When is “missing,” not “missing” a target?

[Half Moon]

What is the "Bakersfield drill"? No google results.

Try this thread:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....sfield-PD-qual

[HCM]

This has come up before regarding the difference between training, drilling and self defense use.

It’s also one of the criticisms (both ways) between USPSA (hosers) and self defense practitioners.

When I work with military / LEO to help training, it’s a mental block that has caused some plateau and stagnation in skill progression.


This is my training philosophy, YMMV. It has worked pretty well for me and is based on best practice learning paradigms in other sports and technical fields.

It has some tenets you have to accept:

1. Your skill is your skill at that time.
2. Your performance degrades with cognitive overload.
3. Long term improvement in skill is the goal so when you’re “tested” you have the best chance you can have.


Draws, trigger press, index work and most transition work are best done dry.


The main goal of live fire is training and coordinating vision to trigger press under recoil.

“Seeing what you need to see… faster.”



In practice, hitting a target doesn’t matter. That’s not the point of it.

If at 7 yards I have an 8” spread at 0.18 splits, that’s good. But if I only train to make all my hits in the -0…

I never improve. It doesn’t give me extra feedback needed to make that 8” into a 7” or 6” group.

So having a secondary feedback device like an X ring that is a “no penalty miss” but aids in training as a trackable and visual metric of improvement. I’ll usually use a 2” paster or something ridiculously impossible to do consistently at that speed.

IMO, you need the “no penalty miss” in order to keep from slowing down and turning it into a completely different drill.

The way to improve your visual tracking at speed is to keep the speed and get good feedback.

IMO that’s why the Bakersfield semi hit factor scored drill was so effective at training man killers. It was a low penalty near miss. Same with USPSA.

Which is why IDPA shooters often stagnate. Because a “miss” is so penal, they cone down to a 3” target radius AND sloooooow down in order to hit it.

And consequently they don’t know how their vision and speed scales at distances and different pace.

Once you know your vision scaling performance you can “choose” the pace for the situation and if you need more margin to “not miss” you can do that.

“How I know what I know.”









These are tests where I go at “won’t miss” pace.

But that’s not how I train to get to that point.

That’s a very important distinction to make.

In practice, are you training or are you testing?

I know people, especially LEO and Mil hate to miss, even in practice.

But then mentally put an X ring equivalent for training and keep the speed.

The funny thing is pushing fast enough to “miss” as a training technique exists in LE, but in EVOC / pursuit driving rather than firearms. Essentially if you never go off the track you’re not pushing hard enough. Same principle just rarely applied to the accuracy and par time world of LE firearms.

[JCN]

The funny thing is pushing fast enough to “miss” as a training technique exists in LE, but in EVOC / pursuit driving rather than firearms. Essentially if you never go off the track you’re not pushing hard enough. Same principle just rarely applied to the accuracy and par time world of LE firearms.

I love, love, love your real world context!

You’re probably one of the most data informational / observant people on the forum.

So I have a racing background and you’re exactly right.

I’ll give you a personal anecdote in the hopes that it might be helpful in your instruction of either pursuit driving or firearms.

When I was learning to drive on big tracks at speed, I tried to figure out how I could do it safely without going off track and crashing.

So I basically came up with a similar “no penalty miss” for driving.

I pretended that the track was one foot narrower on each side.

You could do this in training with paint lines inside the physical track boundary.

I could do this pretty well with just estimation, but I did run cameras on both rear quarters to get feedback after sessions.

That way I could get feedback of how accurate I was (or wasn’t) without dropping tires off track. I could appreciate the feedback and correction without having to bail out of the run or go salvage safety off track. More learning opportunities when you can get over / under feedback constantly in a lap.

If you’re not free to push the line, you’ll never know where the line is.

The part a lot of people don’t understand is that you can dial it back anytime. But more skill is more skill.

And knowing where your “wobble zone” at speed is, is really important I would think.

[HCM]

I love, love, love your real world context!

You’re probably one of the most data informational / observant people on the forum.

So I have a racing background and you’re exactly right.

I’ll give you a personal anecdote in the hopes that it might be helpful in your instruction of either pursuit driving or firearms.

When I was learning to drive on big tracks at speed, I tried to figure out how I could do it safely without going off track and crashing.

So I basically came up with a similar “no penalty miss” for driving.

I pretended that the track was one foot narrower on each side.

You could do this in training with paint lines inside the physical track boundary.

I could do this pretty well with just estimation, but I did run cameras on both rear quarters to get feedback after sessions.

That way I could get feedback of how accurate I was (or wasn’t) without dropping tires off track. I could appreciate the feedback and correction without having to bail out of the run or go salvage safety off track. More learning opportunities when you can get over / under feedback constantly in a lap.

If you’re not free to push the line, you’ll never know where the line is.

The part a lot of people don’t understand is that you can dial it back anytime. But more skill is more skill.

And knowing where your “wobble zone” at speed is, is really important I would think.

I will stay straight off. I am not a driving instructor, and in my limited experience pursuits are scarier than being shot at, especially if you are a passenger.

That said, I recall some rehired annuitant driving instructors pushing down on the right knee of students hesitant to get on the gas and get after it.

I remember a couple of those guys had racing backgrounds, and one still worked part time as a pit crew member.

Conversely, even back in the 90s, some of our firearms instructors were competition shooters, but that usually meant PPC not USPSA.

[AMC]

What we're discussing here is the difference between 'Training' to improve performance and 'Practicing' an existing standard. I agree that most of the LE Firearms world is stuck in the latter paradigm, for a multitude of reasons....including the quite reasonable emphasis on accuracy and accountability. Ultimately the issue come down to a lack of resources and focus devoted to this area, so your instructors rarely understand the difference between those things, much less the individual officers. The Trainers don't understand how to train.

[HCM]

What we're discussing here is the difference between 'Training' to improve performance and 'Practicing' an existing standard. I agree that most of the LE Firearms world is stuck in the latter paradigm, for a multitude of reasons....including the quite reasonable emphasis on accuracy and accountability. Ultimately the issue come down to a lack of resources and focus devoted to this area, so your instructors rarely understand the difference between those things, much less the individual officers. The Trainers don't understand how to train.

Spot on. All of this ^^^

[Utm]

What we're discussing here is the difference between 'Training' to improve performance and 'Practicing' an existing standard. I agree that most of the LE Firearms world is stuck in the latter paradigm, for a multitude of reasons....including the quite reasonable emphasis on accuracy and accountability. Ultimately the issue come down to a lack of resources and focus devoted to this area, so your instructors rarely understand the difference between those things, much less the individual officers. The Trainers don't understand how to train.

Too many instructors believe adding some form of PT is the best stressor instead of pushing time standards

[JCN]

@HCM
@AMC
@Utm

How many of those guys will stand by the length of time they’ve been trainers…

Pedigrees and all that.

At least in 5 years we will be able to identify them quickly…

They’ll be the only ones shooting irons…. I keed, I keed. I still daily a manual transmission. But I’m not delusional and know a PDK/DCT will smoke the pants off it in performance.

[AMC]

@HCM
@AMC
@Utm

How many of those guys will stand by the length of time they’ve been trainers…

Pedigrees and all that.

At least in 5 years we will be able to identify them quickly…

They’ll be the only ones shooting irons…. I keed, I keed. I still daily a manual transmission. But I’m not delusional and know a PDK/DCT will smoke the pants off it in performance.

Most of them. Many will be shooting Red Dots....but will consider it an "Instructor Level" thing.

[JCN]

Most of them. Many will be shooting Red Dots....but will consider it an "Instructor Level" thing.

I think PF would be overrun with those guys if it weren’t for you guys…

I’m just a gamer, my assessments don’t matter to them.

Even at the LGS, students look at me like I have two heads when I suggest they start with dots over irons…

Agree with you guys that irons is actually the intermediate skill and dots are the basic one.