Controlled vs chaotic hold?

[bntii]

Anyone trying imposing order on the wobble of the hold- that is defining the movement to defined patterns such as lines, crosses, spirals?
I have been working on hold and have found that I can 'repair' a poor hold by raising above the bull and settling in a line down to the center. I tried from this some patterns such as lines in the vertical and horizontal as a means of developing hold. I have done several drills of bracketing the bull by shooting to 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock on the 7 ring then shooting the center all from linear holds held to a line through these points. So far it seems to show promise for developing muscle control.
This must be well traveled ground- any thoughts on this practice?

Thanks all

[Steve Swartz]

bntii:

Been discussed in this forum before a couple of times extensively- "back in the day" some world class level shooters attempted and abandoned this technique.

"Pattern Hold" and/or "Timed Release" I think are two terms commonly associated with this method.

Steve

[Steve Swartz]

As a follow up note as well that many successful coaches recommend what you describe for *training* but not as part of your competition shot process?

I have seen (and used) a variety of "pattern hold" visual aids for training.

The ones I like are the vertical/horizontal figure 8 drills and the X, + drills.

All of these drills can help you improve your hold- not necessarily your shot process; it is critical to concentrate on ALIGNMENT during the drills and *not* "hold" or "point" or "settle."

The triangle/circle patterns never seemed to do much for me.

Another drill involves placing several targets on a sheet of posterboard, and then moving from target to target (following a pattern) with the objective of acquiring a good settle in the aiming area as quickly and smoothly as possible. This drill works well with or without dry fire on each target.

Steve Swartz

[bntii]

Yes- training for hold is what I had i mind though I did consider how the it might effect shooting as well.

I am mostly interested in how the fine motor control might improve from this practice as I believe my worse holds have too much variation in speed over the target- my hold can be jerky if I struggle with it too much.

Right not I am really fighting the slow fire game in BE which I compare to how I shoot ap. My timed and rapid fire is coming together nicely. I can return to center and shoot well within the cadence of these strings.
At this point for me there is NO benefit to having 10 minutes for a string. My groups can include misses in slow and never are as small as my timed fire groups (winter league shoots both at 25 yd) . My coach tells me that the slow fire is where I am learning good trigger control which results in the good showing in the timed string.
As you have said Steve- "the distracting bull" kills me in slow and AP.

Thanks all

[Steve Swartz]

Other things to consider; hope they help. Somewhat philosophical . . .

1) Always be sure to focus carefully on what your desired behavioral outcomes are for each training activity- this should be incorporated into your shooting log. And you should think about waht you are trying to do before you train, while you train, and evaluate what happened after the training activity. This will certainly improve your "Bang/Buck" ratio in terms of time and effort.

2) So it appears you are trying to do something to the nature of your hold; but "hold" and "alignment" are part of the same system, and they both fit into the outcome variable of where the muzzle is pointed at any given moment in time. "What you see" from your end and "where the muzzle is pointed" at the other end are not related as directly as we may think. You may *see* your "hold" as being much worse than it actually is . . . this leads to a "whole passel full" of really, really Bad Things.

That as background

Doing "pattern drills" against a *blank* or neutral background has the positive effects of forcing you to focus on what's really important, without the negative effects introduced by the optical illusion of the quality of your "hold."

Blank pattern drills without dry fire leads to improved fine motor control and smoothness- and you will find them quite relaxing; especially if you practice visualization etc. during the drill. Also reinforces the "alignment" part of the sight picture wich will carry over into distraction training.

Add dry fire during blank pattern drills and you are now integrating smooth, positive trigger control to the mix- and if you focus on alignment before/during/after the snap, you will reinforce the quality of trigger control, and associate trigger release with alignment (free of distraction). This reinforcement of smooth, positive trigger with perfect alignment I personally believe is the "Magic Bullet" that will either help shooters overcome- or not- the dreaded "560" plateau.

Anyhow

Didn't want to hijack your thread, but I think theere might be some other stuff going on with your perception of hold that might be "blocking" you. Just some food for thought; your mileage may vary!

Steve

[Ed Hall]

Didn't want to hijack your thread, but I think theere might be some other stuff going on with your perception of hold that might be "blocking" you. Just some food for thought; your mileage may vary!

This is where I would look, diagnosing from long distance...

If your Timed/Rapid Fire groups are better than your Slow Fire, I'd suggest working with the trigger operation. In fact, I would opt for that over holding without trigger. You might be exacerbating the problem. You may be forcing the shot to happen when you think you're in the center instead of having a smooth trigger through the hold.

Do make sure you're focused at the front sight and once you're happy with it and it nears the center, bring back the trigger in a determined, yet controlled manner, start through finish. If your trigger is taking a long time to complete, are you really operating it, or are you performing little steps with it, possibly only when you think the sights are centered?

You might just find that if you can operate the trigger when you first get to the center, instead of waiting for that perfect hold, that your shots will fall in the middle more frequently.

All comments welcome...

Take Care,
Ed Hall
U.S. Air Force Competitive Shooting Teams
Bullseye (and International) CompetitionThings

[2659 Plus]

I would recommend following the last line in Ed Halls post. If you wait until you have achieved a perfect hold and the pistol has not fired you are likely to distract yourself for just a moment to start the trigger moving then the pistol will fire after the short time that you can maintain the perfect [satisfactory] hold resulting in less than a correctly executed shot delivery. In my opinion, you must start the trigger finger moving to the rear first then perfect hold and sight allignment before the pistol fires. This is necessary in both precision and sustained fire. to allow not only a surprise shot but permit uninterupted concentration during the time the shot breaks. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[jackh]

I have been building confidence in hold lately by - holding in extended position then tipping my head to the side a bit. I look at the whole pistol with both eyes and dryfire the pistol. I can see and feel the stability without the sight to clog my mind. It's a training drill.

[SteveT]

Just to back up what others have said, if your slow fire groups are larger than your timed and/or rapid fire groups (at the same distance), then it is almost certainly a trigger issue and not a hold issue. Many of us went through this stage. In TF/RF the gun settles down and we pull the trigger. We don't try for the perfect shot, getting on the trigger, then backing off when the sights drift a little, then back on when they align again. We just pull the trigger.

It took me a long time to figure out that a smooth trigger pull with less than ideal sights gave me a better score than interrupting the trigger pull when the sights drifted. I finally convinced myself when I started taking 2 shots at a time in SF. Probably 80-90% of the time the second shot was better than the first. Eventually I got my first shot as good as the second and now I no longer take more than one shot.

Best regards,
Steve Turner

[2650 Plus]

I reread your initial post and want to comment on the first sentence. You indicated that you were starting above the target, probably exhalling as you lowered the pistol toward the aiming bull [this is also a time to relax all muscle tension except what you need to hold the pistol on target] and began the steadily increasing pressure straight to the rear on the trigger, next, as you settle in the center of your aiming area , both eye focus and all Mental activity will be totally devoted to the critical problem of perfecting and maintaining sight allignment until after the shot has been fired. If you dissagree , please ignore all above. Good Shooting Bill Horton