How many repetitions do you get at your range? Not just rounds, but real training reps of all the skills to make a shot: decelerating the body to a position, trigger prep, clean break, maintain sufficient sight alignment-picture to make an acceptable hit.
Have you ever tried to isolate fundamentals (e.g. sight picture, trigger control)?
This short video shows a typical Tuesday morning training where Britt Lentz and I hit a high volume training session, have accountability to our movements (getting hits), isolate issues in our fundamentals, and make the most of our costly live fire rounds.
This drill is a derivative of the Progressor where we start at 25 yards and advance 5 yrds per shooting position working left toright on 5 targets. In this training session we execute in the following order:
First we hit the drill live fire completely cold (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yraIFpFguzI). It is important to access abilities completely cold. We don't have warm ups if we have to use the pistol off the range.
This is a series of four train up videos of a shooter, Nate, who is squared away but wanted to get some training. Nate's background is web developer and has shot recreationally but has not had formal training. The first video establishes the foundation of grip and stance.
Grip and stance are critical fundamentals. We don't need to get caught up in different techniques of grip and stance, but we need to be aware of the objective of our grip and stance. The stance needs to provide balance for handling the explosion of recoil. The grip has to 1) allow the trigger finger to exercise trigger mechanics and 2) provide a foundation so the sight comes back to its original position on the 2nd shot. coach needs to be executed correctly where the force is gradually progressed.
This first video instructs how to ensure shooter is shooting off of the reset. After the shot is broke (green laser coming on) the shooter should release the trigger to the "reset" (the point when the trigger clicks) and not come off of the reset (keeping the red laser on). A trainer can see this happening and the shooter can coach themselves. With the red trigger take up laser cowitnessed with the sights (aligned with the green laser) the shooter will see where the muzzle is oriented with respect to the sights.
This second video instructs how to ensure shooter is prepping the trigger when transitioning to a target. This is called coming on target with a "hot gun", meaning the trigger is prepped (slack taken out) and ready to break the shot. Use the red take up indicator to see when the muzzle past the target and comes back on target. A trainer can see this happening and the shooter can coach themselves. With the red trigger take up laser at a 6:00 position, the non-dominant eye can pick up generally where the muzzle is oriented without using it as a sighting aid.
This third video shows common issues of shooter over transitioning. Use the red take up indicator to see when the muzzle past the target and comes back on target. A trainer can see this happening and the shooter can coach themselves. With the red trigger take up laser at a 6:00 position, the non-dominant eye can pick up generally where the muzzle is oriented without using it as a sighting aid.
A brief discussion of some coaching points regarding trigger mechanics.
All the other shooting skillsets of stance, grip, sight alignment and the movement elements of power, explosiveness, balance…. all of these mean nothing without trigger control. Our trigger mechanics are the last link in the chain to ensure we can make our shot.
I don't think shooting on the move should be an advanced skill-set. We have train this a lot so we can learn how the muzzle bounces as we stride.
These two videos show how the take up laser gives us feedback as to what the muzzle is doing during a stride. I use the take up indicator to be aligned with the sights for this drill, but you can offset it 6:00 from sight picture as well.
