The Flinch

The Flinch

Hi, I’m Luke and I have a shooting flinch. It’s true, it’s there, and I see it. I’m not sure where I started picking up the habit, but I definitely have it, and today it was pretty evident. Now, I keep hearing that acknowledging you have a problem is step one to correcting it, so it’s time to get with the program and clean this up!

We started practice today working the .22’s, and I’m doing pretty well there. From 10 yards, I was between 1.86 and 2.30 seconds, and that was going slow, but getting most all of my hits, there were a couple with only 5 hits, but most were clean runs. About a .51 to .54 from low ready to breaking my first shot, trying to get a .50, but I can live with where I am at. Transitions were smooth; follow-up’s were great. I was feeling exceptionally positive about where I was. The new Dawson front sights are baller, I pick them up very quickly and easily, and the .125 diameter puts me in a good place. It’s a little wider than my PPQ, but for what I need, it works.

After getting rolling we cruised into breaking down another classifier, where we learned that really we are looking for a similar par time to what we are practicing, and a similar type of set-up. I think the point that Les was making is that the skill we are working on for El Presidente is applicable to many other classifiers that we are going to shoot, so the cadence we are learning is going to last.

We jumped over to the plates again to work on the 9mm, and my wheels fell off the bus, my times jumped up to 3.35 to 3.80 seconds, and I was missing. Most of my shots were going low, and it was very easy to see that I was flinching. Dave did a nice job, got his hits, and worked his time down into the 2.70 range. I on the other hand had to do some drills up to the first target, break the shot on a 2^nd beep and so on. On my last run, Les had me just run it, and I did have a miss, but I did not flinch, I did not have time to think about my flinching, I just ran it.

Right now, the flinch is in my head, I’m talking to myself, thinking about not doing it to the point it’s slowing me down, and I am so amped up to not do it, that I’m doing it. I could blame the fact that I’ve shot about 700 rounds of .22 thru a gun that does not recoil at all since the last time I shot my 9mm is playing a part, but if I’m honest with myself my flinch played a problem at Pine Tree on the 3^rd, and it should be evident if I re-watch the video, and it probably was part of my struggle at MISS on the 6^th.

Sure, I’m frustrated a bit, but some whitewall practice to insure that my trigger pull is straight (I flinch more often when I’m on a long pull, not when I find the re-set, so it’s definitely me) and some more work on the 9mm. This is something I can beat out of me, more live fire, some snap caps mixed in with ammo, and I’ll roll thru this and get back on course. Disappointed? Sure, but I’ve dealt with this before, I know I can beat it. I’m a believer in proper dryfire now, and how much the repetition can improve you, and if I have to go put more live rounds down range? Oh no…how horrible would that be? Shoot more?

Suffice it to say that I’m feeling like I can accomplish this task, and knock it out fairly easily. For the week, more dry fire just like this past couple of weeks, Dave and I are planning to live fire practice on Friday night, and Les is going to swing up and add draw to the mix. He wanted to cover it this week, but my issues kind of derailed things a bit, and one more good week of practice before adding the draw to the mix is fine. I like how the breakdown of the game is working and how Les is presenting it. Once I have my cadence, I get my hits, my transitions, then I can focus on draw.

A fun week ahead!