TargetTalk

In an attempt to keep a record that will show trends/progress in my 10M AP target shooting I have made up an Excel spreadsheet. Each Card shot has the following data input to the Spread Sheet:-
Date
Place
Number of Shots
Time taken to shoot card
Group size (dimension of longest axis)
Link to scanned image of Target
Number of shots in Rings 10,9,8,7,6, other
Match score
Remarks
From this data the Spread Sheet works out the score per Card and the distribution of scores in each ring as cumulative values. This derived data is displayed both in tabular and graphical forms making it easy to see trends.

Can anyone suggest any other data that I should record and perhaps other outputs that I could derive from the input?

OR

Am I just engaging in an other form of Compulsive Disorder?

Red = edited in

Yes, it's OCD.

You will see the greatest jump in your scores when you eliminate the "bads" that cause you to shoot the 6, 7, and 8s. After that your progress will be much slower, but you'll be winning most matches.

temp, humidity, pellets, anything that might indicate a trend-like do your shots tend to wander later in the match and other specific comments.

(I race 2 stroke GP bikes and we keep track of Everything)

Joel

I've done research on this and determined that you need to track the positive. I put together something to track the number of 10's I shoot for 10-shot series.

This allows you to graph the increase in quantity of the only things that matter.

I have a spreadsheet I use made with openoffice that tracks my AP shooting. I shoot 5 shots per target, and keep them in order, then go home and enter the 60 shots. The spreadsheet then shows me some graphs and trends.

For me, the most valuable insight I gained was a recurring pattern of very poor shots occurring in the 30-40 shot sequence. I realized that during that period fatigue was setting in, but I would tend not to notice and not make the adjustments until I would notice a bad shot. So now before the problem occurs, I take a longer pause around that time, stretch my hand and wrist, elevate it, keep it fresh. The trend has started to dissipate.

First thing to look at is why you are doing this and what you are gathering the data for.

I would suggest it's purely of accademic interest if you are not learning from the data and working out additional training protocols to improve your shooting.

A better use of your time time, could for example be to have a training journal that you use for every session. You set yourself goals for each session and then analyse that session at the end and plan your next session(s). You can also take that approach to the next level by working out a training plan for the month, 3 months or even the next year.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:First thing to look at is why you are doing this and what you are gathering the data for.

I would suggest it's purely of accademic interest if you are not learning from the data and working out additional training protocols to improve your shooting.

A better use of your time time, could for example be to have a training journal that you use for every session. You set yourself goals for each session and then analyse that session at the end and plan your next session(s). You can also take that approach to the next level by working out a training plan for the month, 3 months or even the next year.

Rob.

That would be the objective - to learn from the data which has to be collected first of all - if not then the experience is lost forever and I end up plinking rather than progressing. Without such data how could one devise a training schedule?

I tend to agree with Rob, in that the data collected / analysed / manipulated would be dependant on your skill level - for a shooter with scores around 500 the 10s and 9s could be poorly executed shots and analysis of the data could be misleading - propotionally less so as your scores increase towards +580.

1/ score-related analysis tends to be counterproductive. If you concentrate on releasing 'good' shots and eliminating 'bad' shots, rather than individual shot values the (good) scores are an incidental and unexpected but delightful outcome
2/ Self analysis runs a poor third to having a coach to analyse your shooting performance.

Spencer - where I live I am hard pushed to find a suitable place to shoot, far less a coach.

Thanks for your advice, thanks also to other advice offered - I really am on my own. This is a retirement interest - at 69 I don't expect to be an active competitor. Coming from a scientific/engineering background, I put great value on collected data - to me it is a sin to let it be lost - just my credo carried over into AP Targeting.

I have sympathy for you - it's a pity the average AUS shooter did not appreciate how fortunate they are with coaching, etc. available for the asking...

Joker

I too once created a spread sheet, it broke it out in %. It went shot by shot, the fields were high, low, left, right, number of attemts, value of,10, 9, 8, <8, sight pitchure as it broke, and most importian, the perfict shot, you know the one you don't even need to scope, everything just flowed and you just watch it happen.

Get it.

I'm not totally convinced that recording the "result" based data you are suggesting is particularly useful.

If however you have access to something like a Scatt then I am sure that looking at the trends on the "process" based data would be much more useful.

A person who a revere as a fantastic shooting coach once told me.

"Shooting is a very simple thing. All you have to do it point at the middle and press the trigger without moving the sights."

I totally agree with this.

I believe the spreadsheet idea... whilst it may be good for empirical research will have little to no value other than a hard to operate shooting diary. That is not to say not to keep a shooting diary.

If you want to record anything, record the positives. Think about shots that felt good, record what you did right and why it was right.

Then replicate.

I agree with you Spencer that most Aus shooters didn't know what they had.

Spencer wrote:I have sympathy for you - it's a pity the average AUS shooter did not appreciate how fortunate they are with coaching, etc. available for the asking...

Spencer, as a newcomer to prone, I find myself in the very fortunate position to have a very senior ex Olympian to draw information from. We also have another member who is a very accomplished shooter who has been more than generous with his time in regards to informal coaching.
I was a little disappointed after an initial coaching session at the SISC last year as a lot more emphasis was directed towards the younger attendees (with good reason I know) but no effort was made to even discover my experience or my goals.

I think the facilities we have here in Sydney are under utilised and that more effort could be made by shooters to get top coaching.

When I started to become serious about 10m AP I made spreadsheets, entered scores practically every day and watched the average scoring line gradually creep up. I photographed many of my session targets and processed them through 'OnTargetCalc', which I eventually realised wasn't very useful regarding group size so I stopped bothering. Still have the folders full of images with results overlays. Can't be bothered looking back at them. I worried too much about score. Haven't even remembered to make an entry in my shooting diary for months. I think of it for a second now and then, but then I remember that after some months I'd stopped going back and re-reading entries-past, as those really didn't seem to be of any help and took up a lot of time which could have been spent more productively in training, whether general physical training or actual gun work.

So for the past 6 or maybe 8 months I've been more focused on form, focus, and group size. I remember how my groups look on average, and once in a while use a 'journal target' for a full session, backing up the changing targets with a single target I don't remove until finished. Watching the changing, generally shrinking size of the hole in the journal target, and the recalled groups otherwise, is sufficient to tell me I'm on the right track.

The outlying shots (on bad days about 2 per target, on good days about 1 every 3rd target) in the 8 or even 7 ring once in a while, only confirm what I knew when I pulled the trigger; my mind wandered and I should have cancelled the shot. After a bit more than a year of training I could depend on hitting low 9's most of the time. After my second year (just this month) I can rely on solid 9's most of the time, and usually 2 or 3 10's per target of 10 shots. The outlying shots are about half what they numbered a year ago. Work is paying off.

And mostly what works for me is letting go. Just doing the simple things necessary to feel good about the shot. When I worry my mind is busy and much more prone to finding other, non-shooting things to think about. When I calmly follow through on all the forms the 10's come, and a big part of what works when that happens is not really caring too much about those 10's. Getting excited is another way to lose focus, to permit the mind to wander. Every shot has to live in its own singular world, isolated from the others and in no way more or less important. Just bringing everything I am into making a simple set of actions in exactly the same way every time. And where I am now is not great, but its on the path and looking better with every passing month and that's all I need to know, and then to forget as I focus on the sights and on getting that trigger moving before the muscles run out of oxygen and start trembling.

As others have suggested, you will get a lot of more useful information if your keep a shooting diary. You said that you have an scientific/engineering background, but shooting is more about learning about yourself. It needs a more "sociological" approach. Things like were you confident, did you find a good rhythm, has your hold steady, what problems did you had and how did you solve them, what went well, etc., will give you a more useful knowledge base than just scores, deviations and such.

You have to be able to learn what makes a good performance, not a good score. The score is the outcome of a good performance. Increase your performance and the score will take care of it self.

I to have a scientific background, and has you, also went trow that route when I has starting, and now wish that I didn't done it. I would be better of if I started paying attention to my performance sonner rather than putting the emphasis on scores/numbers.

Hope this helps.

Shooting at a high level is an ART, not a science. Spread sheets and tracking score is a fruitless waste of time. Spread sheets tries to force it into science and it does not work! I have coached several engineering students and they did not understand until the graph went flat in the 540 AP range. That's ok as the world needs engineering thinkers too. The shooting is happening within you and not "down there" where the holes are. To quote Ray Arrendondo (USAMU coach) "Those holes are only to tell others how well you are shooting. You should know instantly as you break each shot how well that shot went ." A journal is imperative! Why would you want to make the same mistakes over and over? And where do you write your shot plan? Your shot plan is always changing. You should review previous shot plans as you re-write. Mine looks like a scrap book too. Anyone seen Daryl Szarenski's journal?? No charts and spread sheets there. Should see him catch you with one at one of his clinics!! He just gives you a smug look as he points out the error of your ways.

melchloboo wrote:I have a spreadsheet I use made with openoffice that tracks my AP shooting. I shoot 5 shots per target, and keep them in order, then go home and enter the 60 shots. The spreadsheet then shows me some graphs and trends.

For me, the most valuable insight I gained was a recurring pattern of very poor shots occurring in the 30-40 shot sequence. I realized that during that period fatigue was setting in, but I would tend not to notice and not make the adjustments until I would notice a bad shot. So now before the problem occurs, I take a longer pause around that time, stretch my hand and wrist, elevate it, keep it fresh. The trend has started to dissipate.

As Rob says, scores on their own (62/100; 70/100; 91/100; etc) are a bit useless, with the sole exception of pattern analysis - seeing if you always drop points partway through a shoot, that might be a prompt to tweak your routine, add a drink break partway through the shoot or whatnot. However, you then have to be exceptionally careful that you don't end up with a psychosomatic problem where you get to the 4th string and start thinking "I always struggle now", and then proceed to screw up that string because you've already told yourself that you will. In some cases, you can gather too much information!
Fundamentally scores only told you what happened when the pellet reached the card. You have to tell yourself what happened when you squeezed the trigger.

More useful is keeping a good shooting diary. Most of my training sessions do not involve simply shooting simulated matches. Sure that has a place, but most of them are working on some specific part of my technique or process. As a result, I don't get a neat score out of 600. Merely notes on what worked, and what didn't, and whether I think I need to change something else or where the focus for my next training session needs to be.


One thing that I would temper is Oz's assertion that you track the positives. I agree - to a point. However, a coach would ideally be quietly tracking the negatives as well, working out where their student's weak points are so that they can direct the training and ensure they address those issues and make their weaknesses less weak.

If you don't have a coach and are self-taught, then unfortunately that falls to the shooter. It's no good thinking a rifle shooter "my shot release is smooth and amazing" if their butt plate is set up horrifically and their recoil is different with every shot.


Similarly as BPBrinson says, score-based analysis is not the answer to shooting well. However, I would completely disagree that it requires an art-approach and not a science approach. Setting up a position, a rifle butt plate, moulding a pistol grip or tweaking a trigger to the perfect weight and break point is indeed an individual decision that depends on feedback from what the shooter is feeling, but it's a process of trial and improvement (NOT error). A scientific process of constant improvement based on the data you gather from the shooter (e.g. I don't have constant contact around the shoulder; the grip doesn't fill my hand; that's far too heavy for me; I can't reach the trigger).

If you're tweaking the trigger weight, you don't just make it a bit lighter, then a bit heavier, randomly hoping to strike gold. You adjust the screws in quarter or eighths of turns that you document, in a systematic process to find the ideal weight without going over old ground over and again. and if you're not documenting it in a systematic and scientific manner then you're wasting your time.

That's what a Shooting diary is - a scientist's Lab Book.

Placing a shot downrange repeatedly over and over is fundamentally an engineering challenge. Once you introduce a squishy organic operator you need to address psychology, but it's still an engineering challenge, addressing the interface between the firearm and ballistics and the organic anatomy. That is, and always will be an engineering challenge.

Granted, straight score analysis won't help you with that - it's measuring the wrong thing. It's like measuring the output of an industrial unit and wondering why it's not good enough. You have to go to a deeper level and look at the constituent processes and find the inefficency or area that needs maintenance.

I'm a new MKIII shooter and haven't gone to any competitions yet, but would like to start honing my skills to get there eventually.

I understand what ya'll are saying about over-analyzing your shooting statistics. I wouldn't have thought about keeping a shooting diary for more expressive analysis, which makes sense. Would you say though that it's too counter productive to at least keep track of only your scores and group size, if only to track your progress over time in addition to your diary?

With experience you'll be able to track your group size trends well enough from memory. Exactitude isn't important and could well be counter-productive, as any short term negative trends could inflict pressure which might further degrade attention on more important aspects like basic form. You'll see it when you improve, really. It is perhaps unfortunate that the 9 ring is so wide. It can seem to take quite a long time to bring in one's hold, from the outer to the inner 9 ring, since scoring really doesn't change much during this evolution of skills. But then as the ability to hold a smaller and smaller diameter approaches the ideal, the 10's automatically start to climb significantly. Many refer to this as a 'plateau' in a rather harshly negative way, as though it were the shooter's fault for one reason or another, but the fact is that the 10 ring is a rather small portion of the middle of the much larger 9 ring, and only towards the complete maturation of the shooter does it become almost easy to hit that 10 shot after shot. Letting go of the impulse to 'snipe' the 10 is another important component in accelerating that progression, as by the time you're seeing sights on the 10 it is already too late to pull the trigger.