Over time, as a shooter improves and learns those helpful techniques, the speed at which a shooter is able to make hits will increase. And once they reach a certain level shooting speed wont necessarily degrade the acceptable accuracy. I agree with all that.
But for the most part with new shooters, that shooting speed is not the gap they are seeing in the scores. It's reloads. It's moving between positions. It's "pie'ing the corner." It's searching for target locations. It's reacting to the buzzer. These things have nothing to do w/ marksmenship, but are probably 75%+ of the gap reflected in the scores. Yet when new shooters talk about scores, invariably it's this "should I shoot faster or be accurate." It's important we separate the skills.
1) Take enough time when shooting to get acceptable hits.
2) Reduce time spent NOT shooting.
The shooting speed will eventually come... but right now, it's probably not the most important thing affecting your score.
-rvb
Interesting statement Ryan.
I confess to using this advice a lot to new shooters.
As a former match director at a USPSA club and a NRA instructor I also held new shooter and beginning competition classes for several years.
I have seen it hundreds of times and I'm sure you have also. A new shooter shows up and squads up and watchs several experienced shooters run the first course of fire. He steps to the line and tries to do what he saw everyone else do and go as fast as the ones before them and fails having several misses. I always try to slow them down some so they can learn the basics. This advice only seems to work for a couple of stages and they speed up and crash again.
It was tough to see a new shooter shoot fast and crash so hard and when the results came out they usually didn't come back.
1) Take enough time when shooting to get acceptable hits.
2) Reduce time spent NOT shooting.
A new shooter needs to worry about SAFETY first and having fun second. If they stay with the sport they will go thru the usual learning curve of speed vs accuracy.
?
I even try to follow that advice, occasionally.
My first shoot provided a number of learning experiences. .... don't load 12 in the magazine even if the magazine will accept that many rounds, don't shoot the targets out of order, don't shoot the targets with the "friendly" hands, . . . . and on . . . and on !
I have thought about writing a book on this
but got it covered here
I just think it takes more than a 2 second sound bite or slogan.
What I typically see is when we tell folks "go slow, get your hits" or "speed will come" or some such well-intended non-specific advice, then they do EVERYTHING slow... as if we told them to play a video back at half speed. Then they get frustrated with their times/scores and they start doing EVERYTHING fast as if they hit the fast-forward button on their DVD player, sight pictures and trigger presses be damned.
The shooting and the non-shooting parts of the sport have to be somewhat issolated.
What I usually tell new shooters is accuracy is king. You have to make your hits. That means some kind of sight picture and a decent trigger press. But it's not a bullseye league so don't over-aim. Break the shot as soon as it's good enough. Rushing here will only save a couple tenths (all washed out by any points down). Whether your "double taps" [cringe] are 0.3s or 0.6s splits won't make a huge difference, so don't focus on it.
-rvb
I agree with everything you said Ryan and it is great advice for a shooter that has shot 3 or 4 matches and has the very basics down and is ready to improve.
...
While it won't hurt anything to explain to a brand new shooter the differance between shooting fast and doing everything else fast. I don't feel that is a big deal to a new shooter.
Safety-fun-get hooked on the shooting games-get better- in that order. IMHO
I have thought about writing a book on this
but got it covered here