TargetTalk

The following came up in the discussion on the value of a SCATT system

David Levene wrote:I would respectfully suggest that an improvement from 8 to 9 in a short period for a new shooter is perfectly normal and would usually be down to muscle tone giving increased stability, as well as an improvement in the technical elements. Which of those elements has improved is difficult to know, and it will become more difficult as your shooting improves further, unless you have some way of measuring them.

Which opens another question.

What are the technical elements, and, more importantly, how do you measure them? Rob's (quick) list:

• trigger control,
  stance,
  body position,
  alignment,
  gripping,
  breathing,
  ...

It all comes down to four technical elements;
1 shooting position
2 breathing
3 aiming
4 triggering

All four can be trained with Scatt.

BM wrote:It all comes down to four technical elements;
1 shooting position
2 breathing
3 aiming
4 triggering

All four can be trained with Scatt.

I'm afraid that's way too simplistic. What does shooting position mean, and how can you measure that with scatt ?

So to answer my own question, 'position' encompasses;

stance, body position and weight distribution, stability of position, orientation, alignment, foot position and alignment, waist, shoulders, head and neck (and eyes), shoulders, arm, hand and wrist, gripping pressure and hand position, finger position on the grip and the trigger, and probably a dozen other attributes that elude me for now. As I said none of those are captured using scatt.

Exactly the same breakdown is required for breathing, triggering and aiming and it is those sub-elements that you need to train. Some things are more simple to train and can then be moved to the completed pile, other elements need more detailed and long term training and require regular evaluation to check they are still being performed correctly.

<as an addendum, can I suggest a read of the ISSF training academy article on the fundamentals of pistol shooting, it's what their coaching platform is based on;
http://www.issf-sports.org/academy/trai ... istol.ashx>

Rob

SCATT is a digital way to give you analog results from interconnected stuff. Lets say for a minute that you "improve your hold". Your SCATT score go's up and you are happy.... Great, until somebody asks you to PROVE the change directly resulted in the uptick. The system cannot do that. The items you wish to track are all subjective and personal to the point that a change is not repeatable from one person to the next. This lack of repeatability is the crux of the problem.. SCATT monitors the SYSTEM TOTAL PERFORMANCE, but is not sophisticated enough to tell you which elements of the process are contributing what percentage of the drift in the data.

reciently my daughter evaluated two kneeling rolls and two bloop tube lengths on scatt. 4 20 shot groups and the answer was very clear. Re check the best two the next day with 40 shots in each and its repeatable. To me thats evaluating position using scatt. I dont know how you would convince yourself 100% of the answer any other way.

I hated scatt when we got it. Cant live without it now. She made her name shooting 20K rounds per year live, but way less than half that now. Scatt helps you work smarter

redschietti wrote:reciently my daughter evaluated two kneeling rolls and two bloop tube lengths on scatt. 4 20 shot groups and the answer was very clear. Re check the best two the next day with 40 shots in each and its repeatable. To me thats evaluating position using scatt. I dont know how you would convince yourself 100% of the answer any other way.

I hated scatt when we got it. Cant live without it now. She made her name shooting 20K rounds per year live, but way less than half that now. Scatt helps you work smarter

There's a subtle difference between measuring and evaluating and the two are quite different. You can use scatt to evaluate changes to a process or technical element - as you nicely illustrated with the comparison of two factors. Scatt can't though tell you if you're in the wrong kneeling position, or your feet are in the wrong orientation - that is what I was meaning when I said you can't measure position using it.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:There's a subtle difference between measuring and evaluating and the two are quite different. You can use scatt to evaluate changes to a process or technical element - as you nicely illustrated with the comparison of two factors. Scatt can't though tell you if you're in the wrong kneeling position, or your feet are in the wrong orientation - that is what I was meaning when I said you can't measure position using it.

Rob.

I'm thinking like this. To be able to shoot only tens I must have a hold and a timing that make the shot brake when I'm in the ten ring. If my position makes that possible then the position is good. I see that when using SCATT.

If I for an example have sideways wobble in kneeling then changing my feet orientation may reduce or enlarge that movement. I get instant feedback if it was a good change or bad. How is that not telling me if my position is good or bad?

Maybe it's a language barrier or it's just me not understanding.

Johan,

I think what Rob meant, was that Scatt cannot tell you what change to make. It will tell you if your hold was wobbly, but not why it was wobbly. The shooter or coach has to work this out themselves.