Behavioral Metrics
Moderators: pilkguns, m1963, David Levene, Spencer, Richard H
Forum rules
If you wish to make a donation to this forum's operation , it would be greatly appreciated.
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/targettalk?yours=true
If you wish to make a donation to this forum's operation , it would be greatly appreciated.
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/targettalk?yours=true
-
Guest
-
2650 Plus
Metrics
Steve, this was good solid improvement every day of the match. If I were you ,I would stop therorizing and set up a good solid training program based on how you shot your best shots. Just shooting your minimum arc of movement can produce scores 20 points higher than you shot on the last day. As I keeo repeating , Hold the pistol as still as you can, Start the finger moving early so as to time the approximate Firing of the shot while you have best stillness and control . Just give yourself enought time to achieve almost perfect allignment of the sights before the pistol fires. All is well in the shooting world. You done good. Good Shooting Bill Horton
So what did bill do?
Steve, I guess it was short of the ap 565 goal.
I would assume this is what you are training at, which is how you set your goal of 565.
20 points short of training is a solid enough effort, and typical of the plan you used. so I would say the results were as expected.
this would put you in the range of slightly uncomfortable during the comp, but not out of control.
I expect you will continue down the path you are on, hopefully one day you will be ready to ask the right question.
Steve, I guess it was short of the ap 565 goal.
I would assume this is what you are training at, which is how you set your goal of 565.
20 points short of training is a solid enough effort, and typical of the plan you used. so I would say the results were as expected.
this would put you in the range of slightly uncomfortable during the comp, but not out of control.
I expect you will continue down the path you are on, hopefully one day you will be ready to ask the right question.
-
Rifleperson
Didn't shoot the finals?
Steve, did something make you miss the finals? (like having to catch a flight home, medical reason, etc) You shot a score better than some of the finals participants, but you weren't listed in the finals. Just curious. Maybe I don't understand the criteria for choosing finals shooters in pistol.
Much success in your comeback!
Much success in your comeback!
-
2650 Plus
Metrics
Bryan, Bill Stayed home and enjoyed the weather. I'll be 75 years old on 9 july , I've finished with competition as a sholder operation has seriously affected my hold. I am trying to retrain it but with little success so far. The kind of nonsense called trash talk means nothing to me. I, like you have shot the scores and dont have to prove anything. If the shoulder recovers you may hear from me again on the range. Until then I am just another 'has been'. But it has been a wonderful trip getting here. Good Shooting Bill Horton
-
another guest
-
Steve Swartz
- Posts: 444
- Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 8:06 am
- Location: Auburn, AL
Summary and Lessons Learned
FP1: PANET (4/10/38/18/70) @ (10/26/14/6/4)
FP2: PANET (6/16/49/11/76) @ (13/27/10/8/2)
AP1: PANET (9/33/42/9/93) @ (18/33/9)
AP2: PANET (2/30/43/15/90) @ (18/30/10/2)
- I did not achieve my behavioral goals
-- Focusing on behaviors explicitly took some getting used to
-- Some technical issues need to be sorted out
- Behavioral focus difficulties
-- Issue of malleable standards (what makes an execution "Perfect" vs. "Nominal" vs "Error"?
-- Putting gun down more is a good skill to develop; as fundamentals improve the aborts will decrease but in the meantime high number of aborts takes its toll
-- Difference between levels of proficiency and effectiveness of behavioral focus of training an open question- it may help struggling mid-level shooters more/less than plateauing near world class shooters
- Training Issues
-- Tie behavioral focus to individual technique elements
--- What specific "behaviors" to focus on/measure
--- Which drills to stimulate progress on each element/behavior
-- Match behavioral "weak points" to specific drills to training plan
For training isues, two tools to help organize training effort
First, just by focusing on the specific elements, yoiu become more aware of them and can spend more training time on them ("target of opportunity" approach).
Second, perform a formal diagnostic evaluation weekly and dedicate specific training focus for the next week on element(s) needing the most work.
Back to training!
Hope this shared journey/experiment provided some food for thought for everyone.
More to come . . .
FP1: PANET (4/10/38/18/70) @ (10/26/14/6/4)
FP2: PANET (6/16/49/11/76) @ (13/27/10/8/2)
AP1: PANET (9/33/42/9/93) @ (18/33/9)
AP2: PANET (2/30/43/15/90) @ (18/30/10/2)
- I did not achieve my behavioral goals
-- Focusing on behaviors explicitly took some getting used to
-- Some technical issues need to be sorted out
- Behavioral focus difficulties
-- Issue of malleable standards (what makes an execution "Perfect" vs. "Nominal" vs "Error"?
-- Putting gun down more is a good skill to develop; as fundamentals improve the aborts will decrease but in the meantime high number of aborts takes its toll
-- Difference between levels of proficiency and effectiveness of behavioral focus of training an open question- it may help struggling mid-level shooters more/less than plateauing near world class shooters
- Training Issues
-- Tie behavioral focus to individual technique elements
--- What specific "behaviors" to focus on/measure
--- Which drills to stimulate progress on each element/behavior
-- Match behavioral "weak points" to specific drills to training plan
For training isues, two tools to help organize training effort
First, just by focusing on the specific elements, yoiu become more aware of them and can spend more training time on them ("target of opportunity" approach).
Second, perform a formal diagnostic evaluation weekly and dedicate specific training focus for the next week on element(s) needing the most work.
Back to training!
Hope this shared journey/experiment provided some food for thought for everyone.
More to come . . .
-
gordonfriesen
- Posts: 97
- Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:31 pm
First of all, Bravo Steve! Congratulations on a lot of hard work, and a standard of acheivement which is excellent for any normal human being. (If you don't believe me, just put any one of your targets over your chest and tell me who had the last word!)
Now, A little while back we had this from a "guest" with which
I quite agree:
But I think that if your tens are less than fifty percent, then you should be counting nines, or even eights if that is what it takes. The idea is first to identify honestly your level, and not to define success so narrowly that you are always bound to fail. First and foremost in building a mental edge is confidence and feeling good about your shooting. There should always be more praise than criticism.
In my case, I almost always have (some days just barely) most of my shots inside the nine. This is normal for me. Therefore the feeling of what it is to shoot a nine or ten is also normal. This is another reason why one should measure at one's true level. You get lots of chances to reinforce
something that is happenning more than half the time. Often I have the impression, "that shot went off ok, I have no idea where it went, but it went off right." I don't even look to see.
Results of individual shots just confuse the issue. There is no point in wondering or reinforcing why an individual shot hit the middle, particularly at lower skill levels. What is much more promising is looking to identify which class of your regular normal shots is producing that reliable percentage of three or four tens per target. But focus on the tens is unnessecarily stressful for those for us in "development".
It should be obvious that one more shot in the nine ring will increase also the numvber of tens, and dramatically raise the score of a whole match. Therefore I favor reinforcing those behaviors you know you can reliably acheive, not the odd super performance, and that this method will bring
the super performance more often.
I also have a point about the bad shots. People talk about ignoring them and focusing only on the good. I can't subscribe to that, because to improve, you have to identify what you are doing wrong. And this also is
going to be a case of identifying what you do wrong regularly, not occaisionally. In my notebook, for each target, I record the percentage of nines, and I record each shot outside, giving its clock position. I also record its distance, but that is much less important. As it turns out, I have
something like 30-40% of my errors at 1:30. It is obviously a good thing if I know exactly what it feels like to make that shot. In the short term it is great to recognize and abort. (Hat's off here to Mark Briggs eating raw meat with the dogs in his canadian igloo:).
In the long term, hopefully I can learn to always make the subtle little changes to muscle pressure which normally (already now) make that particular wrist flip impossible. In any case, I can't see how just ignoring
something in my grip which is regularly producing snow bunnies can be a good idea.
Putting these two things together, the positive and the negative, I think Steve is aborting way too many shots. There is no point in aborting normal shots. And normal shots are by definition over 50%. Let's give the benefit of the doubt, that a shot is normal (which seems essential to avoid a paralyzing hesitation). Then it would seem reasonable to exercise the veto only two or at most three times per target.
On a sixty shot match, this would be twelve to eighteen aborts. And once again, what happens at any particular taget is irrelevant. It is only over time that you can say what percent you are aborting. At some point you might feel your scores are going up or down because you are aborting more or less. And then you could adjust. But like the knob on the telescope, the best adjustment is minimal. Overcompesation is the enemy of meaningful adjustment (did your mother ever figure out how to use a thermostat?)
Anyway, I would streamline Steve's system as follows:
Perfect becomes normal/good And is defined as at least 50%
Abort is still abort and the number of times is significant, but
should not exceed three in ten
errors, by definition once again (reflecting higher standards as
time goes on) will always be 30-40%. Identify their position
for later pattern analysis.
Therefore, a regular day at the range firing sixty shots should
look like this: Normal 36 Abort 15 Bad 24 Total 75
When the normal number rises consistently, it is time to
change your definition of what is normal for you.
Score (preaching to the choir here) is not particularly helpful, because the variations in score with percentage of good and bad shots give only a rough correspondence. On the other hand, improving percentages and standards of good/bad will clearly be accompanied by higher scores.
So, Steve (and others) what do you say of this streamlined
and realisticaly normalized approach?
Best Regards,
Gordon
Now, A little while back we had this from a "guest" with which
I quite agree:
Anonymous wrote:Take a step back and look at the larger picture. ...Think in terms of group. If you have to think about math try calculating a percentage of tens. make 50% your base line. Or maybe 35-40% at your level.
But I think that if your tens are less than fifty percent, then you should be counting nines, or even eights if that is what it takes. The idea is first to identify honestly your level, and not to define success so narrowly that you are always bound to fail. First and foremost in building a mental edge is confidence and feeling good about your shooting. There should always be more praise than criticism.
In my case, I almost always have (some days just barely) most of my shots inside the nine. This is normal for me. Therefore the feeling of what it is to shoot a nine or ten is also normal. This is another reason why one should measure at one's true level. You get lots of chances to reinforce
something that is happenning more than half the time. Often I have the impression, "that shot went off ok, I have no idea where it went, but it went off right." I don't even look to see.
Results of individual shots just confuse the issue. There is no point in wondering or reinforcing why an individual shot hit the middle, particularly at lower skill levels. What is much more promising is looking to identify which class of your regular normal shots is producing that reliable percentage of three or four tens per target. But focus on the tens is unnessecarily stressful for those for us in "development".
It should be obvious that one more shot in the nine ring will increase also the numvber of tens, and dramatically raise the score of a whole match. Therefore I favor reinforcing those behaviors you know you can reliably acheive, not the odd super performance, and that this method will bring
the super performance more often.
I also have a point about the bad shots. People talk about ignoring them and focusing only on the good. I can't subscribe to that, because to improve, you have to identify what you are doing wrong. And this also is
going to be a case of identifying what you do wrong regularly, not occaisionally. In my notebook, for each target, I record the percentage of nines, and I record each shot outside, giving its clock position. I also record its distance, but that is much less important. As it turns out, I have
something like 30-40% of my errors at 1:30. It is obviously a good thing if I know exactly what it feels like to make that shot. In the short term it is great to recognize and abort. (Hat's off here to Mark Briggs eating raw meat with the dogs in his canadian igloo:).
In the long term, hopefully I can learn to always make the subtle little changes to muscle pressure which normally (already now) make that particular wrist flip impossible. In any case, I can't see how just ignoring
something in my grip which is regularly producing snow bunnies can be a good idea.
Putting these two things together, the positive and the negative, I think Steve is aborting way too many shots. There is no point in aborting normal shots. And normal shots are by definition over 50%. Let's give the benefit of the doubt, that a shot is normal (which seems essential to avoid a paralyzing hesitation). Then it would seem reasonable to exercise the veto only two or at most three times per target.
On a sixty shot match, this would be twelve to eighteen aborts. And once again, what happens at any particular taget is irrelevant. It is only over time that you can say what percent you are aborting. At some point you might feel your scores are going up or down because you are aborting more or less. And then you could adjust. But like the knob on the telescope, the best adjustment is minimal. Overcompesation is the enemy of meaningful adjustment (did your mother ever figure out how to use a thermostat?)
Anyway, I would streamline Steve's system as follows:
Perfect becomes normal/good And is defined as at least 50%
Abort is still abort and the number of times is significant, but
should not exceed three in ten
errors, by definition once again (reflecting higher standards as
time goes on) will always be 30-40%. Identify their position
for later pattern analysis.
Therefore, a regular day at the range firing sixty shots should
look like this: Normal 36 Abort 15 Bad 24 Total 75
When the normal number rises consistently, it is time to
change your definition of what is normal for you.
Score (preaching to the choir here) is not particularly helpful, because the variations in score with percentage of good and bad shots give only a rough correspondence. On the other hand, improving percentages and standards of good/bad will clearly be accompanied by higher scores.
So, Steve (and others) what do you say of this streamlined
and realisticaly normalized approach?
Best Regards,
Gordon
-
Guest
-
zorro
-
Steve Swartz
- Posts: 444
- Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 8:06 am
- Location: Auburn, AL
Anonymous Guest:
I'm not sure what shot plan you are referring to?
Mine is very simple. I suppose we could all go in that direction (new thread please) if you're interested.
The training pyramid, training drills, and training plan stuff I have been throwing out on the board for comment (the complicated, "cerebral" stuff) is for, well, training.
Just because something is "simple" (align, settle, pressure) doesn't mean it is necessarily "easy."
(One thing the USMC unit used to do is to have shooters write out a long detailed list of exactly everything you had to do to shoot a ten . . . ran into pages for some of the best shooters . . . then they would have them boil it down over a bout a week to three critical "summary" things. Of course, they also used to preach that: "There is only ONE thing you have to do to shoot a perfect shot- Align the sights, settle in your aiming area, and apply perfect pressure the trigger!"
I'm not sure what shot plan you are referring to?
Mine is very simple. I suppose we could all go in that direction (new thread please) if you're interested.
The training pyramid, training drills, and training plan stuff I have been throwing out on the board for comment (the complicated, "cerebral" stuff) is for, well, training.
Just because something is "simple" (align, settle, pressure) doesn't mean it is necessarily "easy."
(One thing the USMC unit used to do is to have shooters write out a long detailed list of exactly everything you had to do to shoot a ten . . . ran into pages for some of the best shooters . . . then they would have them boil it down over a bout a week to three critical "summary" things. Of course, they also used to preach that: "There is only ONE thing you have to do to shoot a perfect shot- Align the sights, settle in your aiming area, and apply perfect pressure the trigger!"
Just because something is "simple" (align, settle, pressure) doesn't mean it is necessarily "easy."
(... the USMC unit ...boil it down ...."There is only ONE thing you have to do to shoot a perfect shot- Align the sights, settle in your aiming area, and apply perfect pressure the trigger!"[/quote]
Boil those three things down one more level and you have a single process with one mental signal behind it.
(... the USMC unit ...boil it down ...."There is only ONE thing you have to do to shoot a perfect shot- Align the sights, settle in your aiming area, and apply perfect pressure the trigger!"[/quote]
Boil those three things down one more level and you have a single process with one mental signal behind it.
-
2650 Plus
Squeese, Hold and alignment the sights
Most of you are setting up for failure, You allign the sights then establise your hold then start the finger moving. All to often this sequence results in destroying sight allignment with the trigger finger. And even worse it may extend your concentration beyond the breaking point, and cause your eyes to tire beyond where they can really see the sight. I refer to the burn in that occures when you stare at a small object for too long. Furthemore , by using the sequence I have described , your mentel precess moves from trigger [then forgetting it] to steading your hold in the aiming area, [then forgetting that] and finally to what is by far the most important element of controling the performance. Total focus , Both mental and physical on perfecting sight allignment until after the shot fires. Try it, I think you will be pleased with the results. Good Shooting Bill Horton Beware the SST No one of us has all the Knowledge available to them in this sport
Re: Squeese, Hold and alignment the sights
It's the interpretation of language , Bill. I venture to say your "trigger [then forgetting it]...hold in the aiming area, [then forgetting that]...Total focus " is pretty much equal to my "things you do" (behaviours) turned into a process, and "one mental signal" (focus)2650 Plus wrote:Most of you are setting up for failure, You allign the sights then establise your hold then start the finger moving. All to often this sequence results in destroying sight allignment with the trigger finger. And even worse it may extend your concentration beyond the breaking point, and cause your eyes to tire beyond where they can really see the sight. I refer to the burn in that occures when you stare at a small object for too long. Furthemore , by using the sequence I have described , your mentel precess moves from trigger [then forgetting it] to steading your hold in the aiming area, [then forgetting that] and finally to what is by far the most important element of controling the performance. Total focus , Both mental and physical on perfecting sight allignment until after the shot fires. Try it, I think you will be pleased with the results. Good Shooting Bill Horton Beware the SST No one of us has all the Knowledge available to them in this sport
My saying "one mental signal" refers to something singular in my mind that keeps the process going on track. Some people mean the same thing when they say a mantra word to keep focused.
This immediate shot process I compare to the baseball pitcher who establishes his "set" position, and then if all is ready, performs a process of the windup, throw, release, and followthrough - with a flowing motion. No balks. And he no doubt has a singular focus all the while during this 1-2 seconds time.
What is the "SST"?
-
2650 Plus
Metrics
JackS you are right , in my opinion concerning flow from one step to the next in the sequence of firing the shot. Please read again the sequencing I propose. Note that I believe it allows for more perfect flow than starting the trigger moving last. I am convinced that the process is made more difficult because of the distraction occuring with the late start because you no longer have total comcentration on sight allignment during the most critical period of the process. You might also take a look at the European studies indicating a very sucessful trend toward having the shot break within one to two seconds after the settle has occurred.. I'm not sure what that means with the heavior trigger pulls we use in NRA Three gun But I do believe that all is not yot known or understood about how we do our sport. I even hope Steve is on to a real breakthrough but it does not seem to have met the test of time as yet. SST [Steve Swartz Troops] Good Shooting Bill Horton