How Much Time Does it Really Take?

[YammyMonkey]

From this AAR thread:

http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=37773

And a comment posted on another website (I don't remember where at this point) about people who have to work 40+ hrs a week, spend time with the family, take care of the house, change the oil, etc not being able to get very good at shooting related skills.

I thought I would toss out some ideas on how to get good, what good is & why a lot of people don't get good.

The host of the class, we'll call him "Tom" wanted to work on his reloads to improve speed & decrease fumbling about. As reported by Tom, Todd suggested 65 minute dry practce sessions of slow-medium-fast-slow progressions. It has been less than a month & Tom has reported his ability to reload has improved.

Tom's improvement helps show that you don't have to dedicate your life to shooting in order to get good. In class he did have some issues, but I would say he was pretty wel to the right side of the bell curve peak in terms of reloads.

If "Tom" feels like outing himself here I would like to hear from him on where he was post class & where he is now. If he has timer numbers that woud be great.

There is the misconception that you have to spend hours on top of hours on top of hours to get good & that is what holds a lot of people back. They don't want to give up time with the family, time to do work around the house, time to relax, etc. I would argue that you don't have to give up your life in order to have respectable shoting & manipulating ability. While you won't cut your draw, reload, malfunction clearing, split, etc times in half in a month by practicing 20 minutes, two times a week, you will see some impressive improvement. Especially if your times are not that great to start with. If they aren't all that great that is nothing to be ashamed of, we all start somewhere.

You don't have to be that dedicated to get a 2 second reload from concealment or a 1.75 second draw from concealment (both assuming closed-front cover garment). Likewise, .25s splits on an IDPA target -0 at 7 yards are attainable by people who are not "naturals" or "masters."

The easiest & cheapest way to improve yourself as an overall rifleman &/or pistolero is in the manipulations. In reference to Todd's class, you can't get an Expert rating in the FAST by having a 4 second reload, regardless of how fast you can shoot. Fast & robust manipulations buy you time that you can use for more important things.

A few guidelines for dry practice...

1- Weapon is clear, ammo stored in another room, safe backstop just in case
2- Get good, professional instruction, then get to work on your own
3- Treat this as serious workout time
4- Keep a log
5- Have a way to measure your par time & push yourself while maintaining the technique
6- Have goals & a plan for every practice session
7- Work one skill at a time
8- Accept that some days you will suck- find something else to do

I would really like to get some other perspectives & personal experiences regarding skill improvement on a mortal's time budget.

[Failure2Stop]

I do not get to shoot nearly as much as I would like to.
In the past month I have shot approximately 200 rounds of pistol and 50 rounds of rifle, of which both are non-US inventory weapons. I only get to shoot when I am doing a demo (75% of max effort) or when I sneak off to crank off a few if the line doesn't need immediate coaching/instruction. I maintain a better than average skill level because I have done the following (with regard to pistol, but rifle is not too different):

Learn the most efficient motions for the manipulations.
Learn how to press the trigger through the presentation drive.
Learn acceptable sight picture/driving the dot, and how much sight focus is needed to achieve acceptable accuracy at high speed.
Learn a proper grip (hint- most of those reading this do not, and of them, most will resist change).
Learn trigger control. Know the difference between "fast", "slow", and "smooth". Focus on smooth. Learn how quickly you can cycle the trigger and get acceptable hits at different distances.
Learn proper placement of items on kit and keep them the same as much as possible.
Use a shot-timer to track progress/confirm speed. Use par time setting during dry fire and constantly slice it down.

Practice while keeping these in mind. You do not need a drill for each skill, but rather drills that encompass as many of them as possible. If you only have the option of dry-fire in limited quantity, use what time you have.

For emphasis- step 1 is to learn the right skills from the right people. Step 2 is a waste if you are just reinforcing poor technique.

[Business_Casual]

Kyle Defoor blogged on this very topic Sunday:

http://www.kyledefoor.com/

Interesting.

M_P

[YammyMonkey]

Yep, looks like I needs to work on me readin comp-re-hensh-on.

Correct, 65 reps not 65 minutes. If you can spend an hour dry-firing multiple times per week, I'd consider that an intensive training level.

As for how much time it takes to be good, that depends on two questions:

1. Are we talking about becoming good or staying good?
2. How do we define "good?"

• The sharper the edge, the more effort it takes to maintain.
• The better your fundamentals, the easier it is to get back up to speed if you've let your practice/skill erode.
• The more you understand the "why" of a technique, the easier it is to maintain and improve.
• There is a lot more to practice (whether it's skill building or skill maintenance) than just number of hours on the range or number of rounds fired.

[YammyMonkey]

Good job Tom.

One thing that really helped me get my dry times down was setting the par time to be a little bit faster than I could reliably reload. If you can do it in 2.5s every time set your par for 2.3. Once you can hit that, drop it some more. It forces you to push yourself. Just be careful to not go too far from what you can reliably do. Setting a 1.5s or even 2.0s par time if you can usually do 2.5s reloads will just be frustrating.

[Erik 1]

I read over and over that the first step is to get good training, and I reallyagree (but bear with me a second, please). I'm a pretty new shooter and have had one day of training so far (besides the NRA class required to get a permit). It was a good class, but pretty basic and represented, to me, the minimum I would require to feel comfortable carrying. Realistically, the next opportunity I personally will have to get training from somebody is after year end at the earliest. In the meantime, I would like to practice drawing and reloading, which were only minimally covered in the training I've had so far. So here's my question: would I be better off NOT practicing those until I'm able to get into a class (next year some time), so as to avoid developing and reinforcing bad habits, or can I achieve decent/good results in the interim if I find a good book or internet site and practice what I find there?

I think the question is on topic because it relates to what you can do to further your training at home, but would be happy to start a separate thread on this if you'd prefer. This is a great thread for somebody in my position, by the way, because I really struggle with how to train while also doing everything else I have to get done. Thanks!

Erik -- There is no easy way to answer that question.

If someone has taught you a goofy technique for drawing or reloading, you'll get better at that goofy technique but need to approach the subject anew with an open mind when you get additional training. If you learned a decent draw stroke and reload method, then as long as you practice what you've learned slowly to get the technique down (rather than just going fast and picking up bad habits you can't even notice), you should be good to go.

IMHO, practicing a mediocre technique a lot is better than knowing the perfect way but never practicing it.

Finding a better way and taking the time to change how you do something isn't hard, but it does usually require a little ego hit because you're going to get worse before you get better. I see this a lot in classes. Grip, draw, reload are things that people get so used to that making a change is hard, requires conscious effort, and often takes focus away from getting hits and/or being fast. The result is lower performance initially. For some folks, they're not willing to take a step backwards in hopes it will allow them to take two steps forwards.

To me, that's the difference between someone who wants to LOOK good, and someone who wants to BE good.

[Erik 1]

Thanks Todd. If I couldn't take an ego hit, I'd never practice at all! It seems to me that for now, for me, it's better to practice something rather than nothing at all. Much appreciated.