TargetTalk

My friend who became a renowned shot at the recently held Nationals has been giving me some ten meter air pistol tips. He has been stressing again and again the importance of aborting and redoing the shot it anything feels wrong. He says that one must abort the shot even if a stray thought enters the mind.

My problem is that I normally aim and try to adopt the dynamic aiming method or what I understand of it. Lower pistol and squeeze of shot as soon as I reach the sub six area. This at times results in a five or a four but the majority of the shots stay in the 8,9,10. So in this way I will score 180-181/200.

When I slow down and try to shoot the way my friend suggests I end up shooting 177-179/200. So what do I do? The slower I shoot the worse it gets or I am unable to shoot a 90 score. My worry is that I will be unable to eliminate the few wild shots that occur when I trigger the pistol a little early when doing or following the dynamic aiming method.

Gurus please enlighten me.

Warm Regards,

Dev

however you shoot you need to train it. That training of the process takes months to really learn so that the process can be performed subconsciously (or at least less consciously). Keep shooting your way if it works and just learn the technique completely. Doing so will eventually lead to improved results but you need to be patient.

Your friend is right and I'm wondering if slowing down for you is illustrating a triggering problem ?

Whatever technique you decide on, you need to train it for some months and then evaluate the results. One of the errors early on is focussing on the score, forget that for now, it's just a distraction. Concentrate simply on the technique and getting it consistent.

Rob.

Your friend is correct. Having been around the best shooters in the world at one point, and by watching the World Cup videos available now, I have seen no one using the hit it as soon as you see it method. For now this may be producing better results, but in the long term you will limit yourself in terms of score.

Dear Dev,

Your friend and the above recommendations are a good source toward your better performance. I suggest you additional tools to measure time when you have to abort your shot. The best time frame for perfect shot is from 7 to 11 seconds after aiming toward your target while holding your breathe. Someone can help you track your time and show you records of bad shots made before 7 and after 11 seconds. Also, when you will practice more, dry fire will be extremely helpful. The quantity of the aborted shot will decrease proportionally.

Thank you all for taking the time to add such valuable feedback. It just that my impatience drives me nuts in the sixty shot match. Guess I need to work on the correct technique a lot. It is just so damn time consuming and energy sapping. Since there is no way around it, I should either learn or make my peace with it.

Regards,

Dev

If you are trying to get the shot to break the first time your sights pass through the correct alignment, you are probably rushing some of them. The bad shots are far more likely to be the result of poor trigger control than a misalignment of the sights. I suspect the faster it is moving through the correct sight picture, the more you subconsciously rush the shot. You need to learn the dynamics of your arm so you can fire when things are settled, not just passing through alignment.

Think about it: when you come onto the target, you are moving around a bit. At some point, you will settle to the best alignment AND minimum motion. After that, things will degrade. You want the shot to break at that minimum point, which means you have to begin your squeeze BEFORE you reach it. If you wait until it looks perfect to try to squeeze off the shot, you are guaranteed to fire when things are not as good as they were at the minimum. Worse, you may notice things getting worse and jerk the trigger.

The only way you can get the timing right is to practice a lot. You need to learn how long it takes for you to settle, so you can begin your squeeze at the right time. You also need to learn to identify when things aren't right so you can abort the shot. Depending on how tired your arm is, the settling time will vary a bit, but if you've got a smooth trigger squeeze, that's what gives you the occasional 9, not the occasional 4 or 5.

I am curious as to your question, why does this happen? What precisely do you mean by "this." Your shooting a five with the dynamic aiming technique?

I would like to offer that using the dynamic aiming technique; you sometimes take may your attention away from sight alignment and transfer your attention to watching to seeing when you have passed the bullseye. And in doing so, you let the front sight drop in alignment with the rear sight. The second possibility is that you are going: SHOOT NOW BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT INTO THE SUB SIX AREA!!!!!!!!. In this case, you push the shoot, probably up.

Consider staying relaxed and instead of shooting when you reach the sub-six, allow yourself to shoot when you reach the sub-six hold area. It is a slight change in attitude to help you stay calm.

Also, when do you apply pressure to the trigger?

To others, I read of and had brief discussions concerning to approaches to aiming. Classic aiming is as Russ described it, hanging in the aiming or hold area for 7 to 11 seconds. (see the post by Russ).

Dynamic aiming refers to an approach where you slowly allow weapon to settle into the hold area and take the shoot after only the briefest pause. One member of the US team explained the technique as setting your sight alignment above the target, let it settle into the aiming area and take the shoot within one to two seconds of reaching the aiming area.

A coach told me once "Never accept a bad shot" If some part of you shot process does not go to plan then you should abort and start over. I have been working on this for years and still do not have it perfected.

For me I settle on to the target from the top and work my way into where my aiming area is. Using a Rika I have found I am holding the 9/10 ring very quickly but using that knowledge I was not able to shoot 10s consistent and had wild shots.

The 7-11s range Russ refers to became an optimal time to break the shot even though I know I could have shot a 10 already and my hold has taken me in and out the 9/10 ring a few times since the start of my shot process.

What ever process you use you need to develop it over several months.

This can be a very good question Chris.

" I have been working on this for years and I still do not have it perfected. "

You can get help and answers from carefully revising all of the elements of your current performance. 1) Your goal. 2) Your current score performance 3) Your experience and time of practicing 4) How is you practicing. 5) What is your knowledge in fundamentals and etc...
Based on those elements of your performance, if you analyze them and reconnect them in the correct structure, Your coach can help you build a more stronger model of perfect shot performance. When you will feel more confident and successful in delivering more “10", you may expect your subconscious mind to start helping you only from this point. Without connecting all of the elements of your structure while adjusting them with right knowledge, you will not produce an effective outcome too soon.

You cannot force your subconscious mind to provide help for your performance if your score is less than AP 570-575. Most likely, you will abuse this process. On other hand, if you become consciously aware of the complete model of how to deliver a constant score at AP 570-575 level, you may start to experience interesting things in your performance, such as: calling your shot as “9” but receiving a “10” instead. Yes, 560 in AP can be delivered by the conscious execution of the perfect model of fundamentals and it is your choice to engage yourself and your time by NOT discussing technical advantages of one model of your tool (hammer or pistol; this is not the matter) over another. For example, what kind of shoes do you need. I saw a picture of Mikhail Nestruev performing a winning score in an international event while wearing dress shoes. Your attention goes where your intention is. If you are a recreational shooter and your objective is to have fun, this can help you validate only the next purchase of shooting shoes. If your efforts are directed by score performance, you may choose other alternatives (increasing the time of dry fire) than the justification of doing (purchasing) something towards your unclear goal.

Dev, I have been through what you are going through and on some days am still going through it.

The problem for newer shooters is that either your hold isn't very good, or it is good, but only for a very short period of time.
You can't wait for the sights to settle for the third time and then start your trigger moving. You have to learn what the window is for your hold and get the shot breaking inside that window.

In order to do this, you can pull the trigger very slowly, or rather quickly, depending on how good your trigger pull is. Most Bullseye shooters who shoot much heavier triggers pull the trigger much more quickly than the majority of Air Pistol shooters. The key is not to do what I call "loitering" on the trigger, which is watching the sights, (which for most people never really stop moving) and waiting for perfection as you hesitate and back off as you hold too long and watch the sights move.

My suggestion. Work on your trigger pull a lot with the aim of not hesitating and NOT applying little jerks of pressure until you finally end up jerking the shot somewhere into the 7 ring or worse.
Pulling the trigger as smoothly and as quickly as you can without jerking should be your goal.

Then figure out your hold. Be it ten ring, nine ring or 8 ring, you will never shoot better than your hold. The goal is to keep all your shots within your hold by not making triggering errors.

With about twenty thousand rounds of dry firing with an occasional live shot to confirm what you have learned about your hold and your triggering, you will know when to put the gun down. Although no one does it perfectly. because if they did, the top competitors would all be shooting 600 and they would have to make the target smaller. :-)

There is nothing wrong with a dynamic shooting technique. However, in order to do it correctly, your triggering has to become almost automatic, so that you are not jerking in your haste to get the shot off immediately after the gun settles into your area of hold.

Dry firing against a blank wall and shooting a blank piece of paper will tell you if you hold too long because your eye is jumping back and forth from your sights to the bull which is another error that I am frequently guilty of.

Wow, I am so amazed to find so many ways to look at my problem. All the anwers had so much depth that I read them over the weekend and pondered over them.
After this i did a practice session where I decided that I was going to shoot only 40 shots but I would track every one and take my time. So I made a series of tick marks or crosses on a sheet of paper. The tick marks were for the correctly called shots and the crosses were for the incorrectly called shots.
It was very time consuming as I had to keep walking up to the target to look at every shot, but I think the process made me calmer. I shot a pretty okay group, two targets of twenty shots. I did not score them as I want to just see where I put the maximum shots are and reduce the error level.

The funny part is that if you remember the correct sight picture, you can shoot tens almost at will. Needless to say I shall practice more of holding and do trigger work (dry fire), I still have a month till the next tournament.
Hopefully with all of your inputs I shall shoot a great score.

Regards and thank you once again,

Dev

If you find you can't call some of your shots, that's usually a pretty good indication that you have lost focus of your sights. You may think you are focused on your front sight, but your vision/concentration is probably drifting towards the target.

This is often another symptom of holding too long. I start with my sights just above the black, so I can get a good sharp sight picture. Once I've lowered into my hold, if I wait too long to break the shot, it gets harder to maintain the right focus.

A small orange chalk mark on the front sight can often help beginners to focus on it. You want to be able to see every speck & detail of the chalk for every shot.

Dev wrote:....It was very time consuming as I had to keep walking up to the target to look at every shot, but I think the process made me calmer. I shot a pretty okay group, two targets of twenty shots. I did not score them as I want to just see where I put the maximum shots are and reduce the error level.

The frequent walks to the target and back will help build your stamina and patience. The "distraction" will also help you focus on achieving your goal. You know, the more stumbling blocks/challenges, the better you develop yourself kind of thing. I used to do that when I was much younger. Eventually, I grew older and wiser(?), and lazier and set up a scope to monitor my shots.

Hoping for your success!

Ron

Thank you Gwhite and Ron, you are very encouraging.
I have found that I make 17 incorrect shots out of 60.
They land in the 7 and 8 ring, which means I must have strayed from the sights or forced myself to shoot at the wrong time.
My goal is to reduce these errors further, seems pretty doable small goal.

Best of luck to all of you.


Regards,

Dev

P.S. Thank you Russ have partly understood your teaching. But the problem is that I am not a full time shooter and at 46, it doesn't look like it will feed and house me. So I still need my day job to live, hope you understand.

Can you be more specific about it? "

have partly understood your teaching"

46... is not a problem
full time shooter ... no one was before...
will feed and house me..... but for someone does.


Question what is your goal of investing your time, money and energy in this activity?
You have to ask yourself first this hard question!

Hi Russ,

What I mean by partly understanding your teaching is that I am clear on your explanation that I should do dry fire practice and this in turn will help to reduce the number of aborted shots.

I also understand that what you are talking about is a firm resolve to improve or get out. It is quite like what Miyagi says in Karate Kid," Karate not do okay, Karate do maybe...sooner or later get pinch." What I can't grasp is why you think that I am in it for style and have the money to keep splurging on equipment and shoes etc.

While you seem to say that a lot is possible if one trains correctly, I am at the moment bereft of a great coach like you. I am not sure whether you will be able to help me all the way from Michigan.

Secondly, I started shooting as a hobby, then I got into competing cause the score improved a little. However I can't put in or atleast haven't been motivated enough to shoot more than 3-4 days a week for an hour.

I have a frozen shoulder problem. You could say that I am arguing for my limitation. I can understand your passion as you want everyone to put in the hours to excel, maybe i will...but at the moment I am struggling at 540.

Regards,

Dev

First of all, I am not trying to imply that I am the only coach available. :) This is not true.
For some reason, coaches cannot offer their service at this resource.
540 is good starting point. Start searching for qualified help around. I see statistics; India is currently doing well in Olympic style target shooting.
As I told many times: to score AP 565 does not require too much time. Your model of 3 to 4 days by 1,5 hours can fit this goal.
But what is important for you, is to have someone as a professional look at what are you doing. Check fundamentals and the execution of your fundamentals. If you do it during the earlier stages of your performance, it will be easy for you to jump onto the next level in the nearest future.
If the fundamentals are not established correctly during the earlier stages… struggling will continue all the way up.
Look for qualified help around your area. There is no need to travel internationally to solve a 540 AP issue. Check different sources in your country with a national organization, and they will point you toward the right direction.
If the internet will become the only source, it is very easy to pick up some incorrect advice (we can’t establish correct value from an avatar by the amount of posts of how smart he sounds). There are a lot of chances to get “advice” from someone who can’t even score 540, but will be offering help for you and a positive attitude. A very common practice is “fake it till you make it”. I’m not reading all the stuff here.
If I may, I suggest you toward my personal favorite of TT: any topics posted by Ed Hall.
“Bullseye (and International) Competition Things.”
I recommend you to read books as well. There are many of them in comparison to those days when I started.
I hope it will help.
Russ

Russ wrote:540 is good starting point start searching for qualified help around. I see statistics, India doing well in Olympic style target shooting in those days.

At least here in Europe, India is ranked as being about the No. 1 top forthcoming shooting nation of the *world* now.
Don't know how the more parochial Amurricans look at it. Other strongly upcoming nations are Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia, and very recently also Iran. In comparison, e.g. the UK has become third world (shooting wise).

Alexander

Lack of qualified help at the club level is one reason why just few individuals able to score AP at USAS national over 575.

Dev: looking at your question, I gather that the longer you hold the harder you try to break a "perfect" shot, is this right? This is very common, many shooters try to "over prefect " shots and thus overhold. Yes if you overhold you should abort the shot and start the process over again. How do you tell when you are overholding? Well is you are seeing the pistol drop and have to think about moving it back to the aimaing area, then you are forcing the process. Also if you are saying thinks like " I can make this shot" in your mind you are overholding. Many shooters will see an aborted shot as a failure- this is wrong since an aborted shot saves you from making a mistake. If you abort a shot you should send a subconscious note to yourself like " Good" or "OK". Is this helping?