Influence of shooter confidence and decisiveness on scores.

[Guest]

Here's a list of scores obtained during training sessions:

Month, Day, Year, Score
==========================
June 20th, 2009 - 528
July 11th, 2009 - 533
July 25th, 2009 - 526
July 29th, 2009 - 531
September 30th, 2009 - 504
September 30th, 2009 - 543
October 9th, 2009 - 527
October 12th, 2009 - 521
October 16th, 2009 - 539
October 24th, 2009 - 537
October 31th, 2009 - 496

Min score: 496 [October, 31]
Max score: 543 [September, 30]
Diff: 43 points
Avrg: 526 points

The only reason to score those training sessions was to keep an eye on the shooter's performance. A difference of 43 points seems unacceptable to me. Looking for a reason of that happening I came up with the idea that I'm too concerned with my scores, thus, sometimes rushing or keep wandering on the aiming area which leads to poor performance. I figure I should totally forget about there being a target behind me, but that seems to be difficult at times. Other times, I rush on the rapid series which leads to poor trigger technique and quirky movements of the sights. More accused is my deliberate aiming on the rapid series which leads to running out of time and it doesn't really improve performance at all.

Any other shooters have experience with this or how to improve confidence in the process of the shot? I somehow believe that "forgetting about the target" would improve my scores. I can be wrong...

[luftskytter-]

I'm shooting at a simliar level, perhaps a little lower these days (AP).
So I'm no expert, but I believe it's possible to "know your accuracy":

My good shots are 10-9.
Something is slightly wrong when i shoot an eight, but it's "acceptable".
Seven need explaining, and anything below is an "accident".

This means I should be satisfied if my sights "stay within" eight all the time when discharging the shot. If I can execute a nice controlled triggerpull while inside this area, my score will be a good deal better than eight average. Maybe close to nine, and that's 540.....

So while you can't wave the gun all over the place, you've got a reasonable range of sight movement which will be acceptable at our level. If you can achieve this without undue stress, I believe the nice slow, but determined execution of the shot is a more important challenge.

Later on, we may need less movement to improve the score, but at present it will just hurt to try sighting a lot better than you can shoot.

[Philadelphia]

I somehow believe that "forgetting about the target" would improve my scores. I can be wrong...

You are not wrong. The hardest part can be the chasm between understanding the advice of, for example, Steve Schwartz or Bill Horton, and really internalizing it and believing it when on the line. I'll take the liberty of repeating a truism Isabel passed along a while back: "Trust Your Hold."

And I think it was Bill who said "Nothing Interesting Happens at the Target."

When shooting for score, a well executed shot is where your shot plan is executed completely and perfectly. Where the shot hits paper is irrelevant (but coincidentally it will be a 10). ;)

[JamesH]

I think many shooters try way too hard to 'improve' their hold while shooting, esp during a match.
It can't be done, your hold depends on the training you did over the last six months.

All you can do is trust that your hold is there, that all being well you will shoot a bell shaped distribution of shots across your area of hold and the total score you get will be reflective of your ability

So as the guy said, with a normal distribution you should hope for 10s and 9s, some 8s and irregular sevens.
Put your trust in statistics!

Try harder and the group opens up.

Concentrate on things you can control, a good warm-up, smooth and steady trigger release, releasing in a timely manner, breathing between shots.
And enjoy it, you do it for fun right?

[RobinC]

James,
Thank you, your last para is one of the best bits of shooting advice I've heard for a long time.
As an experienced shooter who has returned this year after a 20 year break I have been struggling to get the old muscles to work. My trigger and sighting technique came back very quickly and I worked hard on the hold, but as the hold improved the rest fell apart as I tried to conbine the lot! My scores fell as my hold got better. It took me a while for the penny to drop that the hold was as good as it was going to get and I was over fighting it whilst shooting to get an "imposible perfect hold" whist trying to get a "perfect sight picture" and the "perfect trigger release".
Your advice is spot on, the hold is as good as my fitness allows so I now forget it and concentrate on the things in my control, sight picture and trigger, in a general area aim, and voile! The problem is sorted.
Score fixation can be linked to target fixation, by that I mean focusing on the aiming mark instead of the sights. I suggest the guy who raised this tries shooting on a reversed card, i.e. a blank target, it helped me so much that I dropped my sight picture to very close to the bottom of the card to stop me having my vision pulled to the aiming mark.
Best regards
Robin

[David Levene]

Concentrate on things you can control, a good warm-up, smooth and steady trigger release, releasing in a timely manner, breathing between shots.

......the hold is as good as my fitness allows so I now forget it and concentrate on the things in my control, sight picture and trigger, in a general area aim, and voile!

Very well said Gentlemen. There is virtually nothing you can do today to reduce the size of your hold. That was a job for the last few months. "If you ain't brought it with you then don't expect to find it here."

[Steve Swartz as Guest]

amazing change from 6 or so years ago when I first started posting here . . . back then it was HERESY that you had to "accept" your hold and concentrate your efforts on the "effortless, subconscious release inside your wobble area" . . .

David, have you noticed this also?

Has learning occurred =8^) ?????

Fewer and fewer people ask about "how do I hold the gun still" and more and more are asking "how do I relax and break the shot"

[220]

Looking for a reason of that happening I came up with the idea that I'm too concerned with my scores, thus, sometimes rushing or keep wandering on the aiming area which leads to poor performance. I figure I should totally forget about there being a target behind me, but that seems to be difficult at times. Other times, I rush on the rapid series which leads to poor trigger technique and quirky movements of the sights. More accused is my deliberate aiming on the rapid series which leads to running out of time and it doesn't really improve performance at all.

Any other shooters have experience with this or how to improve confidence in the process of the shot? I somehow believe that "forgetting about the target" would improve my scores. I can be wrong...

I suffer from a similar problem as soon as I start thinking about score my shooting goes to pieces. I start thinking about things I shouldn't and until I get back to the basics of trigger and sights it doesn't matter what I try.
It seem the more I want to perform the worse I go as you said forget about there being a target and things improve but doing this is much harder said than achieved.
I think it is a matter of having the confidence to do in competition what you know works in practice despite the voice telling you not to release the shot unless everything is perfect.
Your not alone in your score fluctuations here are my last 3 matches

practice 559
open competition 490
club championships 540

[2650 Plus]

Beware, Steve is back with his subconcious trigger release that I believe is better called the subconcious trigger jerk. Best information about trigger control is IMHO contained in "The Hitch Hikers Guide " posted on our hosts notes about our sport . Stay with steadilly increasing pressure, and intense effort on perfecting sight allignment befopre the pistol fires. Learn what rythem gives you the best control and build your shot plan around that rythem. Test the plan in competition and modify it as necessary until you are capable of shooting winning scores.Keep it simple, Keep it totally positive. And ,if you are much like me ,think your way through each shot. As you know, I am not a proponent of " The no stinking thinking " approach to winning scores. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[David Levene]

I don't think we need another discussion of which is "right"; Steve's subconcious release, Bill's steadily increasing pressure or my concentration on a good trigger release (or any other variation of trigger control).

Can we just agree that the gun is going to move about in the aiming area. Accept that and get on with the shooting.

[jipe]

I don't think we need another discussion of which is "right"; Steve's subconcious release, Bill's steadily increasing pressure or my concentration on a good trigger release (or any other variation of trigger control).

Can we just agree that the gun is going to move about in the aiming area. Accept that and get on with the shooting.

Completely agree with that: accept the wobble wrt to the target, concentrate on keeping your front/rear sights aligned (remember a small sights alignment error will result in a huge error at the target distance/position) and doing the best possible trigger release.

My experience is also that the more you bend your muscles to try to reduce the wobble, the biggest impact any trigger release error will have. Try to keep you full body (everthing from your legs to your hand) dynamic but relaxed.

[Razorback]

remember a small sights alignment error will result in a huge error at the target

That i can’t agree on, i have a 4,5mm front sight and a 4,5mm opening on the rear on my AP that gives me a 1-2-1 ratio. Pressing the front sight all to the right or left in the notch still stay within the 9 around 9.2-9.4 if the release is done right. Give it a try you will be surprised.

[Steve Swartz as Guest]

Ya gotta love it . . .

[FredB]

remember a small sights alignment error will result in a huge error at the target

That i can’t agree on, i have a 4,5mm front sight and a 4,5mm opening on the rear on my AP that gives me a 1-2-1 ratio. Pressing the front sight all to the right or left in the notch still stay within the 9 around 9.2-9.4 if the release is done right. Give it a try you will be surprised.

Actually Skanaker said the same thing in his book. He said in essence that for AP good trigger control was more important than sight alignment, while for FP sight alignment was paramount. Angular error, in relation to parallel error, has much greater consequences at 50M than at 10M.

FredB

[2650 Plus]

I will try to explain my position on subconcious release of the trigger in somewhat more detail. First, there is no way a beginning shooter can expect this technique to work as even Steve has posted a statement that it takes about 10,000 dryfires before it will begin to occur. I contend that developing a shot sequence based on steadily increasing pressure , with that pressure being unconcious may eventually produce a shooting performance that resultts in a group smaller than the shooters ability to hold. However the shooter should not try to force this technique to occur. And even when it does it may not be reliable in competition. The steadily increasing method of trigger control does provide the consistancy to enable a shooter to reach a level where he /she can win matches . Good Shooting Bill Horton

[Isabel1130]

I will try to explain my position on subconcious release of the trigger in somewhat more detail. First, there is no way a beginning shooter can expect this technique to work as even Steve has posted a statement that it takes about 10,000 dryfires before it will begin to occur. I contend that developing a shot sequence based on steadily increasing pressure , with that pressure being unconcious may eventually produce a shooting performance that resultts in a group smaller than the shooters ability to hold. However the shooter should not try to force this technique to occur. And even when it does it may not be reliable in competition. The steadily increasing method of trigger control does provide the consistancy to enable a shooter to reach a level where he /she can win matches . Good Shooting Bill Horton

Bill I actually agree pretty much with both you and Steve. I do believe that the act of pulling the trigger with the sights aligned can become an almost subconcious act but it does not start out that way. I have noticed now that I am capeable of shooting some really great scores as long as I don't get to thinking about it too much. I emphasize the "too much" aspect of the process because thinking "too much" starts letting thoughts other than your hold, sight alignment and trigger control to sneak into the process. I compare the process of competitive shooting to the task of being a performing musician. Both require a lot of focus and fine muscle coordination and neither is something that you can do well without years of practice. Once you have practiced any musical instrument for years, certain aspects of your performance become automatic because of muscle memory and the patterns in your brain that putting your finger in a certain place in a certain way creates a "note" that after years of practice seems almost effortless. You think the playing of that note is subconcious because it is so familiar to you that you don't have to actively think about it, as you did when you were first learning the instrument. The great thing about shooting is that if you have the dedication and commitment you will get to that skill level where it will take a lot of pressure and negative thinking to cause substantial errors in your shot process. After a certain skill level it is always going to come down to who has the best mental prepartation to be able to shoot well in pressure situations, and who is having the better day. My advice is, the only way to learn to shoot big matches is to shoot big matches and shoot them as often as possible. It is the best practice. Isabel

[LeLongCarabine]

i believe grip is the way forward my Hamerlli480k2 has a morini grip which didnt fit fully my scores were reasonable but not great 169 ex200(i have shot AP for about a year now) and the grip was hollow on the inside of my palm so i decided to fix it, purchased a tube of car body filler, mixed the two compounds together smeared it over my hand and gripped the pistol, stood with it in the position i shoot in for what seemed a life time till it set (about 10mins) then peeled my hand off and hey presto a carbon copy of my hand did this a couple of times to build it up fully now my grip is an exact copy even to the lines and creases on my fingers, after it set fully a dremel took off the bits i didnt want now my grip is so good i dont really hold the pistol my hand just locks onto it and my scores have gone up now i have got used to it 180/185 ex 200 on a good day
one word of warning if you havent a high pain threshhold dont try my way because it gets very hot and make sure you soap your hand other wise you 'll be taking your pistol to bed with you for a week or so till the skin grows off
Will

[Guest]

Thank you very much for all your comments. They're all very appreciated and I've learnt a lot from them. I figure it's our conical vision which tricks us into wanting to be über accurate when in fact all it matters is the proper relationship of the iron sights.

I measured my hold by placing black circles of different diameters hanging on the wall then standing next to them in my shooting stance and performing the release of a shot. I found out that my hold can be circunscribed in a circle measuring .472" (12mm).

[2650 Plus]

For Isabel, I cant stop thinking while shooting so I tried to develope a solution to inadvertant thoughts screwing up my shots. I resolved to train my mind to think thoughts the same way on each shot and string of shots and have the thoughts paralel the actions necessary to deliver the shot on target. I found that it was also necessary to think at the same rythem on each shot. It also was necessary that each thought be in the positive form and never in the form of "Dont Jerk the trigger " Instead it had to be a visualization of how the trigger felt when I had a perfect execution of the shot. The thoughts always ended with perfecting sight allignment until after the pistol had fired. I dont know if this will work for others but It proved to be the solution for me. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[alb]

In "Attention and Motor Skill Learning" by Gabriele Wulf, Ph.D, she presents evidence from recent research indicating that an external focus is more effective than an internal one for both motor skill acquisition and performance. Applying this to pistol shooting, this would suggest that focusing your attention on sight alignment and sight picture would be more effective than concentrating on trigger release.

She further indicates that the farther from your own body your focus is, the more effective it is. Perhaps Brian Zins is on to something when he says you should focus on the target, not the dot (red dot sight). You still see the dot of course, but you're seeing it with ambient vision, not focal vision. Focal vision is processed by higher order processes in the cerebral cortex. Ambient vision is processed by lower level processes in the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Both types of vision provide visual proprioceptive feedback, but the feedback loop for focal vision is much slower, allowing only about 3 corrections per second.

And, of course, when we are talking about observing angular displacement, i.e., how far from the center of the target your sight is, the farther away from your body you are focusing, the better you are able to detect angular errors, because the displacement is larger. If you focus on the dot, the target becomes blurry and it's harder to detect and correct for smaller angular errors. If you focus on the target, you still see the dot (not even blurry), and you can detect and correct for smaller errors.

I'm not sure how Steve can achieve a "subconcious trigger release" unless he is focusing his attention on something else. Perhaps he is saying the same thing as everyone else.

Lanny Bassham emphasizes positive imagery, including seeing yourself shooting a 10. If you do this, you are necessarily distracted from focusing on the individual elements of your shot, like trigger release. And, at least for me, seeing myself shooting a 10 causes me to see an image of the 10-ring, which draws my focus to the target, at least momentarily.

Regards,

Al B.