Why (untimed) dot torture is like Tee ball

[JCN]

Disclaimer, this is only my opinion. You don’t have to agree.

Dot torture when run untimed or liberally timed is like Tee ball.

It’s good for basic skill development and it is true, if you can’t hit a ball sitting there on a tee… you won’t be able to do it when it’s thrown at you.

But it’s very basic. The ball on the tee is like your sights on target. You get all the time in the world to make sure you can see and judge it.

What happens in the next step? When the pitch is thrown to you?

You learn to judge and do the math in a simple orientation. Vertical drop and the speed it comes to you. This is where recoil management and presentation at speed comes into play when shooting. You watch the sights go up and down, you get a quick sight picture and your brain does the math of where and when to “pull the trigger” whether with a bat or with a gun.

The better your ability to see and extrapolate timing quickly, the faster you can do this. You can hit faster pitches and you can time your recoil management to hit the center of the target on a “bounce.”

People who can draw and split quickly and accurately can do this. It’s the dynamic vision and triggering that’s missing from Tee ball.

Then what happens in the next step after that?

If you’re locked into the simple axis visual calculation and mechanics, then you can start managing fancy and complicated things.

Curve balls, breaking balls, etc. You know what the simple mechanics are supposed to look like, so you quickly can tell when it deviates from that and you can micro correct quickly. For shooting this is when you can do full transitions in the same time as a regular split (0.20 s or so). Your brain can process recoil movement AND physical movement at the same time off your vision cues.





IMO IMO IMO.

Untimed drills are Tee Ball.
Single target or just vertical transitions are simple pitches.
Many “tactical” drills are space constrained due to their setup and are just on a single target or small vertical transition.

IMO, lateral transitions are a more important skill than slide lock reloads for civilians, but it’s rare that there is much taught in that regard. USPSA and action pistol help address some of the complex visual geometry because like everything else, lateral movement and coordination is a skill that needs to be developed and practiced.

[David S.]

Curious, How much formal training do you have?

[HCM]

Curious, How much formal training do you have?

And how much of that involves instructional design, adult learning, teaching etc rather than shooting?

Being a gifted athlete doesn’t necessarily make you a competent coach. Magic Johnson being a classic example. One of the most gifted and successful players ever but an abject failure as a coach.

[JCN]

Curious, How much formal training do you have?

And how much of that involves instructional design, adult learning, teaching etc rather than shooting.

Being a gifted athlete doesn’t necessarily make you a competent coach. Magic Johnson being a classic example. One of the most gifted and successful players ever but an abject failure as a coach.

Years and thousands of hours at the top programs in the nation.

How about you?

I’m not a gifted athlete. My first handgun shot was at 40 years old.

My ability to make USPSA GM in two years from starting was because of my background in training and education.

You can ask @JCS or @Moylan about my ability to coach handguns.

I have a bunch of new students in the training program, but they’re only two weeks in.

[MickAK]

Skill development is often highly personal. There's a fairly good analogy in weight lifting or other forms of exercise. Some people will respond better than others to certain programs. The complicated part is finding that once past the basics.

DT is a good baseline and assessment. I don't think the nature of the drill lends itself to time pressure.

[JCN]

Skill development is often highly personal. There's a fairly good analogy in weight lifting or other forms of exercise. Some people will respond better than others to certain programs. The complicated part is finding that once past the basics.

DT is a good baseline and assessment. I don't think the nature of the drill lends itself to time pressure.

Totally agree with the first part. Some people never progress past the basics. Often because they don’t care to. Sometimes because they don’t understand what the next steps are. If you never saw baseball, you might think tee ball was all there was.

Totally disagree with the second part. It’s perfect for a speed drill. It’s basically like component parts of a Casino drill, is it not?

If you allow one second to do a dot torture transition, it ceases to be a transition.

If you allow three seconds for a draw, it ceases to be a draw.

Tee ball.

[John Hearne]

If you allow three seconds for a draw, it ceases to be a draw.
Tee ball.

Apparently one of the most successful police gunfighters of the later 20th Century played a lot of tee ball:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000532572767

[MickAK]

Totally agree with the first part. Some people never progress past the basics. Often because they don’t care to. Sometimes because they don’t understand what the next steps are. If you never saw baseball, you might think tee ball was all there was.

Totally disagree with the second part. It’s perfect for a speed drill. It’s basically like component parts of a Casino drill, is it not?

If you allow one second to do a dot torture transition, it ceases to be a transition.

If you allow three seconds for a draw, it ceases to be a draw.

Tee ball.

I suppose a better analogy would be a 1pl warmup for squats or deadlifts. You start with a lighter weight and see if there's any creaking or snapping noises (well, excessive noises, I'm getting older) and then you can move on.

It could be a time pressure drill, sure, but that would take away it's usefulness to me. Going through the motions without time pressure lets me look for weaknesses before the pressure is on. If you're allowing yourself 3 seconds for a draw you have other issues.

[camel]

I was always a good hitter. Of the ball. I think that implies hand eye coordination. Wich is what maybe makes or breaks your skill level?

[JCN]

Apparently one of the most successful police gunfighters of the later 20th Century played a lot of tee ball:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000532572767

I may get a chance to listen to that later, but I’m going to assume there’s a straw man there.

I’m going to guess that the person in question, if he did do dot torture actually did do it timed. Not necessarily with an electronic timer, but with his own internal timer. I do that quite a bit in practice. I can still time pressure and call accurate splits, draws and transitions down to hundredths.

Here’s a video I did for my students:



I shot to vision, but I knew what kind of pace it would be to repeat it 9/10 times. Three targets of different sizes and time execution on one take.

I do a lot of work on tiny dots. But always with some sort of running time check whether internal or external. And I’m always pushing that timing as well as accuracy.

I’m going to guess that applies to that gunfighter as well, but if you tell me otherwise I’ll listen to the podcast.

I qualified my description of Tee ball limited to untimed / liberally timed dot torture.

Untimed / liberally timed groups are useful sometimes. Untimed / liberally timed draws and transitions are not except for the most basic of basic. Will qualify again that internally timed and pushing for execution of stringent internal timing isn’t what we are talking about here.

It could be a time pressure drill, sure, but that would take away it's usefulness to me. Going through the motions without time pressure lets me look for weaknesses before the pressure is on. If you're allowing yourself 3 seconds for a draw you have other issues.

Tee ball. At what point do you test for weaknesses WHEN the pressure is on? I’m not saying it’s not a good drill. But it’s very basic and if you stop there, you stop there.