TargetTalk

Why this obsession with "hold does not matter"? I can give you some excercises if you are interested.

Tobias

I would like to know some exercises. Thanks.

Dennis

Tobiasl wrote:

Steve Swartz wrote:
Why?

Because they are obsessing over stuff that just doesn't matter TODAY.

Like "hold."

Steve Swartz

Why this obsession with "hold does not matter"? Is it an excuse from you not to train specifically for steady hold?

Tobias, I think you are misunderstanding what Seve and I are saying.

Of course it is better to have a steadier tighter hold.

The point is that there is nothing you can do TODAY to affect the hold you have TODAY. By training today you can affect the hold you have in the future but your hold today was formed by the training you did in the past.

With that in mind, it is counter-productive to try to hold the pistol stiller during a match. Your stillness is limited by a combination of past training, current health and conditions.

"If you ain't brought it with you, don't expect to find it here".

Silly question: Can top shooter A beat top shooter B, even thos A´s hold is less steady than B´s?

[quote="_Axel_"]Silly question: Can top shooter A beat top shooter B, even thos A´s hold is less steady than B´s?[/quote]

Are we talking steady on the target, or steady front sight to rear (and eye)?

David Levene wrote:

Tobiasl wrote:

Steve Swartz wrote:
Why?

Because they are obsessing over stuff that just doesn't matter TODAY.

Like "hold."

Steve Swartz

Why this obsession with "hold does not matter"? Is it an excuse from you not to train specifically for steady hold?

Tobias, I think you are misunderstanding what Seve and I are saying.

Of course it is better to have a steadier tighter hold.

The point is that there is nothing you can do TODAY to affect the hold you have TODAY. By training today you can affect the hold you have in the future but your hold today was formed by the training you did in the past.

With that in mind, it is counter-productive to try to hold the pistol stiller during a match. Your stillness is limited by a combination of past training, current health and conditions.

"If you ain't brought it with you, don't expect to find it here".

No misunderstanding. I just wanted to give the discussion a little twist. :-)

Hold can be trained just as anything else. I'll post some excersises later today or tomorrow, now it's midsummer holliday!

cheers,
Tobias

_Axel_ wrote:Silly question: Can top shooter A beat top shooter B, even thos A´s hold is less steady than B´s?

Oh yes, absolutely so! Sight allignment and good release of trigger is more crucial than steady hold (within reasonable limits of course)

But as the shooter improves, hold starts to play a bigger role in the outcome.

"Reasonable Limits" indeed!

As long as your hold is good enough so that the muzzle transits the ten ring every once in a while (at leawst once during each lift), you can shoot a 600.

The obsession with "hold doesn't matter" is twofold:

1) It really doesn't matter, after all; and
2) A lot of promising shooters waste a whole lot of time, and ultimately, their very talent, by working on "hold"

So yeah- it doesn't help, and can hurt.

Also, "sacred cows make the best barbeque!"

Steve Swartz

(O.K. that having been said, back to reality: David captured it perfectly. Yes I work on improving my hold. I do occasionally have to take a break from the important stuff. And of course, a SMOOTHER, MORE CONSISTENT hold is better than a jerky, inconsistent hold. The "diameter" or "tightness" of the hold is irrelevant, separate [to the degree that the two are separable] from the smoothness and consistency.)

Sorry if I offended you Steve. But your babbeling about "hold does not matter" doesn't feel very serious. Do you actually think that you can time your shots to be released just as the sights suddenly passes the ten ring (shaky hold), and do that constantly over and over again? In theory perhaps, but not in reallity.

What you want is to spend as much time as possible inside the ten ring (steady hold) and hopefully get the shot released inside that time frame. The more time spent inside the ten ring the more probability to shoot a ten. Easy math.

An idea, perhaps, would be to listen to Mellberg who recently shot 565p in an FP competition here in Sweden. Maybe he has something to say about the importance of a steady hold... :-) I would say that there is a lot of weight behind his words...

Also: "Holy cows eats the greenest grass"

/Tobias

steve, other than you, who else do you know has wasted time working on thier hold?
maybe it was the exercises you were doing?

by focusing on the sights, is in effect trying to hold the pistol steadier!

since your hold goes across the 10 from time to time,how come your results are far from a 600?????????
maybe hold does matter!


david, the work you do prior to the comp day is the contributing factor to the outcome, in saying that it also effects your hold on the day.
eg, steady as a rock the day before, but not so good on the day! or vice versa.

bryan

bryan wrote:david, the work you do prior to the comp day is the contributing factor to the outcome, in saying that it also effects your hold on the day.
eg, steady as a rock the day before, but not so good on the day! or vice versa.

bryan

Bryan, I presume you mean it is "a" contributing factor rather than "the" contributing factor, in which case I agree. I have included it in the "current health" part of "Your stillness is limited by a combination of past training, current health and conditions."

Even though it is a contributing factor, there is still nothing you can do about it while you are shooting the match. You have to accept the hold you have on the day. The time to worry about improving it was yesterday, last week, or months ago.

Anatoliy Piddubnyy (sp?) talks about "wrist stabilisation", and most ppl here about "keepin the sights aligned" as the most important factor. I think its the same thing really!?

Hold is a product of shooting stance and muscle tone as far as i can understand. And since we all have different anatomies I expect we all have different hold characteristics? The modern school of thougth is to assume a comfy shooting stance and not a "patented universal" one. So shooting 10s is something we have to do our own way alot! Only some things are universal, like sight alignment and pulling the trigger. Right?

David Levene wrote:
Even though it is a contributing factor, there is still nothing you can do about it while you are shooting the match. You have to accept the hold you have on the day. The time to worry about improving it was yesterday, last week, or months ago.

I agree with you about focusing on things you can control during a match. Hold is difficult to control, especially during hard match pressure. But saying that there is nothing to do about hold during a match is not 100% true in my opinion. By focusing on basics, stick with your shot plan whatever happens and keeping your body relaxed your hold will improve as a side affect, or at least stabilise it self.

What I have experienced during matches is that my body tends to tighten up. Also my sholder rises a bit. For me this causes a more wobbely hold. But when I think about keeping my sholder low and relaxing my body my hold actually improves. I wasn't aware of my tightening of body and rise of sholder for some time, but we have good coaches here in Sweden with an eye for that - thanks. :-)

/Tobias

Anonymous wrote:What I have experienced during matches is that my body tends to tighten up. Also my sholder rises a bit. For me this causes a more wobbely hold. But when I think about keeping my sholder low and relaxing my body my hold actually improves.

I fully accept that, but what you are doing is actually getting your stance correct, not trying to improve your hold.

In an extreme (probably ridiculously so) example, that would be like saying that your hold was bad because you had one foot lifted in the air. Comparisons of hold can only be made if you are doing everything else the way you normally would.

stirring things up again!

what happens on the day is a combination of your past experiences, the biggest factor how you are thinking. regardless of your preparation, if you are not thinking well, the wheels fall off.
the better prepared, the less affect, generally.
you can take a break, recompose, and get back into it.
even talk to the coach, so you can recover.

your hold on comp day compared with practice is a symptom of how you are thinking, if you are thinking well, your hold can improve, the reverse is also common.
so I am saying you can alter your hold on the day, if you have done the right/wrong preparation.

looking at hold as a symptom, you can judge how you are focusing, if not so good take a break, start again. so I dont think you have to accept the hold on the day. unless its RF etc

outcome and results are 2 different things. many things out of your control can affect results. eg weather.

tobias, tightening shoulder etc. is also a symptom, working on relaxing it just takes your mind off what ever is the problem.
future thought would be to be more comfortable during comp. wouldnt worrying to much about shoulder, just remember why it happens.

bryan

Tobias wrote:

"Sorry if I offended you Steve. But your babbeling about "hold does not matter" doesn't feel very serious. Do you actually think that you can time your shots to be released just as the sights suddenly passes the ten ring (shaky hold), and do that constantly over and over again? In theory perhaps, but not in reallity.

What you want is to spend as much time as possible inside the ten ring (steady hold) and hopefully get the shot released inside that time frame. The more time spent inside the ten ring the more probability to shoot a ten. Easy math. "


Tobias:

Portions of what you say are easily contradicted by objectively measured (by instrumentation provided by Scatt and Rika) performance variables.

In reality, shooters do exactly that- shoot tens over and over again, consistently, as the muzzle transits the ten ring- indeed, study some Scatt and Rika traces and you will see that many top shooters do exactly that.

A SMOOTHER, more CONSISTENT hold- not necessarily a TIGHTER hold- is the key.


And yes, I do understand how "counter-intuitive" this idea is. That's why most people reject it out of hand, in spite of somewhat compelling evidence to the contrary.

I do not reject that you *can* shoot tens with a ten ring hold. I'm saying it is not *necessary* to have a ten ring- or even a 9.5 ring- or even, frankly, a 9 ring hold- in order to shoot a *lot* of tens (say 46 tens and 14 nines, with a "mostly 9, sometimes 8" ring hold).

It appears, however, that you are assuming that a top shooter will break his shot "randomly" inside his settle- *now* who is "Babbeling" [sic]? Yes, of course, if your shooter is randomly releasing the shot inside his or her settle, then of course spending the most time inside the ten ring will produce more tens; and the amount of tens will be proportianlly equal to the amount of time spent in ten ring.

But no shooter releases his or her shots randomly inside their settle . . . they themselves may actually claim that's what they are doing, and many may actually believe that's what they are doing . . . but again, whn you look at their muzzle traced and ashot distribution it is obviously NOT a random process.

So maybe we should study the ACTUAL process of how the shots are released . . .

Steve

[Congratulations to Mellberg for his 565 FP; that beats my 554 certainly. But I have talked to a lot of great shooters who can't explain what it is they are doing . . . and a lot of not so great shooters who have a very good grasp of what it takes to shoot great scores, but just can't do that themselves. Sometimes it pays to not assign a "halo effect" from the "doing" performance into the "understanding and explaining" ability. In both directions. Mnay of our best coaches in the US have never been "580" shooters. And many of our "580" shooters don't seem to have any idea *why* what they do works, and can't help others achieve the same performance.]

And then again many shooters who seem "know it all" can't do it at all. The more they think and talk about the process the worse they get. Like the Nike commercial says- Just do it. But I guess over thinking thinks is in fashion. As for the top shooters and Rika/Scatt tapes- Who are they? Can you be more specific. If all this thinking gets you a 547 in air pistol, maybe you think too much?

Whatever makes you happy Steve... :-) I'm not going to argue about your silly "hold does not matter" obsession anymore, its just useless waste of time and energy from my side.

Bryan, thanks for your input. :-)

/Tobias

Im with Steve Swartz here! Majority of ppl have a 9.5ring hold according too Anatoliy Piddubnyy (and i belive him, quoted below), so its prolly not the big issue in shooting!? Stability of gun at instant of firing must be the main problem.

Our best accessory is the SCATT electronic system for training, designed in the Soviet Union and currently made in Russia. While researching the SCATT files, I came across documented confirmation of many of my suppositions. For example, that stability by itself does not guarantee good results. Vladimir Goncharov can keep the pistol in the 10 zone for 5-6 seconds; Mihail Nestruev has very brief windows of opportunity, of up to one second, but he takes full and effective advantage of that time. Thanks to his ability to “seize the ideal moment” he was voted World’s Best Shooter of 2001. The SCATT is also demonstrating that every shooter has his own arc of movements (AM) in the last second before the shot in the 9.5 circle (most have a smaller, higher quality AM). This means that if at the time of the shot there is no movement that does not belong to the AM, the shot remains within that circle. From personal experience I know that stability within the 9.5 circle is not a trait exclusive of elite shooters but also of midlevel shooters (a majority). All shooters are familiar with the phenomenon when the shots come out almost automatically – the sights enter the shooting zone and the finger goes into action effortlessly – he is working on automatic pilot, subconsciously.

Have we become so obsessed with hold the pistol still that we are ignoring the remaining fundamentals? Some posts have mentioned that there is more to shooting an accurate shot than holding the pistol still. Can anyone with access to a scatt, rika, or a noptel confirm Steves results? Real competitors really hate to loose and I've noticed that Steve trots out his scatt reports when he seems to be loosing an argument. I react in much the same way.ie I HATE to loose. Hopefully it is in a rational way. Now for another question, which technique produces the fewest irratic shots over the 60 shot string?{ One post mentioned a 97 score with the last shot being a 7.] It seems to me that reliability ,consistancy in performance is necessary to compete at world or even national level with the "Top Guns" out on the range today. Good Shooting Bill Horton

2650 Plus wrote:Can anyone with access to a scatt, rika, or a noptel confirm Steves results?

Anyone can download the Scatt software and sample files from many of the world greats from the Scatt Support Page