Target Focused Shooting

[Gio]

Another interesting data point on reacting to a "stop" signal.

Stage 17 from production nationals in 2022 was a 8 second PAR time stage. A significant number of the production shooters in the match could not finish within the PAR time, so they left targets and shots unfired. Anything over .3 seconds past the PAR time resulted in a procedural penalty. If you scroll down the results (filter by production so we're only looking at pistol shooters) and compare the "NPM" (Non Penalty Mike) column with the "Proc" (Procedural Penalty) column, you'll see how many shooters did not finish the stage, therefore were scored non penalty misses and how many of those incurred a procedural penalty for firing more than .3 seconds after the timer beep.

https://practiscore.com/results/new/184732?q_result=17

90 out of 107 pistol shooters couldn't finish the stage and had to stop at the par time. 4 of those 90 didn't react fast enough to the beep and fired at least 1 extra shot past the .3 seconds. We can break it down even further by classification: not a single GM or M shooter, the shooters with the fastest average split times, fired a shot over the time limit. I would argue that setting an arbitrary, "don't shoot faster than .25 splits because you won't be able to stop shooting," shouldn't be equally applied across all skill levels, and that shooters who can shoot much faster than that, can also stop the shooting much faster.

Again though, we are debating a point that has no legal basis in a real world shooting. If you had the legal justification to engage someone with deadly force, an extra round on the back end that comes out at .25 seconds after they are dropping a weapon or falling to the ground isn't going to turn a legally justified shoot into an unjustified one.

[LukeNCMX]

90 out of 107 pistol shooters couldn't finish the stage and had to stop at the par time. 4 of those 90 didn't react fast enough to the beep and fired at least 1 extra shot past the .3 seconds. We can break it down even further by classification: not a single GM or M shooter, the shooters with the fastest average split times, fired a shot over the time limit. I would argue that setting an arbitrary, "don't shoot faster than .25 splits because you won't be able to stop shooting," shouldn't be equally applied across all skill levels, and that shooters who can shoot much faster than that, can also stop the shooting much faster.

Agreed. The big picture here is that the big group of professional folks who decide training methodologies is populated with people who are not actually good at shooting guns and have never followed a process-based training system consistently until real performance is attained. The whole system is corrupted with ignorant mediocre performer instructors obsessed with limiting the mistakes of bad performers. The studies in this field are full of bad performers and conclusions are improperly drawn from these studies that confirm biases against practical methodologies.

Again though, we are debating a point that has no legal basis in a real world shooting. If you had the legal justification to engage someone with deadly force, an extra round on the back end that comes out at .25 seconds after they are dropping a weapon or falling to the ground isn't going to turn a legally justified shoot into an unjustified one.

Yep.

Graham v. Conner: Use of force judged based on reasonable officer standard with facts known to the shooter at the time of the shooting not with the aid of 20/20 hindsight.
Plumhoff v. Rickard: Number of rounds fired immaterial as long as the use of force was reasonable.


And even if the law changed, the right training methodology would definitely not be to pursue an arbitrary split time.

[GJM]

Agreed. The big picture here is that the big group of professional folks who decide training methodologies is populated with people who are not actually good at shooting guns and have never followed a process-based training system consistently until real performance is attained. The whole system is corrupted with ignorant mediocre performer instructors obsessed with limiting the mistakes of bad performers. The studies in this field are full of bad performers and conclusions are improperly drawn from these studies that confirm biases against practical methodologies.

I don't think this is fair -- not good at shooting to win competitions, or not good at shooting defensively to be successful to win gun fights and train others how to do the same?

[Clusterfrack]

I don't think this is fair -- not good at shooting to win competitions, or not good at shooting defensively to be successful to win gun fights and train others how to do the same?

"A man's got to know his limitations." There have been some really good PSTG podcasts with Matt Pranka, Mike Pannone, and Ben Stoeger about this.

[LukeNCMX]

I don't think this is fair -- not good at shooting to win competitions, or not good at shooting defensively to be successful to win gun fights and train others how to do the same?

I see shooting as shooting and practical shooting style training as being the current best-known process for developing this skill set. Does practical shooting style training cover all the possible challenges a defensive shooting may contain? Of course not but with finite training resources it is the best return on investment, especially for people with lots of room to grow on fundamentals.

Fighting and decision-making are different skill sets that may employ tools such as guns and ideally the gun part of these challenges should be executed subconsciously at a high level. Subconscious skills are best developed in a process-based athletic-type manner i.e. practical shooting methodologies.

[YVK]

For that particular aspect, the first question is not what's the best process but what's the adequate skill set. Yours truly didn't know much about competition, Stoeger, practical shooting style training while scoring 106 at the Rogers school, light pin at Gabe's class, and 5.6 at Ernest's FAST, shooting pistols that I EDC'd. Solely training with the "defensive" type instructors at that time. While hardly impressive in the web-posting department, I'd think that those metrics indicated a level adequate for a defensive gun use.

[JCN]

Agreed. The big picture here is that the big group of professional folks who decide training methodologies is populated with people who are not actually good at shooting guns and have never followed a process-based training system consistently until real performance is attained. The whole system is corrupted with ignorant mediocre performer instructors obsessed with limiting the mistakes of bad performers. The studies in this field are full of bad performers and conclusions are improperly drawn from these studies that confirm biases against practical methodologies.

For that particular aspect, the first question is not what's the best process but what's the adequate skill set. Yours truly didn't know much about competition, Stoeger, practical shooting style training while scoring 106 at the Rogers school, light pin at Gabe's class, and 5.6 at Ernest's FAST, shooting pistols that I EDC'd. Solely training with the "defensive" type instructors at that time. While hardly impressive in the web-posting department, I'd think that those metrics indicated a level adequate for a defensive gun use.

I think you guys are actually saying the same thing (just with slightly different subjective takes on the same objective performance level).

If you say most legacy trainers are stand and shoot B+/A- level and advise students to not exceed B class pace I think that’s consistent with what both of you are saying.

Gaming success outside of classifiers has a lot of game specific skill mastery that might not have much bearing on most civilian self defensive encounters so I agree it’s not necessarily a goal.

Part of the friction is when a legacy trainer doesn’t understand that with more skill than they have, you can do things that they can’t. Ego gets in the way and they change from “this is what you and I should do” to “nobody should exceed this.”

Splits and draws fall into this category of “not understanding that more skill is more skill and having a tool in your tool box doesn’t mean you HAVE to use it.”

[EVP]

I think a lot of this discussion has gotten into the weeds and off track.


We have already had a P-F discussion on this topic awhile back.


Somebody please correct me if I am wrong, in the topic the OP was referencing the discussion was about vision and training. I am paraphrasing, but correctly training your vision and pushing yourself past pre conceived artificial limits opens one to a higher performance envelope. Pranka also said that an engagement does not resemble shooting a match. But there is a lot more control and the shooting part runs in the background since it has been developed to a high level.


This is very similar to the discussion awhile back about if you can shoot .15-.17 splits with high accountability then when you shoot .25-.30 everything is going to be a lot slower and controlled. That is kinda the gist of it.


Again someone please correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think some people have listened to the referenced discussion.







To the OP, I think you are thinking about this correctly about trying and practice all of those different aspects. The more exposure and self discovery of some of these concepts the better IMO.

[nycnoob]

I will jump in with a note about the Nuro system. This is a system
designed to train police/military not to overshoot (to stop shooting
when the threat is gone) and to make other complex decision and
adjust their shooting plan during a fight. I expect that you will see
more about this system in the near future. I used this system at a
John Holschen class in TN last month and I briefly spoke to Melody
Lauer (while she was at the revolver class in VA) who said that she
purchased this system for her classes next year. She also mentioned
using this system for totally different drills then I saw. She was talking
about articulation rather then adjusting the shooting. I know the Neuro
comes with over 300 drills built in.


This system is quire fascinating and is designed to use the latest
brain learning and performance theories to train people to shoot and
to adapt their shooting during the execution of the motor system. It
is a sort of a visual shot timer. There are two lasers (red and
green) which are projected on the target (not into the target area)
and a built in shot timer to hear your shots. The simplest dills are
about stopping shooting (preventing over shooting). I had trouble
keeping this down below the required 0.5 seconds because I had to
split my attention between the place on the target I was trying to hit
and the go/stop signal. So the basic drills are about awareness of the
whole target. And the "rules of engagement" change will each drill.


Later drills are more about multiple targets. The system is networked
and there is a separate laser system for each of three paper
targets. So each target becomes a deadly threat (or not) independently
of the others. The design of this system is for visual signaling and
decision making while shooting.


The claim is that the visual processing system and visual decision
making is quite different then the auditory input system so it is
important to use visual signals through out as this will occur in the
real world. In particular most shooters have a dramatically slower
draw with a visual start signal then they do with an auditory start
signal, though this can be mitigated with practice.


I will say that the whole experience is quite different then executing
a preplanned shooting plan. There is much to keep track of and to
split your attention between. It totally changed my ideas about this
subject (split times and brain capabilities during dynamic
fights). Holchen in particular said that it is difficult to build and
maintain fast split times (I forget what his metric was) and prevent
overshooting. He did say that maintaining a fast draw time on visual start
was easier skill to master and keep current.


The system is now in Beta mode and their first big customer is NY
State police. I do not think they have result in the field of people
who were trained on this system compared to traditional instruction,
but they do have the instructors who used the lesson plan found that
the ordering and the structure of the whole training system produced
better rounded shooters.


You should expect to see more classes using this system for training
soon and expect more police and military to be trained on this
system. I would not be surprised if Force Science or similar does some
studies soon on split times and overshooting as this is one of the
questions that this system was specifically designed to train.



Weems Podcast where I heard about the system
Braintrust Assembled: Dustin Salomon, John Hearne, and John Holschen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy2vB_CTZyY

Books by the system creator about brain training and the ideas behind Nuro
Dustin Salomon
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dustin-Salomon/author/B01CWD17X6

Books also available directly
https://store.buildingshooters.com/

Nuro System is available here though still in Beta mode
https://buildingshooters.com/

John Holschen teaches from here
https://www.westcoastarmorynorth.com/

Melody Lauer teaches from here
https://citizensdefenseresearch.com/instructors/

[nycnoob]

I remember a related anecdote from Holschen's class. I do not
remember who told this story, but the claim was that LAPD instructs
their cadets not to shoot any splits faster than 0.5 seconds. Some of
the instructors at the academy were eager to show off their teaching
skills. They thought 0.5 splits were too slow and could be easily
increased They convinced the brass to let them lower the split times to
0.3, which seemed like a reasonable though slightly faster time.

Evidently this did not last long. After a few officer involved shootings the brass
told the instructors to go back to the older standard of 0.5 second
splits. From what I heard, it was not clear what the brass saw in the
statistics to make them change their mind but they must have seen something
that showed them that 0.3 was too fast for careful shooting.

It was clear to me after using the Nuro that split times on a non changing
target are not the relevant standard to how much brain capacity you
have to shoot splits in a dynamic environment.

I remember one session with the Nuro, that I thought my shooting was
good and that I had kept my over shooting under the 0.5 second
standard, as I had slowed down my shots and was paying attention to all the
relevant signals between shots to know when to stop shooting. I was totally
wrong, and on that shoot I had an overshoot of 1.87 seconds even though
I thought I had payed attention to the stop signals, I was clearly wrong.