Your natural speed will be slightly faster in a match with the adrenalin pumping, you cannot intentionally speed up and do well, the same goes for intentionally slowing down. You can only shoot as fast as you are prepared to in a match, thoughts of slowing down or speeding up have nothing to do with the shooting, they are distractions.
Slow and steady or short and heavy?
- Thread starter Dan-O-Mite
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Your natural speed will be slightly faster in a match with the adrenalin pumping, you cannot intentionally speed up and do well, the same goes for intentionally slowing down. You can only shoot as fast as you are prepared to in a match, thoughts of slowing down or speeding up have nothing to do with the shooting, they are distractions.
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Well I will have to disagree with you on that one.
Is entirely possible to consciously force yourself to slow down, or push yourself a little harder.
Is it always the best practice?...No
Is it neccesarily a 'distraction'?...that will depend on the shooter. Consciously forcing yourself to slow down a wee bit during a match very often results in more accurate shooting. Your are giving yourself more time to understand everything you are seeing before breaking the shot.
From what I have seen, deliberately 'speeding up' seems to usually result in the opposite result. Less time to process = more misses and dropped points.
In practise I find deliberately slowing myself down for some drills and going hair straight back on others works very well. For instance: I find shooting around barricades difficult so I try to take my time when working on this skill, for shooting with movement I like to really push myself even if it means the odd dropped point, for pure accuracy practice I try to slow down again and ensure the sight picture is clean for every break.....and on and on. My ultimate goal is too keep pushing myself so that during practice session I can push myself as hard as I can without the whole process breaking down. When I see my hits scattering all over the paper I know I have to pull back a bit.
In competition smooth is fast but smooth AND fast is what really gets it done. By practising at 110% and competing at 95-100% the idea is the stages are shot smooth and fast but feel slow to the competitor.
I have had the experience where I shot a stage and felt like I was very slow but I was getting good hits. When I looked at my time I realized I was actually shooting and moving a lot faster than I realized.
IMHO
John
it feels slow because you are paying attention to your sights more so than blindly firing away. I find it (shooting for really good points) may not win the stage,..but keep me up to a top 95% approx. placing. Although sometimes just flying thru a stage and not looking for hits can work out great. I found (in my limited experiences) that up close (3-7m) usually requires very fast draw....splits, smooth transitions and mag changes. You can drop a point here or there,...but fumble the draw and worse the mag changes you will add monumental time. That doesn't mean I would accept a miss,..cause that is a big no-no for any stage.
I understand what you mean here, and I agree. To be thinking of shooting slower would take your focus away from shooting. What I intended to say was that during a match, I try to focus more on my hits and my front sight (which tends to make me slow down a bit), than worrying about how fast I am going. The slowing down is not really intentional, but a result of my trying to be sure and get all my hits.
That said, I do like the 5 yards and in stages on occasion, just to really get the blood pumping.
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I hear what you guys are saying but I have to go with Matt Burkett's opinion on this one.
John
John
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It's true, though. Sure, there are times when I'll go practice a specific skill in a session, but often at Level I matches I will focus on something specific and practice it. Maybe our philosophy out west here is a bit different (or mine is) because Level I matches do not count for anything out here. Only the 14 or so sanctioned Level II matches mean anything.
I wouldn't say that you can get far by shooting Level I matches ONLY. There is a definite need to practice other skills, too, but you're right. Sometimes we just don't have the time to practice properly.
Interesting discussion. Generally, whenever I hit the range for live-fire practice I just let the drills I'm doing that day and the feel I'm getting off them dictate how many rounds I'll fire in that session. It almost always ends up being between 300 and 400 rounds though, for some reason. I guess that I just sort of loose focus if I go much beyond that....maybe because I have the attention span of an ant eater, or perhaps I just suddenly realize how much money I'm burning.
Also, I don't think I can conciously turn my speed up or down. Trying to do so tends to make me think of speed rather than the shot I'm firing "right now," and I start missing targets or overrunning positions or buggering up any number of things that should normally be quite remedial. Instead, I note that if I pay more attention to what I'm seeing, that does affect the outcome. I'm not generally a fast-twitch kind of person and being built like a mailbox on a stick doesn't help either, but I do tend to be a little smoother when I'm paying closer attention to my sights. Smoother runs always net faster times.
Also, I don't think I can conciously turn my speed up or down. Trying to do so tends to make me think of speed rather than the shot I'm firing "right now," and I start missing targets or overrunning positions or buggering up any number of things that should normally be quite remedial. Instead, I note that if I pay more attention to what I'm seeing, that does affect the outcome. I'm not generally a fast-twitch kind of person and being built like a mailbox on a stick doesn't help either, but I do tend to be a little smoother when I'm paying closer attention to my sights. Smoother runs always net faster times.
