course with several strings. A whistle and stop watch were used to start and stop each string. In order to have a field course, they would have a stop plate to shoot last and the RO would stop the watch when you shot the plate.