Help me fix my draw

[ASH556]

Worked on some of the things mentioned here and also added the tensed/staged arms and hands. 1 sec par:

[HCountyGuy]

Good improvement, better efficiency of motion.

[Gio]

I didn't read all the replies, so apologies if this is redundant.

1. You have a hitch in your draw right after you clear the holster and while you're other hand is joining on the gun. You accelerate your hands to the gun, then draw it quickly, then slow down and pause waiting for the other hand, then speed it back up to full extension. You're probably losing .1-.2 here. You still have this hitch in the draw on the latest video.

2. In the initial video you were taking a long time between full extension and breaking the shot. You have to be prepping the trigger, starting from about when the gun is pointed down range (be careful not to get on trigger to early), and essentially meet the sights at the target with a trigger press. You seem to have improved on that in the most recent video.

[Clobbersaurus]

Well done OP!

[45dotACP]

You're looking good man!

This isn't direct critique but just observations from what helped me.

I used to carry 3:30/4:00 IWB quite a bit with my 1911s and I found that lifting the shirt with my weak hand at about the 1:00/1:30 belt loop helped me to clear the shirt more consistently and have my hand closer to the gun to build my grip. I also tried to focus on both hands exploding after the beep and I often realized I lifted my shirt higher than needed, which was wasted movement.

I can't say I ever broke a second in live fire, but I recall getting fairly close.

https://youtu.be/CpuheL3noeI

ETA: Nah I definitely still lift my shirt really high and am still slow

[LOKNLOD]

Being a nerd, I videoed your video with the coach's eye app, and slowed it down. My eye doesn't work fast enough to help people at full speed.

One thing I see, is that you pull your shirt really high, let it go, and then both it and your hand drop back down to your waist area before you clear the holster. It's resulting in your draw having to come back up through your shirt even though you clear it. Especially with the hook of an optic, that's going to snag occasionally, so some of this is more robustifying than optimizing. Do you occasionally have a draw get fouled by the shirt?

Here's an example - this is after you've released the shirt and it's fallen back down from your neck area:



But even from an "economy of motion" standpoint, that means your hand is going way high (up into your chin almost - it was higher in the blue shirt session than the black shirt session, though), which i kind of like from an indexing standpoint, and ensuring you get a good, high clear...but then it and the shirt drop back down so it's not really benefiting your much. Then all the way back down to where it started, then it has to chase your gun back upward. I think that support hand is covering a lot of distance unnecessarily. It may be happening concurrently with other motion, so maybe it's not entirely on the "critical path" of the Drawstroke Gantt Chart^(tm) but wasted motion is wasted...

I think if you kept it higher with your shirt pinned longer, and then the hands met more in the lower chest area vs. your beltline, you could get a good "judy chop" as your hands meet, keep your shirt better cleared. Getting that great strong/weak meetup may not speed you up much, but it'll help a lot when you start firing live rounds at the end the draw stroke.

[ASH556]

@LOKNLOD that’s good word, thank you! I’ve watched the video in slow-mo and considered similar themes, but your pic captures in a level of clarity I’d not yet recognized. I did review some video of @Mr_White ‘s draw and observed there that he’s basically bringing the pistol vertically to meet his support hand as it’s finished clearing the cover garment.

One thing I will note not as an excuse, but at this point as a physical limitation is that I have pretty large shoulders and forearms. The downside of this is limited flexibility/range of motion. I got in trouble with the crossfit instructors because my clean form is horrible, but I physically can barely get my elbows forward of my wrists. The same issue happens going the other way too. Keeping my elbow tucked in behind my wrist while drawing and then pulling the pistol vertical to meet my support hand is difficult/impossible. However, I do think I can, and must, begin working in that direction instead of clearing cover high just to drop it all back down to the belt line again; and, as you said, risk fouling the draw; especially with the optic.

[Mr_White]

Thank you! I tried searching youtube and got nowhere.


ETA: He is using his support hand to clear concealment in both videos there contrary to what was said earlier.

Huh wow I really had that wrong. Sorry about that!

Nice job in the newer video, you sharpened things up a bit.