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Thread: Building Competent Consistency

  1. #1
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
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    Building Competent Consistency

    What is consistency?

    How to build it?

    Are there better ways to build it?

  2. #2
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
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    Personally, I dry fire and Live fire a fair amount. I use the USPSA classification system and compounding-difficulty drills (Garcia Dots) as ways to build consistency.

    Oh, and Sport Shooting USA.



    That video games is one of the BEST ways to build mental consistency in shooting: If you clean a stage with NO misses, you get 100 extra points! Guys like Ben clean ALL the stages and "shoot" good points and good times.

    Very tough indeed.

  3. #3
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    I played that game in Vegas a long time ago, before I was any good. I used a bunch of quarters on it and it was a lot of fun.
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
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  4. #4
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    Les, my many words are following you over here since we are talking consistency. Not only is my post partly about consistency as measured in different venues, but my posting is consistent if I put the same many words into many threads.

    ---

    Continuing the GM/Rogers/FAST/shooter measurement part of the discussion, which is something I find fascinating:

    I hold the GM ranking in pretty high esteem, myself. GMs aren't immune to screwing up. They get things wrong. They get less wrong than lower ranked shooters generally do though. The USPSA classification system has some aspects that annoy me a bit, but I think it is one of the important and meaningful shooting achievements that are easily measured.

    The Rogers Test measures consistency in the tasks in the test. I feel certain that really going for it and shooting the Rogers Test in a zero or hero manner is not going to get one a very good score. My experience at Rogers was that I can match or exceed top GMs within the bounds of what they test there. If you put me into a short contest with those GMs that's measured by hit factor (like USPSA classification stages), they are probably going to kick my ass. If you put me into a long contest with them measured by hit factor (like a whole USPSA match), they are probably going to kick my ass by ten miles. I'm not about to win any Area match. Wish I could say differently, but that's just not the way it is right now.

    My gripe with the USPSA classification system, and it's not really a huge gripe, is that it tends to disregard consistency in favor of the high scores a person can reach. This is because of dropping scores that are more than 5% below the shooter's current classification. I often half-joke that if they did away with that piece of the classification system, ~75% would be the new 100%. I don't know if that's really true, but I don't think it takes away from the high level of skill required to be a GM, even with the system that's in place now. The system still does a good job of identifying and ranking different levels of shooter relative to each other. USPSA match results are very much about consistency, and in that way are somewhat different from the game-within-a-game that is the classification system, but match results are still very clear - generally, GMs place higher than Ms, who place higher than As, who place higher than Bs, and it keeps going in order of classification. There is certainly some amount of overlap, and there are some individuals probably fairly characterized as under or over classified, but in aggregate I think the system does rank people relative to each other pretty accurately, even despite what I think are flaws in the system.

    GSSF is kind of a fun measure. Well, fun for me, because in GSSF I am on par with people who are some of the better shooters in USPSA. So then I can feel less bad when they stomp me in that venue. GSSF is narrowly focused on a massive level of consistency at some modest shooting problems.

    What about the FAST Challenge? To win the coin, it requires a lot of consistency at moderately difficult shooting and gunhandling tasks. Top GMs clearly can do this in the mid-3s, at least in practice. So can I, but I am not a top GM or any kind of GM for that matter - just an M. Circumstance and the resulting pressure also can mean a lot. For me, there was a ton of self-generated pressure when I was trying for the FAST coin. I hosted Todd at the range I work at, the class was full of my students, and I had a couple chances to do it right here right now, or fail, and maybe never have another opportunity to try. How many of the twelve FAST coins have been won in class, and how did the other circumstances differ? Circumstances may vary, but pressure is also subjective. I think Robert Vogel is the only one who did it on his actual first try. His scores were mid-4s, but I think there was some equipment stuff going on with him, IIRC. I seem to remember reading that SLG won the coin in front of his whole team, so that should have been some good pressure to be under. Dave Sevigny holds the world record at 3.56, but he was grandfathered in with video submissions, which is not something anyone else gets to do. I don't think there is a lot of question about Dave Sevigny being able to throw down under pressure though. So what does winning a FAST coin mean? Looks to me like it means certain things, and not others. It definitely means something and it doesn't mean everything. It is one of many significant tests and measurements. I thought it was plenty difficult myself.

    I think you are a really good shooter, Les. GM for one thing. GM who I know has done well at major matches for another. Advanced at Rogers. Can shoot the FAST in mid-3s at least in practice. Plus the other coins, challenge tags, pins, etc. That all adds up to mean to me that you are a good friggin shooter, and I feel even more confident in saying so because there are some different measurements in there.

    So I guess, to finish this stream of consciousness ramble, the main point to get at here is that there is a mismatch between the consistency of GMs that SLG reports and the consistency of GMs that seems discernible through USPSA match results. So how do we reconcile that?

    I personally think what is really at odds is the difference between looking at a shooter skill level mostly in terms of consistency/not screwing up, as the central defining feature of skill level, vs. seeing shooter skill level as a range of performance that includes both the height someone can reach and their consistent performance as different points in that performance range - the difference between the heights and the consistency may vary somewhat by individual shooter strength and weakness, but they are also inherently connected because they are part of an individual's overall range of performance. I think different measurements look at different points in that performance range and thus produce different answers.
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  5. #5
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Les Pepperoni View Post
    What is consistency?

    How to build it?

    Are there better ways to build it?
    One thing that I think I have identified as a root part of the differences of opinion I've seen on this subject is whether consistency is one aspect of an overall range of performance/skill level that includes highs and lows (meaning that higher levels of consistency would be associated with higher high points), or if consistency is something separate and distinct from the highs and lows of given shooter.
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
    Lord of the Food Court
    http://www.gabewhitetraining.com

  6. #6
    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Les Pepperoni View Post
    What is consistency?

    How to build it?

    Are there better ways to build it?
    During my formative years I only knew one way. Dry practice for a bazilion reps. That involved daily drilling from about age 10, until 16 or 17, a few years off for college then daily again for much of my 20's (the 80's ). I don't no more and haven't much in 10-11 years since getting into a club where I shoot weekly.

    Repetition is the mother of skill and all that.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Les Pepperoni View Post
    What is consistency?
    Being able to perform or execute a skill at your individual optimal level on demand and for a specified duration.

    How to build it?
    Practice. Repetition. Dry and live. Under stress, whether that means on a timer or FoF scenario, etc.

    Are there better ways to build it?
    I have a strong competition bias, so I'm going to say competition. I'd also like to take some FoF/simunitions training, too.

  8. #8
    Site Supporter taadski's Avatar
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    I don't find consistency to be as much the difficult part. I find trying to build skill; specifically trying to get faster AND trying to maintain consistency while doing so to be the difficult part.

  9. #9
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    I feel like consistency is being able to perform at a certain level regardless of modifiers like first stage/"ohsh*tthisisreallyhappening/feeling sick/etc.

    One can be extremely consistent, but still bad, so I don't think consistency is the ultimate goal. It is important to pursue consistency at an ever increasing level of performance. People take different paths towards that end, but for me that takes the form of applying high levels of pressure in practice. I do my best to make the first shots/run of the day the most important one. Likewise, I treat each local match as if it were a major, and I'm trying to beat the limited and open guys.

  10. #10
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    I have to be willing to give up some consistency to push boundaries for growth. But I think it's important to know where that boundary lies.
    Last edited by LSP552; 10-07-2015 at 10:02 PM.

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