Start off by doing what ever Jesse says cause he is the Mayor of 3-gun and the worlds fastest shotgun loader; He said so himself on you tube! As you will notice from his "fastest video", he stares at his holders, at his gun and off into space with a steely eyed determination, If you can master that you are on your way.....well the steely eyed thing anyway. :sarcastichand:
I like to do at least half my practice eyes off, so my advice to a totally new shooter is to practice at least 50% with eyes off/blind, but remember I am not a "professional shooter", nor am I any kind of elected 3-gun official. I have never posted anything on you-tube, nor do I have the money to stay in a Holiday Inn, BUT I did get to eat the ears off a Chocolate Bunny!
As for all these trite sayings about slow/smooth/fast and real application. I will say this, in the progressions proffered, that is THE slowest way to get fast. You have to really push speed right along with everything else or it will take you a very long time to get fast. Every once in a while, like once a month or so, you've got to blow out all the stops, accept the wild misses and dropped shells and just plain blaze! If you don't do this it will take you FOREVER to transfer your "smooth" into fast