Moment of Truth: Last 200 ms (sights or trigger?)

[bryan]

richard, which part did you try without success?

the artical was in the coaching sect. with that veiw thought it interesting, but of little value as a shooter.

they made a lot of references regarding hold ability and possible results. all very basic, that could be very helpful if you are trying to get your point across.

imho

bryan

[Steve Swartz]

Pete:

Are you referring to the "coaching rifle shooters" article? That's what came up from the link.

I'm not so sure that at this level of sophistication the differences between rifle shooting and pistol shooting become somewhat intractable. What I mean is that as performance threshold increases, the differences between how to shoot a rifle (any position; although offhand is probably least dissimilar to pistol than other positions; but still a wide difference) and how to shoot a pistol make "cross training" and applying lessons learned across disciplines somewhat errr problematic.

Some cross-over principles are suggested of course. I'm just personally not confident enough in either discipline to draw any larger conclusions.

Interesting article though- but I gave up competitive rifle shooting a while back . . . my shoulder got too tired holding that rifle out one-handed!

Steve Swartz

[Steve Swartz]

Sorry- just to clarify what I mean in the interests of "putting it out there:" specifically, in pistol the importance ranking is trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger, alignment, alignment. Distant 8th place- hold. In rifle, the order of priority is hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, align, align, with trigger a distant 8th. Hold & align is a function of position in rifle. Position is King. In rifle. In pistol it is different.

Just my opinion of course as always. Food for thought. Disagree as usual.

Steve Swartz

[PETE S]

Steve, I can only say what is in the article. It seems most research is in rifle shooting. But the article does refer to pistol as well. Perhaps, in the last three seconds or less, maybe in the last few tenths of a second, rifle and pistol is not as different as some of us would like to believe?

My point was to your original question concerning trigger vs. alignment. This article may not have a lot of practical application other than it points out that there may be more than one way to approach shooting a ten.

[jackh]

[quote="Steve Swartz"]Sorry- just to clarify what I mean in the interests of "putting it out there:" specifically, in pistol the importance ranking is trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger, alignment, alignment. Distant 8th place- hold. In rifle, the order of priority is hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, align, align, with trigger a distant 8th. Hold & align is a function of position in rifle. Position is King. In rifle. In pistol it is different.

Just my opinion of course as always. Food for thought. Disagree as usual.

Steve Swartz[/quote]


Never disagree. Just interpret differently. I put more importance on hold. A good hold just makes everything else easier. (except that you need not sit and admire a good hold) Agree that a trigger error will be the biggest error. Also a trigger error often is the result of an error of hold, timing, mental, etc.

I find sight alignment is a product of a good hold. Hold being self defining as how you hold the pistol. Hold includes sight alignment and the steadiness of the sights to one another and the eye. You hold on a blank wall this way.

Add the target and another factor of hold appears. That is placing the sights onto the target.

Do you think the mental and physical mechanism you use to align the sights to one another (blank wall) is the same or different from the mechanism used to place the sight into your aim area?

I kind of wonder if it would help me to consider the aligning of sights as part of preparation (99% at least) and the following simultaneous trigger press and sight placing on target is what really happens in Steves 200 MS. If I align and place and trigger all in the 200 MS, that's 3 things going on.

Interpret at will...

[bryan]

steve, you need to glean through the artical again!

steve, most sports are similar/same on the mental side.
muscle memory side is often different.
cross training is nothing new, it allows more competitions, and some variety.
cross training is you train one event, and shoot comps in several.
one of your country men was famous for it, tubs? or something?


imho

bryan

[funtoz]

[2650Plus]

Mr funtoz gives a brilliant discussion of using the sub concious [Trained conditioning of the trigger reflex] to take care of firing the pistol. I would ask every shooter to work on developing this approach just as it relates to manipulation of the trigger' I suggest some benefit may also derive fron essentially the same approach on refining your hold . try this. Place a perfectly drawn picture of alligned sights stressing the front sight in sharpest focus with the bullseye target a dim fuzzy grey as it should appear to the shooting eye. Place the finger on the trigger in its perfect shooting position. Think about pulling the trigger, and go ahead and pull it at least a dozen times. Next while still holding the pistol focus your attention and vision on the picture you drew. Just think about the picture and see what happenes. I'm willing to bet the trigger finger moves. I'm not willing to trust to that happening in a match So I give the trigger fiinger a mental nudge just before the pistol settles into stillest hold in my aiming area.As steve says,my total concentration is then on sight allignment until the shot is fired. I don't shoot it , the trigger finger does!

[Richard H]

richard, which part did you try without success?

the artical was in the coaching sect. with that veiw thought it interesting, but of little value as a shooter.

they made a lot of references regarding hold ability and possible results. all very basic, that could be very helpful if you are trying to get your point across.

imho

bryan

I must be losing my mind, was there not a link to "dynamic aiming" from Scatt in this thread? Thats what I was commenting about. I never even seen the link to the ISSF article?????? It was early in the morning, hmmmmmmmmm.

A quick check of my history and this is the article that came up when I clicked on the link yesterday

http://www.scatt.com/articles.htm#Dynamic

which was what I was commenting on.

[CR10XGuest]

Let's think for a minute about how this factors into the last 200 ms?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17888475/site/newsweek/

Maybe we're looking in the wrong place? If that frog can get a fly out of the air without "thinking" about it, what's the problem with getting a 10?

I don't have a problem shooting a 10, they come pretty often. My problem is not shooting a 9 or 8 or whatever. I want to know how to shoot the good shots, consistently and NOT shoot any other shots....

Just for thoughts for Steve and Ed.

Cecil Rhodes

[Steve Swartz]

My only comment on the Scatt article would be to wonder: why do they put so much emphasis on the time to break the shot- as if a 1-3 sec timing (between settle and break) vs. a 3-7 sec delay represented two totally different approaches to shooting?

I am a 1-4 sec shooter (for tens) and generally I don't see the "secondary pauses" that many other shooters talk about.

While I am beginning to agree that there may be "different types of world class shooters" (see previous posts) . . . this is confused by the very real phenomenon that different people will describe the exact same thing differently.

Back to the Scatt proposal (two types of shooters; consistent with my trigger drives sights vs. sights drive trigger description): for me, good things happen if the shot breaks "fresh" e.g. early vs. late. And for many shooters, the opposite is true (must have 5 seconds of settle before good things happen).

Just not sure how important this issue is. This phenomenon could be more a function of the "approach" phase than the "terminal" phase- in other words, the long hold shooters just don't see the settle and make the transition from "approaching-settling" to "shooting" as quickly as other shooters?

Steve

[bryan]

scatt theory looks like classic goes straight to the target, then settles,
where dynamic slowly moves to the target while settling, having a short period on the aiming mark as has already settled.
also noticed how they stopped at the centre of the target before moving to the aiming area.

so what is the time from lifting the arm,to the shot. would they be similar?

but if 70% of world class shooters use the dynamic way, I see it is of real importance if you want to be a world class shooter and currently shooting the classic style where only 30% use it.

steve, did you notice the section that says

"Stability then becomes the one that has the most potential for improvement".

but I tend to agree with you, the difference between a 570 and a 590 shooter is not all about hold. it's more about learning to use your imagination, not your subconscious.

thought the reptile artical was very good.

richard, you got me!
yes I plan to try the dynamic way, have before, but didnt do it right, added both systems together, but initial results were good.

bryan

[2650 Plus]

I must first say that I dont know how helpful this will be to advancing our understanding but one year the AMU let me stay at Camp Perry after the pistol phase to shoot service rifle in the high power matches. With no training other than dry firing I entered the competition. The first match fired was standing and I shot 199 8x That was high service rifle , but Gary Anderson fired a national record 200 15x on a later relay. So, my expereance seems to suggest considerable transfer of training regimans from one discipline to the other But then maybe I was just lucky . Good Shooting Bill Horton

[Steve Swartz]

Think about it Bill . . . can you see any reason why a ("trigger trigger trigger") pistol shooter might have more of an advantage in rifle ("hold hold hold")- especially in off hand position- than vice versa?

Ever wonder why rifle shooters need a ton of "deprogramming" ("I can't get the shot to break!" [hold never looks good enough]) to shoot pistol, but not the other way around?

Pistol shooters learn the perfect mindless trigger (automatically perfect), focus on alignment, and "pretty much ignore" the wobble method of shooting. Works great in shooting offhand rifle. However, it is not hte best way to go for prone perhaps . . .

Steve

[2650 Plus]

I just found some information on another forum to the effect that Gunnery Sergeant Zins fired a 896 ?x in the interservice match. The AMU shooter that won the nationals won the grand aggragate but I havent found his score yet altho the post mentioned that he also broke a national record. I must say we should be talking to the two of them to try and discerne what the heck they are doing that may obsolete every thing we've been discussng. Or as you say maybe not Good shooting Bill Horton

[Spencer]

training - working at it - training - working at it - training - working at it - etc.?

Spencer

[Steve Swartz]

Maybe what they are doing is *exactly* what we have been talking about . . . just more consistently . . .

Yes Bill, it would not be incorrect to believe that our understanding of what makes for better shooting has improved- if only a little- since the 1970s. Of course this statement is true for darned near everything!

Steve

(p.s. the obvious answer is the use of the dot sight; which I used to think was a huge advantage. Now I agree with the USMC that it *is* an advantage, but only for shooters already well advanced in the fundamentals. For new shooters it can be be a big disadvantage.)

[2650 Plus]

Does any one know what disciplines were part of the discussion. It would seem to me that a rapid fire shooter {Gold Medal] would almost certainly us the reaction technique, And a precision shooted the hold method. Just a guess but the optomizer would be engaged in a less demanding target.All could be described as gold medalist, but we dont learn as much from the study as we might have. That seems to be a problem that shows up when a non shooting expert tries to tell shooters how their discipline really works. But then I am a bit suspicious of non shooters, Like politicians and lawyers. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[scerir]

The last 200 or so milliseconds are best left to the subconscious, a true parallel processing system, more than capable of handling multiple routine functions. And the rub with the subconscious is that the conscious is not intimately aware of what it is doing. If the conscious is aware of what is happening, it will assuredly mess with the process.

It seems that our sub/un-conscious responses are far quicker than our conscious ones. I think this is very important and might clarify some of our problems.

On the tennis court we would find, to our surprise, that we returned serve competently before we actually saw the ball, and certainly without thinking about where in the opposite court we might want to put it. Our conscious and un/sub-conscious behaviour would be strangely unsynchronised.

More here below
http://www.consciousentities.com/libet.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

[Steve Swartz]

Apparently, however (and this was a big surprise to me!), many high-performing shooters don't believe in the role of the subconscious or semi-autonomic processes.

They firmly believe, based on their own observations, that a very different process is taking place.

I used to believe that they were just "seeing the same thign but explaining it differently." Now, after a month or so of argument, I am beginning to believe that perhaps there is such a thing as a "high performing conscious release" shooting style.

Of course, in order to make that work, you must have a very tight (and stable, and consistent) hold. I haven;t seen any objective evidence to that effect, but several high-performing shooters swear by it. And, rationally, if indeed you could hold in the ten ring for a second or so (long enough to recognize the perfect sight picture, command the conscious shot, and hold through pellet clearing muzzle- say 0.7-1.2 s or so), this method would work just as well as the "subconscious timing release" method.

And it would certainly be easier to accept conceptually.

There may indeed be "two types of world class shot processes" roaming the world as we speak.

Steve Swartz

(I am reminded of a world class international shooter who spoke at a USAF pistol team camp a few years back- Mel Makin? Steve Ryder? Arnie Vitarbo? Ruby Fox? [Ed Hall, do you remember the story?] who spoke of the new AMU team captain. The new team captain strode into the training room on day one, holding an M1 Garand at arms length [one handed] saying "any shooter who can't hold this hard will never make the team!" The new team captain didn't last very long. After the laughter died down, the current national champion/international medalist team members explained the whole "sight alignment, perfect trigger, subconscious release" theory to the poor guy. Much hilarity and hijinks ensued until the close-minded dope got re-assigned. The same person told us a story about a particularly buxom female rifle shooter, a flummoxed line judge, and the definition of "artificial support" but I digress . . . ]