Locked Wrist Enigma, advice requested

[Alpha Sierra]

When I can I've brought out the timer and tested with doubles, but I don't have those numbers with me right now. Really though, I humbly submit that I'm not even at a point where I can "squeeze" out the most of that drill based on the timer. I can already get a ton of diagnostic from the drill simply by watching the front sight move, but part of the problem is that there are so many confounding variables in the equation and they are none of them independent, which means that it's very hard to "isolate" areas of improvement that I can actually track and attribute to a specific change in practice. I've seen too many things interfere with one another to really be able to understand specifically how to get consistent improvements on that drill. The lack of consistency is why I've been focusing on trigger and grip so much, because I'm convinced (I could be unconvinced) that my grip is a serious weakness right now in my ability to control the gun.

Last major improvement I saw around the locked wrist phenomenon was in a place where I couldn't use a timer, so I have to go back to somewhere where I can and then get some testing done with it, but the truth is that I'm often in a range where I just can't use a timer and get any meaningful results (too much ambient noise from others shooting).

I also don't have enough ammo most of the time to do the type of testing I would need to do in a single session, nor do I have the stamina. Assuming a 5 double string takes 10 rounds and using that to test each individual change in behavior, I'm talking about something like 300,000 to 400,000 rounds of ammo to get any kind of meaningfully statistically significant data across the whole range. And the problem I see right now is that because each variable doesn't appear to be independent of the other, I need to test each in combination with the other (leading to the combinatorial explosion of possibilities) to account of possible interference.

Clearly, just "trying all the variations and seeing what works" isn't affordable for me in time or money. That's why I am trying to prune the tree of possibilities by doing pre-shooting analysis to hopefully spend my ammo more wisely.

Ok, you're waaaaay the fuck overthinking this.

Ve con Dios..........

[arcfide]

I totally agree with Clusterfrak, and especially about consistent tracking and sight return.

For arcfide- It is important to remember that there is a difference between what feels good and what provides the best results downrange and on a timer. Further, when changing from something comfortable to something different there is likely to be a performance drop as the new technique is learned - then the benefits start to appear. Lastly, without videoing yourself or having an actual instructor watch you and make suggestions, any of ours will be nothing but a guess... which may work out in the end but is far less effective.

I agree with you that your best option is a class with a good instructor like Ernest Langdon. I don’t think you are over analyzing things - Grip is a complicated subject worthy of lots of analysis. I also think, and no disrespect intended, that many people say things don’t work because they tried them wrong, didn’t give the technique the deliberation and repetition to develop the skill, or took a small piece of a bigger concept that is insufficient when applied independently of the rest. I’m not saying at all that this is you, but more that without seeing it, seeing you shoot in general, and getting an idea of where you are coming from in terms of technique. For example - try to explain in text to anyone how you grip the gun... so they can replicate it. I know I can’t. That’s why a good instructor will be able to literally grip your hand to show you things - and have you grip theirs back to confirm you understand - to physically move your hand and fingers and let you see and feel how a proper technique works, and show you the downrange feedback and the feedback through your sights.

In the mean time, and assuming you can’t get to a class (or classes) right away, I would watch as many videos on grip as you can from as many reputable shooters and instructors as you can. Each may have that little nugget of information you need to get to that next skill level.

Thanks, and I agree with basically everything you've said except the part about explaining in text what is happening. I'm confident in my ability to do this, what I am not confident in is that such a description is "translatable" to the way that other people think about gripping the gun. Most people, I've observed, don't actually know what is happening with their body when they grip the gun, as alluded to in a previous post in this thread. So even though I can describe almost exactly what I'm doing with most of the muscle groups, tendons, angles, pressure, and so forth, because no one else who can shoot well can do the same, it's more or less useless. And that's the problem with a lot of the martial arts (not so much a problem as a reality that has to be dealt with), in that most people and fighters A) cannot accurately describe what they are doing and B) cannot accurately translate the effectiveness of what they are doing described technically into an adequate technical description for another human being of different body type and psychology to achieve the same end result.

So, while I could describe in detail what I'm doing, and all of the variations I'm trying, the end result is not going to be particularly helpful, I think.

However, I am trying to get a recording of myself working on two handed grip and one handed grip techniques where I'm actually trying different techniques and approaches. Then I think others could see that and diagnose whether I'm doing it right (which is a very real concern) and whether or not it is matching up and whether I'm missing something entirely. Unfortunately, that's proved to be very difficult.

A big issue is that I've scoured the Internet for videos from various shooters, and I've almost memorized what they say at this point, and while it is kind of helpful, it's just not quite "enough" as I'm sure you know.

[arcfide]

Ok, you're waaaaay the fuck overthinking this.

Ve con Dios..........

It's what I do. :-)

But I've also tried not overthinking it, and I haven't had any better luck either.

ETA: I do appreciate the advice that I'm overthinking it, but I also submit that many people talk about a lot of things in ways that aren't easily translatable to other people because there isn't enough analysis. I know a lot of people try to use a timer to see if they "do better" but I don't see a lot of people talking about the statistical significance of their timer testing. Using a timer in a non-rigorous way is just as "subjective" as many other things. The timer may not lie, but the way you interpret the data certainly can lead to false conclusions. That may not make a difference for *you* seeing or feeling better improvements, but it may very well impede the transmission of that skill to others.

[HopetonBrown]

I'm talking about something like 300,000 to 400,000 rounds of ammo to get any kind of meaningfully statistically significant data across the whole range.

The fuck?

[GJM]

The beauty of the doubles drill, is that it isolates a core USPSA/IDPA skill — placing two accurate shots on a single target. A year or so ago, YVK told me Stoeger spent about 30,000 rounds a year, and the bulk of his training rounds, shooting the doubles drill on different target sizes at different distances. Since then, my wife have incorporated the doubles drill into virtually every practice session, and do it on paper and steel. As others have pointed out, we all have different approaches and needs to developing our shooting technique. Over time, the doubles drill has exposed many flaws in my technique. Initially, I realized I needed to extend my support arm more. Then I learned something about how I grip with my strong hand and setting my wrist angle and tension. Just in the last few days, I incorporated something that I saw on the Vogel video. How do I know these were flaws and my changes were improvements — easy, when I made the changes I was rewarded with better accuracy, faster splits, or both.

Around Thanksgiving, Darryl and his wife visited. I introduced the drill to them, and Darryl thought it was great diagnostically and tactically, as it involved two accountable shots.

[arcfide]

The fuck?

It's simple combinatorics.

You do a 10 shot doubles strings (5 doubles) with each combination of possible changes in your grip, trigger finger placement, and engagement. Since you can't tell ahead of time which of these variables can be safely merged as a single contributing variable, you need to test them all independently of one another, which leads to a multiplicative combination of all possibilities in order to actually get enough data to do a factor analysis to identify what actually does and does not contribute the highest statistically significant predictive power towards "good shooting."

Assuming you can come up with a time and score based metric that you're happy with to evaluate each combination, then you simply vary each variable independently of the others until you have tested them all, trying to hold energy and mental focus constant to avoid introducing those as a variable.

So, some variables would be:

• Degree of grip strength (4 possibilities)
• Amount of wrist lock on the pinky side (On or Off, 2 options)
• Grip position of the hands (4)
• Support hand placement (2 or 3)
• Sideways pressure on the gun (2 or 3)
• Clamshell pressure or not (2)
• Elbows up or down
• Push pull light or heavy (2)
• Horizontal isometric tension or not (2)
• Bicep and Tricep pre-engagement to lock the elbows (2)
• Locking the elbows out or bent (2)
• Degree of lean of the body (2 or 3)
• Feet position (2)
• Engagement of the shoulder girdle and upper body to lock the shoulders and/or apply tension in the upper body during firing (2)
• Trigger finger placement (3)
• Degree of trigger pin (2)
• Snatch or Slack trigger approaches (2)
• Degree of shoulder elevation (2)
• Head angle (2)
• Degree of finger engagement up and down the hands (3x3)
• Degree of muscular engagement in the core (2)
• Degree of engagement with the thumbs (2)

It's nothing more than basic scientific and statistical practice and high school combinatorics.

Obviously people don't do this. Instead, they try things based on intuitive triggers that play with a number of these variables at once and then figure out what appears to work for them and what doesn't based on rough timings. I doubt that many people in their timings have done statistical timings to determine the significance of the change they made and determine the variance in their behaviors in order to tell whether a change was the result of something that they think was causing it or whether it might have been something else.

But that's the nature of human performance. It is exceptionally difficult to quantify and analyze. Moreover, the people who are good at performing often aren't sure why they are doing something, which makes it hard.

ETA: the above list is just a simple off the top of my head collection of the various different elements of shooting that various top trainers I have watched, read, or observed have said or mentioned in regard to the gripping and recoil control process.

[HopetonBrown]

You spent more time typing that ridiculous Rain Man-esque response nobody is going to read than you spent dry firing last month.

[Clusterfrack]

It’s good you’re thinking about your shooting. But progress is slow, and involves lots of range time. However it won’t take close to 100000 rounds to make significant progress. Buy Stoeger’s Breakthrough Marksmanship book, and get to work. If possible, find a good coach.

[Alpha Sierra]

It's simple combinatorics.

You do a 10 shot doubles strings (5 doubles) with each combination of possible changes in your grip, trigger finger placement, and engagement. Since you can't tell ahead of time which of these variables can be safely merged as a single contributing variable, you need to test them all independently of one another, which leads to a multiplicative combination of all possibilities in order to actually get enough data to do a factor analysis to identify what actually does and does not contribute the highest statistically significant predictive power towards "good shooting."

Assuming you can come up with a time and score based metric that you're happy with to evaluate each combination, then you simply vary each variable independently of the others until you have tested them all, trying to hold energy and mental focus constant to avoid introducing those as a variable.

So, some variables would be:

• Degree of grip strength (4 possibilities)
• Amount of wrist lock on the pinky side (On or Off, 2 options)
• Grip position of the hands (4)
• Support hand placement (2 or 3)
• Sideways pressure on the gun (2 or 3)
• Clamshell pressure or not (2)
• Elbows up or down
• Push pull light or heavy (2)
• Horizontal isometric tension or not (2)
• Bicep and Tricep pre-engagement to lock the elbows (2)
• Locking the elbows out or bent (2)
• Degree of lean of the body (2 or 3)
• Feet position (2)
• Engagement of the shoulder girdle and upper body to lock the shoulders and/or apply tension in the upper body during firing (2)
• Trigger finger placement (3)
• Degree of trigger pin (2)
• Snatch or Slack trigger approaches (2)
• Degree of shoulder elevation (2)
• Head angle (2)
• Degree of finger engagement up and down the hands (3x3)
• Degree of muscular engagement in the core (2)
• Degree of engagement with the thumbs (2)

It's nothing more than basic scientific and statistical practice and high school combinatorics.

Obviously people don't do this. Instead, they try things based on intuitive triggers that play with a number of these variables at once and then figure out what appears to work for them and what doesn't based on rough timings. I doubt that many people in their timings have done statistical timings to determine the significance of the change they made and determine the variance in their behaviors in order to tell whether a change was the result of something that they think was causing it or whether it might have been something else.

But that's the nature of human performance. It is exceptionally difficult to quantify and analyze. Moreover, the people who are good at performing often aren't sure why they are doing something, which makes it hard.

ETA: the above list is just a simple off the top of my head collection of the various different elements of shooting that various top trainers I have watched, read, or observed have said or mentioned in regard to the gripping and recoil control process.

No wonder you haven't made much progress......

And no, I don't mean it in the sense that the problem is as complicated as you think it is. I mean it in the sense that you are completely focused on trying to work this out in the lab instead of in the shooting range.

[45dotACP]

You seem more focused on theory than practice.

I was just training some Jiu Jitsu today. We learned a new technique in 30 minutes. We spent two hours on the mats in sparring trying to pull it off under pressure. Nobody really did. Except the guys who already knew the move. They had practiced it more.

The number of hours they spent listening to a black belt explain this particular move was certainly a lot of hours, but that number is dwarfed by the number of hours they tried and failed to do it right.

Some things can't be taught. Even by the best instructors. Some things you need to experience. 1 percent inspiration. 99 percent perspiration.



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