45recoil
likes to party
Wow it's been way too long since I updated this. Well today is the seventh day in which I have dry fired. While knowing I SHOULD practice and the techniques I learned at TDSA taught me the correct way TO shoot, I never could grasp on the HOW of practicing. What to look for during practice that would tell me to move on to the next step or what EXACTLY what was going to happen by doing it one way versus another.
Ive dry fired more this week than I can shamefully admit I have all year and, while shooting a bunch of matches, I never stopped to instill the proper fundamentals. Likewise, the drills I did do were out of Steve Anderson's book, and although a very thorough book, I found myself chasing the timer instead of doing things properly while attempting to increase my speed. This resulted in a consistent level of inconsistency at matches, often times I would do real well on half the stages while tanking the others. Despite this I was able to win these this year. 2nd Place C-class at the Old Fort Shootout and 3rd Place C-class at Area 4.
While this was thrilling for me to receive it also reminded me of a goal I did not accomplish. At the beginning of this year my goal was to place in the top 3 in A-class at Area 4, a far departure of what I was actually able to do. ****!!, Im still in C-class!!! Most of this year I worked on breaking down stages as efficiently as I could and though I did improve in that area, not being able to put the damn bullet where I wanted rendered most stage plans somewhat irrelevant when I would riddle them with misses. Again, it was kickass to get these but they've turned into the jump off point and motivation to get better.
Fast forward to now, and a new practice schedule that I am following. Ive gotten some excellent advice from EG, and he is helping me steer clear of the pitfalls that come with losing focus even in practice. Like I said before I was so busy trying to beat an arbitrary set time that I was losing my fundamentals. So Ive been doing slow, deliberate draw strokes and focusing on every aspect of them, gripping the gun, bringing weakhand to the spot where it will meet the gun, flicking off tumb safety, preppting trigger, pressing out gun, focusing on sight picture and finally breaking the shot. Similarly, Ive been doing the same with the reload. Focusing on looking in the mag and reacquiring the proper grip while prepping the trigger again. As Eric calls them, sub-conscience burn reps, essentially teaching my sub-conscience what it feels like to have the proper grip and do a proper reload. This makes more sense to me now than it ever did before; finishing up this semester of psychology has helped me understand HOW the conscience and sub-conscience work together.
With this new training schedule I am confidently holding true to my previous goal and raising it to 1st place A-Class at Area 4. With the year almost over and it being a slow part of the 'shooting season' I am eager to continue and know this is a prime time to work on what I should have been doing all of this year. I most likely wont be updating this everyday with the same, boring, stale " I did the same **** again today" post. This post is to essentially keep a somewhat, periodic update, I may update monthly or quarterly, who knows. I just know Im ready to get out of C-class. lol.
Ive dry fired more this week than I can shamefully admit I have all year and, while shooting a bunch of matches, I never stopped to instill the proper fundamentals. Likewise, the drills I did do were out of Steve Anderson's book, and although a very thorough book, I found myself chasing the timer instead of doing things properly while attempting to increase my speed. This resulted in a consistent level of inconsistency at matches, often times I would do real well on half the stages while tanking the others. Despite this I was able to win these this year. 2nd Place C-class at the Old Fort Shootout and 3rd Place C-class at Area 4.
While this was thrilling for me to receive it also reminded me of a goal I did not accomplish. At the beginning of this year my goal was to place in the top 3 in A-class at Area 4, a far departure of what I was actually able to do. ****!!, Im still in C-class!!! Most of this year I worked on breaking down stages as efficiently as I could and though I did improve in that area, not being able to put the damn bullet where I wanted rendered most stage plans somewhat irrelevant when I would riddle them with misses. Again, it was kickass to get these but they've turned into the jump off point and motivation to get better.
Fast forward to now, and a new practice schedule that I am following. Ive gotten some excellent advice from EG, and he is helping me steer clear of the pitfalls that come with losing focus even in practice. Like I said before I was so busy trying to beat an arbitrary set time that I was losing my fundamentals. So Ive been doing slow, deliberate draw strokes and focusing on every aspect of them, gripping the gun, bringing weakhand to the spot where it will meet the gun, flicking off tumb safety, preppting trigger, pressing out gun, focusing on sight picture and finally breaking the shot. Similarly, Ive been doing the same with the reload. Focusing on looking in the mag and reacquiring the proper grip while prepping the trigger again. As Eric calls them, sub-conscience burn reps, essentially teaching my sub-conscience what it feels like to have the proper grip and do a proper reload. This makes more sense to me now than it ever did before; finishing up this semester of psychology has helped me understand HOW the conscience and sub-conscience work together.
With this new training schedule I am confidently holding true to my previous goal and raising it to 1st place A-Class at Area 4. With the year almost over and it being a slow part of the 'shooting season' I am eager to continue and know this is a prime time to work on what I should have been doing all of this year. I most likely wont be updating this everyday with the same, boring, stale " I did the same **** again today" post. This post is to essentially keep a somewhat, periodic update, I may update monthly or quarterly, who knows. I just know Im ready to get out of C-class. lol.