Why We Really Miss - Revisited

[Coach]

He said he was taught 60 primary, 40 support, but he doesn't like that and instead prefers to say 100% from both hands - strongest grip you can comfortably have without affecting the ability to run the gun.

Thanks. I know what he said. My point was that normally the 60/40 description is used to describe 60% coming from the weak hand not the strong hand. His description of what he does not like is backwards to what is normally said. I am wondering if he mis-spoke about that.

 

[rhino]

I get you, rhino. I think maybe sometimes I get mis-understood for being only a "precision" minded shooter, when that is very much not the case, nor was it really my background.

I'm just making sure the other point is equally expressed.

It is WAY on easier teach a new(er) shooter how to execute a trigger squeeze appropriately and get good hits (and then get them to do it faster)...

...than it is to get a trigger "slapper" to slow the F down and learn how to get lead on steel/paper/meat in the first place. Truly, there can be on substitute for hits, and I know you won't disagree with me on that.


Slow and accurate, then build speed, and only LAST should a developing shooter begin to investigate alternative methods to gain more of factor "X" at acceptable expense to "Y" (best example being speed v. accuracy). Some of you (us?) are well into stage 3 there, but there are a helluva lot of shooters that read this site that may not be.
-Nate

Yeah, for most people that is true. I've seen examples of the opposite, though, where someone goes like a bat outta hell from the first buzzer and then over time they learned how to hit where they intended pretty well.

I think the biggest problem for either side is the error of thinking of it as either accuracy or speed, when it should be accuracy and speed. The former leads to the mistake of thinking that going slower will make a person shoot more accurately. The only thing that will make a person shoot more accurately is to . . . shoot more accurately (usually by means of executing the fundamentals correctly and that may or may not take more time). If you can't do the fundamentals, slowing down will just make you inaccurate and slow. It's tough to get people to understand that it's not about slowing down, but rather about waiting until you see what you need to see before you press the trigger, but not any longer than that.

 

[rhino]

Thanks. I know what he said. My point was that normally the 60/40 description is used to describe 60% coming from the weak hand not the strong hand. His description of what he does not like is backwards to what is normally said. I am wondering if he mis-spoke about that.

Given how he was probably trained initially, I think it's plausible that someone actual taught him to grip harder with his strong hand, but just misspeaking is more likely.

 

[cedartop]

Yeah, for most people that is true. I've seen examples of the opposite, though, where someone goes like a bat outta hell from the first buzzer and then over time they learned how to hit where they intended pretty well.

I think the biggest problem for either side is the error of thinking of it as either accuracy or speed, when it should be accuracy and speed. The former leads to the mistake of thinking that going slower will make a person shoot more accurately. The only thing that will make a person shoot more accurately is to . . . shoot more accurately (usually by means of executing the fundamentals correctly and that may or may not take more time). If you can't do the fundamentals, slowing down will just make you inaccurate and slow. It's tough to get people to understand that it's not about slowing down, but rather about waiting until you see what you need to see before you press the trigger, but not any longer than that.

Exactly. Though I think natdscott's statement is conventional wisdom, I don't think it is always true. I have seen a number of people, myself included, who are accurate (defined for our purposes here, not bullseye shooting) but have problems going fast. IIRC Ben Stoeger talks about this in one of his books. There was a forward by a bullseye shooter who had a heck of a time in action pistol because he found it very difficult to "just speed up".

 

[Topshot]

Given how he was probably trained initially, I think it's plausible that someone actual taught him to grip harder with his strong hand, but just misspeaking is more likely.

He did it consistently then. He also said he was later taught primary was like a firm man shake and secondary was like shaking a woman's hand, which was easier for him to understand than %s. Inuititively, more on the primary is what I would have expected also. Never having any formal instruction I've always gripped harder with primary hand. I'd never heard otherwise until this thread, but I was watching another video yesterday where Matt McLearn said 40/60.

Seems to be lots of schools of thought on how to shoot combat pistol "right". Aaron said don't lock your elbows so you can press inward on the gun more. Then I also watched some videos from John Lovell last night where he says you should lock your elbows. He also rotates his secondary arm inward to assist in locking the gun in place. Of course, everyone is different so there are different ways to accomplish the same thing. There were certainly several Olympic rifle shooters with unorthodox form that still managed to be fairly successful.

 

[natdscott]

I think the biggest problem for either side is the error of thinking of it as either accuracy or speed, when it should be accuracy and speed. The former leads to the mistake of thinking that going slower will make a person shoot more accurately. The only thing that will make a person shoot more accurately is to . . . shoot more accurately (usually by means of executing the fundamentals correctly and that may or may not take more time). If you can't do the fundamentals, slowing down will just make you inaccurate and slow. It's tough to get people to understand that it's not about slowing down, but rather about waiting until you see what you need to see before you press the trigger, but not any longer than that.

Man oh man, there's a lot of good in that paragraph. I just wanted to make sure people see it again.

...natdscott's statement is conventional wisdom, I don't think it is always true.

There was a forward by a bullseye shooter who had a heck of a time in action pistol because he found it very difficult to "just speed up".

My statement is incontrovertibly conventional. The only thing is that even conventional methods--though proven true/best most of the time--are never 100% true. I am a good example. I didn't grow up target shooting in any way, much less precision. Most of my targets revolved around things with fur and teeth, but I did have shooting mentors that took it very seriously and emphasized the significance of that one round in the chamber at a time.

As far as that Bullseye thing. I agree. It's been seen over and over again that slow fire 50y does not very easily translate to 2+ shots/second centermass at 4-15 yards with numerous transitions. Even the manner in which both sports conduct reloads is absolutely opposed (and by my way of thinking, the "reload" in Bullseye teaches all the WRONG things for what was originally intended as a military training regimen).

Of course, everyone is different so there are different ways to accomplish the same thing. There were certainly several Olympic rifle shooters with unorthodox form that still managed to be fairly successful.

I totally agree. When you get to the top end of performance (let's say..95% or higher) in a given task, each individual usually really has to start examining the way they do things to get even the next 0.1% or 0.5%. Breaking the plateaus in most of these sports to get to the 99% clouds is a helluva lot harder than the 85-95%, and that is largely because there are few-to-no conventions that get you there.

But for everybody else just trying to learn to the 90-95% level, conventional is best, and with kids I teach, there is NO flexibility from these methods until they have solid footing and have been well educated off the range as well. They do often think they "know what's up", "shoot better than me", etc., and that's fine...confidence is KING...but it has to be ridden on a very fine line.

Coaching is hard.

-Nate

 

[Twangbanger]

...I think the biggest problem for either side is the error of thinking of it as either accuracy or speed, when it should be accuracy and speed. The former leads to the mistake of thinking that going slower will make a person shoot more accurately. The only thing that will make a person shoot more accurately is to . . . shoot more accurately (usually by means of executing the fundamentals correctly and that may or may not take more time).

If you can't do the fundamentals, slowing down will just make you inaccurate and slow. It's tough to get people to understand that it's not about slowing down, but rather about waiting until you see what you need to see before you press the trigger, but not any longer than that.

I don't know if I totally buy the red part. The fundamentals of going fast, and going slow, are not the same. Slowing down and switching to a different set of fundamentals may be required, if a person is not "there yet" with their slapping technique. For some beginners, knowing the exact instant when the shot is going to break makes it impossible for them to break a clean shot, at their current level of ability.

But I think I get what you're saying. I've heard some good USPSA shooters, for example, state that the solution to the "accuracy problem" is never, ever to slow down, "all that does is make you slow." But it's not even true by their own behavior...because they don't shoot all types of stages at the same speed. I've never seen a good shooter in that sport who makes absolutely no allowance in speed for the distance of the shot, the amount of target cover / exposure, etc. Everybody slows down for certain types of shots. It's unavoidable. "Slowing down" might not be the "answer," in itself, but...for real human beings with real limitations, it's almost always _part_ of the answer, when the difficulty level of the shots gets high enough. It's unavoidable. Everybody has some "line in the sand" of difficulty level, where they are required to slow down to make the shot. It may vary according to their fundamentals strength and difficulty of the shot, but it's there.

 

[JMitch]

The slower speed would be a byproduct of of seeing what you need to see to get the hit. Now if only I could do that.... To get speed and accuracy.

DVC

 

[Coach]

Seeing what you need to see, which is the Brian Enos theme, is a good way to approach shooting. A slower speed on a distant target or a smaller target than compared to a target that is large and close. Does not equate to slow or slowing down necessarily. Different targets are going to require varying degrees of visual information and precision of trigger press.

Seeing what you need to see may seem slower but the timer usually says differently. The best shooting happens when you can be tuned into the front sight and drive it across the array or the stage. There is no time for a speed focus when that is happening and the results are normally very good.

Slowing down does not usually help my performance. I can screw up slow or fast. Executing a good trigger press is where my focus needs to be.

 

[rhino]

2018 would be a good year for us to make "wait until you see what you need to see" replace "slow down" in both the words people use and the concepts in their brains.

 

[Coach]

2018 would be a good year for us to make "wait until you see what you need to see" replace "slow down" in both the words people use and the concepts in their brains.

I vote for leave the wait off. Just see it.

 

[rhino]

I vote for leave the wait off. Just see it.

That's reasonable.

 

[GIJEW]

FWIW When I was shooting NRA "high power" and CMP matches, I experimented a bit with pinning the trigger back and found it to be akin to the traditional knock on "slapping the trigger", just from the opposite end.

A 1911 with a tuned trigger with 0% over travel would be the exception

 

[Tanfodude]

Why we miss? Well, for me, I don't have 5-10k rounds a month to practice. LOL. But seriously, it's just practice. Not really that complicated. If you already know the basics of gun handling, repetitions of the correct technique will make it better. The top shooters didn't get to where they are by doing what we're doing, which is nothing or just here and there. They spend hours of dry and live firing, thousands of rounds, self diagnosing. And if they already have the natural abilities, then the faster they improve.

 

[rhino]

Why we miss? Well, for me, I don't have 5-10k rounds a month to practice. LOL. But seriously, it's just practice. Not really that complicated. If you already know the basics of gun handling, repetitions of the correct technique will make it better. The top shooters didn't get to where they are by doing what we're doing, which is nothing or just here and there. They spend hours of dry and live firing, thousands of rounds, self diagnosing. And if they already have the natural abilities, then the faster they improve.

Which is exactly what we're discussing. If a shooter believes that he is missing because he's not using the sights, but it's really because he's allowing the gun to move out of alignment with the target before the bullet exits the barrel, then practicing looking at his sights before he presses the trigger is not going to be all that helpful. Practice is essential, but you have to know how. Some people arrive at the destination intuitively, but many don't. Even those who master marksmanship on their own would probably get there sooner if they truly understood what they needed to do and better ways to accomplish it.

 

[Twangbanger]

Which is exactly what we're discussing. If a shooter believes that he is missing because he's not using the sights, but it's really because he's allowing the gun to move out of alignment with the target before the bullet exits the barrel, then practicing looking at his sights before he presses the trigger is not going to be all that helpful...

This is a good point, right here, and it's part of the problem with the "see what you need to see" school of thought on missing. Back to USPSA as our example; most stages are Comstock, meaning you have the option of makeup shots to cover for misses. If you have Mikes, and say you didn't see what you needed to...bullshot. If you "knew" you didn't see what you needed to, why didn't you make it up? You walked away from that stage with bullets left in the mag, thinking you had the hits, then walked down and said "Ah crap." If "I didn't see what I needed to see" was really the whole explanation, Mikes should be extremely rare. And yet we do it more often than we should. Yes, it's possible that with distance and cover, you thought your alignment was "good enough" and it wasn't, even though you did everything else right. And it's possible you just didn't use the sights; but it's also possible you "lost" the hit after your brain gave the command to fire.

So that's why we have to be careful with the "see what you need to see" explanation. Because it's not all there is to it. There are various possible reasons you think you saw a "hit" on a Comstock stage, yet it didn't materialize on the paper. Because you don't know what you don't know, for various possible reasons.

 

[JMitch]

Very good points made in the posts above. For me calling the shot is part of the “seeing what is necissary” equation and sometimes we catch errors in trigger control or sight alignment and make up the shot. I often fail to call them due to target focus at close range or time pressure. I know what needs to be done it’s the execution that needs work. I appreciate any feedback.

 

[Coach]

Seeing what you need to see involves a number of things. Seeing the front sight lift from the target on each and every shot for example. If I see the sights on target as the brain issues the command to fire but I am not patient enough to see the sight lift in recoil I can certainly miss. If I start moving the gun before the sight lifts even if the sights were perfectly aligned and I press the trigger perfectly I will still pull off and miss.

Seeing what you need to see involves:
Enough sight picture to hit the target of that size and distance (assuming a good trigger press) because a 3 yard target does not need the effort of a 25 yard target.
Seeing the sight lift, aka calling the shot, so I know when to press the trigger again or to move the gun to the next target.
Focus on the front sight and watching the front sight, this helps eliminate things like eye sprinting.