Gun games
So if you’re sitting there doing the same reps slowly and smoothly over and over, waiting for the magic of speed to somehow come along, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
William Munny and Bill Daggett disagree. But they’re fictional characters.
That is something I know that I need to work on. One of the funnest times I have shooting is slowly squeezing off a round from the Ruger Match Champion at a steel plate at 25 yards. It’s fun. Relaxing. Kind of a zen thing. I’ve had a timer now for several months and should probably blow the dust off of it and get to it.
Obligatory:
April 20th, 2017 at 12:45 am
I competed in USPSA for 2 years before I “got it”. Friends would tell me:
“You go ‘Bang (got that one)… Bang (got that one) Bang (got that one)’. ”
“We go ‘BangBang BangBang’ (I think I got it.)”
After a couple years, I realized … “I CAN GO FASTER!”
So I did. And I wasn’t as accurate as before, but I was faster and the end result is that I got better at shooting accurately under the pressure of time.
Practice is important because you gain experience, and with experience you gain confidence, and with confidence you can miss and still feel good about yourself.
April 20th, 2017 at 7:01 am
Missing is for practice, not for matches.
April 20th, 2017 at 8:33 am
If your training routine is comfortable, you’re doing it wrong.
April 20th, 2017 at 11:35 am
How come there isn’t a competition similar to biathlons (or primitive biathlon) for pistol shooters? Nothing simulates an adrenaline dump better than having to hoof your ass through the snow for a half mile as fast as you can just to get to the first shooting station.
April 20th, 2017 at 12:29 pm
Slow is smooth is true – you have to go slow to learn smooth. If you don’t, there’s a lot of wasted motion that will prevent ever achieving speed.
Smooth however, is NOT fast – it’s just the first step to getting faster.
And as Tam says, you do yourself no favors missing in a match. The key (once you’re smooth) is to go faster in practice until you start to miss, then slow down ONE notch. That’s how fast you should shoot in a match AND in a fight.
April 20th, 2017 at 3:07 pm
I always looked at it as a progression for the new shooter, but I’ve seen people use it as a mantra as well.
I still use it as a baseline tool, but my normal ‘slow’ has changed a lot in the last five years. If I’m helping an acquaintance start out, they’re going to be doing it much slower. When I try a different method of carry, I slow back down to learn the movement the best I can before pushing myself with speed.