Training Day Style (What's Wrong With You?)

What's Wrong With You?



A couple of months ago, Kozy looked at me while we were talking shooting, and told me that he was a master level shooter. He only had his "A" card, but I understood what he meant, and I agreed with him, he was shooting at a master level, and it was just a matter of time before the results caught up, and his card showed the level he truly was at. I walked away from practice today saying to myself that I'm almost a "B" class shooter, and it's close. My card may say that I'm a low "C", but I believe the results are right around the corner.

Bold statement, what's wrong with me?

When Dave and I started out, we had a hard time beating that 8.45 second shooting cadence we needed for a "B" classifier in El Presidente. Today I was in the 6.40 to 7.01 time, the latter felt painfully slow to me. What that means is that I'm now shooting substantially faster than I was, I understand the transition, a cadence and so on. That said, it was not clean, and I had some issues, but I was able to break down my game, find something that I was doing wrong, and causing a problem. Those are things I think a "B" shooter should be able to do, the last question that I have to answer for myself, is now that I know what I'm doing, can I fix it? I believe that I can.

One issue today was on my turn and draw, I'm getting to the gun and starting to draw a hair too soon, so the gun is coming up while I'm turning, which in turn makes the gun move, and causes me to struggle finding that front sight for the first shot.If I got to the gun a hair slower, and it comes up as I'm stopped, then it's not moving, and I suspect I'll be a little faster, but more importantly I'll be accurate. The middle target, I have a tendency to rush my transition shot, and I'm way left on the target, I'd been breaking the shot a soon as I saw the target, I need to hold it until I see the middle. Finally, my right target has been my best, because I was done moving, and going to re-load.

You Never Know When The Light Will Go On

I know that reading it, you think "that's a lot of stuff wrong," but the reality is those are tweaks. I'd been practicing drawing, not turn and draw. I'll continue to work on the three targets, driving my gun into each of them, instead of blowing thru the 2nd target on the way to the 3rd target. I also need reps on my draw, I had a couple of fast ones from 5 yards of 1 second and 1.07, but I was consistently slow from 10 yards. Being honest, I'm still letting Self 1 get in the way, and I'm telling myself to rush, and I'm not rushing the right parts of my draw. This is one of those things where I need more reps, as well as to start relaxed, so I can just do it, as opposed to thinking about it.

Nothing is going to get ignored in my practice, but I do see things I need to focus on. I need to be more precise on my transitions, and I'll do that. I need to get reps on my draw, and I need to consistently hone and improve my reload. All of those things are about building better muscle memory, and the repetition of them in practice should give me the results I want.

So, if I work at these things, and show improvement, I believe that my results will bear out the progress I've shown in practice, and I'll be a "B" shooter in classifiers. Results will equal my mindset, and my practice.

It's On Now

Today's practice made me feel more confident than I have in quite awhile. I can imagine how good it will feel when my confidence is buttressed by results.