TargetTalk

bingd wrote: Just like any sports, practice makes it perfect only to the extent of your determination, your heart to achieve it and of course your endurance...

You need to insert the word Perfect, i.e. perfect practice, or better still perfect training makes perfect. Repeating a bad thing a thousand times makes you extremely proficient at being bad.

Rob.

You are correct with this adjustment of “Perfect practice” Rob. It is only long jorney to accomplish, in order to understand the difference and enhance the set of knowelege and skills to this level.

Amazing, Rob...not that I have really disagreed with you before, but you are dead on with this one.

So many of us keep practicing the wrong thing until we get it perfect. It kind of reminds me of married life.

Rover wrote:Amazing, Rob...not that I have really disagreed with you before, but you are dead on with this one.

So many of us keep practicing the wrong thing until we get it perfect. It kind of reminds me of married life.

‘Wrong” is too strong expession. I can say "incomplete" set of knowelege.
It is not a problem don’t know something. The way of thinking that “I know everythhing" is the problem.

Russ, that's what she said.

Rover wrote:Russ, that's what she said.

Not exactly. There enough available options to learn about shot process for beginner. I have an expression that she experienced enough to explain it in the correct order. :)

So many of us keep practicing the wrong thing until we get it perfect

You need to know the difference between practice and training.
Practice is the complete rehersal of a entire event, match etc. It will include all habits good and bad.
Training is going out and working on a small item of the entire event, match etc.
You are working to improve only one or two things.
Example/ Shooting a Rapid half 8,6,4's is practice.
Shooting the first 2 shots with lift and transion on Rapidfire targets is training.

Thanks David M, I´ll try your "game" next time I'm at the range. Sounds like a great way to add some stress and concentrate on performing good shots.

I´m also aware of the difference between practice and training, even if I do get them mixed up in my writing from time to time :)

Does anyone know more "exercises" like the one that David M described to build some pressure under practicing.

Thanks

I don’t drop in here often but I’m going to go where most won’t. Here are some things that I have done in the past. Some have been helpful and some not. I’ll leave it to you to decide.
1. I have a range in my basement. Sometimes I’ll do what I call “One shot - One time drills” Here is how it works. I’ll be bring the laundry basket up to my waiting wife, I’ll stop pick up the pistol, clear my head and fire one shot, the best shot I can. Then take the basket up stairs. My goal is to turn off whatever I’m thinking of and switch to competition mode and my waiting wife adds the stress. I may do this a dozen time in one day and then not again for a few weeks. Depends how many trips I make past the pistol.
2. Don’t forget dry firing. There are different flavors of dry firing. Here is something that I do. Take a piece of heavy paper cut out about a 6 inch circle. Then take a 6 inch piece of ¼ dowel rod and sand a taper on it so that it will fit into a AP or .22 pistol. Poke the rod though the paper. Now when dry firing you can focus on sight alignment and trigger control. I like this better then the blank wall approach because I find my eye jumping to the wall or I start looking for something to aim at. This keeps your focus on the sights.
I’ll have more later.
JBL

You might want to avoid sandpaper on a piece of wood you're point into your very refined barrel crown. It's something a lot of non-woodworkers miss, that the grit comes off the sandpaper and at least some of it becomes embedded in the softer wood. That grit is always much harder than your barrel steel, and easily able to cause wear to the crown. I'd recommende at least scraping down the dowel taper with a blade to make sure it is just clean wood.

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

In a previous life as a springboard diving coach I used to tell parents of divers that they needed to get their kids to as many competitions as possible. The reason being that while we practiced 10's of thousands of dives in a season, we practiced competing only a few times a year. Many seasoned divers were not seasoned competitors. I'm sure the same is true of any sport. There are those who warm to it quickly and others who do not. Either way practice at competing is essential.

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

Yes it is, if you are bored it is great guideline.

I have some doubts about relation of quantities of participation in competitions and quality of the performance.
Can you inlight me please.

Russ wrote:

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

Yes it is, if you are bored it is great guideline.

I have some doubts about relation of quantities of participation in competitions and quality of the performance.
Can you inlight me please.

Match toughness is not a myth. The more you shoot in competition, and competition like conditions, the easier it gets.

Isabel1130 wrote:

Russ wrote:

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

Yes it is, if you are bored it is great guideline.

I have some doubts about relation of quantities of participation in competitions and quality of the performance.
Can you inlight me please.

Match toughness is not a myth. The more you shoot in competition, and competition like conditions, the easier it gets.

I had a student who was trapped at the level of 540 AP; he was advised as you said: "to compete more". He did about 60 matches in a few years with expectation to improve his score performance. Unfortunately this strategy does not work for him well and sounds counterproductive for me. :(

Technical aspect of the performance cannot be improved by toughness of environment (competitions) ;)

Russ wrote:

Isabel1130 wrote:

Russ wrote:

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

Yes it is, if you are bored it is great guideline.

I have some doubts about relation of quantities of participation in competitions and quality of the performance.
Can you inlight me please.

Match toughness is not a myth. The more you shoot in competition, and competition like conditions, the easier it gets.

I had a student who was trapped at the level of 540 AP; he was advised as you said: "to compete more". He did about 60 matches in a few years with expectation to improve his score performance. Unfortunately this strategy does not work for him well and sounds counterproductive for me. :(

Technical aspect of the performance cannot be improved by toughness of environment (competitions) ;)

Russ, this is known an anecdotal evidence. You had "one" student that this did not work for. Fine, the exception may very well prove the rule.
This works for 90 percent of shooters, and for the ones that it doesn't work for, a sports psychologist may be more helpful, than more shooting or more coaching. Sell the original poster, on your system, not me. I am happy with the way I shoot and the progress I am making.

In this economy, I think quite a few shooting coaches are going to end up starving. I hope you are not one of them.

Isabel1130 wrote:
Russ, this is known an anecdotal evidence. You had "one" student that this did not work for. Fine, the exception may very well prove the rule.
This works for 90 percent of shooters, and for the ones that it doesn't work for, a sports psychologist may be more helpful, than more shooting or more coaching. Sell the original poster, on your system, not me. I am happy with the way I shoot and the progress I am making.

In this economy, I think quite a few shooting coaches are going to end up starving. I hope you are not one of them.

First. What this about? "In this economy, I think quite a few shooting coaches are going to end up starving. I hope you are not one of hem."

Second, "You had "one"".... "I am happy with the way I shoot and the progress I am making."
The way how you shoot you have to disclose completely but not partially. General suggestions good just for recreational activities. You must have to disclose that your recommendation based on your own experience and result may vary from case to case (initial level of performance, age, goal, available time to practice… etc.)

Third. "a sports psychologist may be more helpful"
This is exactly correct advice. When you spent two years practicing by this kind of guidance, only sport psychologist can help. Thank you for your honesty at this time. ;)

Isabel1130 wrote:

Russ wrote:

Isabel1130 wrote:
Start shooting a lot more matches, even if your only competition is yourself, until you are a little tired and a little bored.

Yes it is, if you are bored it is great guideline.

I have some doubts about relation of quantities of participation in competitions and quality of the performance.
Can you inlight me please.

Match toughness is not a myth. The more you shoot in competition, and competition like conditions, the easier it gets.

I totally agree! This is what has happened to me in the past year. The more I shoot the easier it gets... The problem is that I have a hand full of competitions to shoot! :( Hence that road will take much more time to complete, and I know that I can do much better if I can emulate in practice what I feel in competition.

jblphoto,

unfortunately I can't set up a range in my basement, so I'm very jealous of those how have such a chance :) I'll try to work out some scheme to try those one shot wonders.
I dry fire at a smooth blank wall so I don't get any feature to aim at, but I must admit it's not my favorite cup of tea. I much prefer dry fire at a blank target 10m away because the sight picture is more "realistic" to what you get when live firing (minus the dark fuzzy circle).

You might try printing scaled practice targets. I use several at home, between 4 and 7 metres, depending on where it is more practical to set up around my family. Sight picture can be maintained, though obviously point of impact changes... of course for dry fire that won't matter.

There has been some discussion that doing matches improves or helps with coping under pressure of matches, in 95% of cases this is very true, for the last 5% then they need extra help from a sports psychologist, they don't even have to know anything about the given sport as its not shooting thats the issue rather whats between the ears :) Though even those in the 95% group could well gain something from a sports psychologist.

Everyone should be looking at themselves and being honest in how they managed the competition, if their technical process of the shot was good then they are working in the right direction, if not understand what went wrong and IF needed seek outside help. The same goes for mental games, though in most cases these can be sorted through learning to cope through doing more comps or putting yourself under more pressure and learning how to cope.

Try putting a $20 side bet with yourself/wife/partner etc, shot 40 shots, if your average score for 3 shots is 27 points then for every 10 you shoot in those 40 shots recovers $1 at the end of the exercise you have either got your $20 back or you lose it (no $18 or what its zero or hero!!). $20 might sound a lot but if you're only losing a little you might not care, too much and you'll only do it once.

Other mental toughness training could involve making a aluminium plate that covers the target face with a hole drilled allowing only the 9 ring (hole size should be just smaller than your normal/expected good shooting group size for 60 shots). Then shoot a 60 shot match, if you have clean 9's or 10's then thats a great start but if you squeeze off an errant shot that's heading for the 8 or even just a line cutter 9 it'll bounce away leaving you with a miss which will hurt your score loads.

Another thing is no matter how good you are bad days happen, do not beat yourself up over these, rather try to understand what went wrong, what you changed beforehand that could have affected your performance and learn from that.

Every time you shoot, competition, training or practice if you finish and leave having learnt something then you have had a successful session however if you haven't learnt anything at all its a wasted session

"Other mental toughness training could involve making a aluminium plate that covers the target face with a hole drilled allowing only the 9 ring (hole size should be just smaller than your normal/expected good shooting group size for 60 shots). Then shoot a 60 shot match, if you have clean 9's or 10's then thats a great start but if you squeeze off an errant shot that's heading for the 8 or even just a line cutter 9 it'll bounce away leaving you with a miss which will hurt your score loads.

Another thing is no matter how good you are bad days happen, do not beat yourself up over these, rather try to understand what went wrong, what you changed beforehand that could have affected your performance and learn from that.

Every time you shoot, competition, training or practice if you finish and leave having learnt something then you have had a successful session however if you haven't learnt anything at all its a wasted session"