Late last week, I experimented with not gripping as hard and noticed these benefits:
1) my trigger control was better and splits were faster on each target.
2) my transitions were faster.
3) it generally took less effort.
Thinking about why, I believe extra grip tension was negatively effecting my trigger control, and the extra tension was slowing and making my transitions less smooth. JJ and TPC describe ideal transitions as being able to move a full cup of water without spilling liquid.
This led to a discussion with my wife about “how much,” which is always difficult without instrumentation. Something I started to think about is setting your ideal transition speed, using the full cup example, and then using that amount of grip tension to work back as your starting point.
I realize this is highly individual, and perhaps even platform specific, but the initial results are extremely promising.