Being half way through my second year of competitive shooting, I’ve received lots of advice, tips and lessons. Much solicited, some not solicited, but all appreciated (except for the off-the-wall advice that’s quite literally insane). The thing is, when you are a new shooter, you are basically starting with a blank slate. Therefore, in order to be a great shooter, I just need to apply those 400 random pieces of advice and go claim my Grand Master card!
OK, that’s not realistic. Neither is it realistic to distinguish value between those 400 pieces of advice. Some may be nice-to-know, but some may certainly result in an extra bump in performance. What it usually boils down to is applying the lessons I remember best, and I think must matter the most.
Luckily, this hasn’t been a recipe for disaster as much as it has merely fostered a slow learning curve. Like all new shooters though, I don’t want to learn slowly. I want to be better NOW, which is what makes this all the more frustrating.
Which lessons matter?
A perfect example for me has been my grip. I’ve seen and heard a lot of advice concerning a proper handgun grip. So much so, that I figured my grip was the one thing I had nailed down. Grip as high as possible; X amount of pressure with strong hand / 2X amount of pressure with the weak hand; 360 degree grip with no gaps; elbows slightly bent; etc. The problem … I wasn’t getting the results I should have been getting, namely a flat shooting pistol allowing quick follow-up shots.
The rest of Team SIG was raving about how flat the P320 shot when we first got them, and I wasn’t seeing “flat shooting” in my own experience. You can actually see my results in the cover photo of my Team SIG Facebook page. So, I used hand exercisers to strengthen my grip and worked on the things I knew to be right about what I was doing. This went on for nearly a year and a half with no discernible improvement.
Seeing my rapid progress as a new shooter begin to slow down and level off, I found myself at the USPSA Area 1 Championship in May, shooting with teammate Yong Lee. After watching me walk through the first stage, he told me my grip was wrong. Mind you, I was merely walking the stage and had no gun in my hand. He could tell I wasn’t locking down my weak hand wrist while going through the motions, and that’s where much of the recoil reduction comes from.
We talked about it for a bit, he gave some examples of how he does it, and he showed me one of his videos to emphasize the point. He rightfully suggested I not try switch to the new grip at the match, but to work on trying to master it afterward.
It has taken quite a bit of time to relearn what I should have been doing correctly in the first place, but the results have been worthwhile. I’m shooting the gun flatter and seeing the sights fall back onto the target quicker than in the past, allowing for faster follow-up shots. I expect it will take me the rest of the year to ingrain it into my subconscious so I no longer think about it while shooting. It’s easier to learn something right the first time, than to unlearn bad habits.
The lessons that do matter
As I look back on my tremendous amount of notes with nearly 400 shooting tips, I came across one from another Team SIG teammate, Jerry Jones of Operation Specific Training. Under the section titled, GRIP, it simply says, “Lock your wrist down.” This note is more than two years old; from back when I had just decided I wanted to learn to shoot correctly and get into competitive shooting. Apparently, this was one of those lessons that mattered.
The moral of the story here is, if you notice your performance advancement is slowing, or something isn’t working as advertised, ask somebody to watch you and give some constructive criticism instead of just waiting for someone to say, “You’re doing it wrong.” Find out what’s holding you back from someone who knows how it’s supposed to be done correctly. The sooner you identify your mistakes, the easier they’ll be to correct.
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