Posted by RML on September 23, 2001 at 18:40:51:
It’s quiet on TT these
days, maybe for natural reasons.
But I try a question: How many of you out
there do any special "holding" exercises? By that I mean any exercises to teach
your body how to hold the pistol (or rifle) without shaking. I have the
impression that most of the practice done is only shooting, and nothing else
(like myself...).
Regards,
RML
Posted by Jerry on September 23, 2001 at 19:28:43:
I would be all for at
knowing some exercises that could help my trembling and trigger freezes... I
appear to be able to dry fire with no problems, but the real deal causes all
kinds of difficulties...
--Jerry
Posted by M Boyle on September 24, 2001 at 05:14:01:
Sounds like your
probes more mental. I try to tell myself (its practice, its not loaded or
cocked)this seems to relax my mind and helps groups.
Posted by Patrick Haynes on September 23, 2001 at 23:10:01:
I know what
you're talking about. You can dry fire and deliver great results off of the
line. But, when it counts, things don't go as planned.
I don't know you and
what stage you're at, but here are some things to think about:
1. What is
your level of physical conditioning like? If you dry fire 20 shots beautifully,
then things go wrong after 40 shots, maybe you need to tone up (not bulk up) in
your shoulder muscles. Could also be that your grip is getting tired, and some
grip strengthening exercises could be helpful.
2. Could be a mental thing -
when you dry fire, there is no expectation of performance. You don't expect to
shoot a '10' or a 'non-10'. As such, you focus on technique and execute your
shot plan perfectly. Then that evil target is put in front of you and some voice
inside your head say: "I gotta shot a '10'!" You become performance outcome
oriented, instead of performance delivery oriented. Your mind is in the future
instead of thinking about trigger squeeze, sight alignment and sight picture,
etc. You need to work on attention control and focus. Be 100% in what you're
doing - concentrate on your shot plan and forget about everything beyond taking
the shot. Try shooting at a blank target, trying to reduce the size of your
grouping. Then shoot at a target with the scoring rings obliterated. Finally,
work with a regulation target.
3. Your practice/training may not be mentally
challenging. When you shoot or dryfire, you're very relaxed and not threatened.
Then, on the line, your thoughts wander (see #2) and you lose control. You might
want to try some shooting games, along the lines of adversity training. The
games challenge you with a goal (like shooting as many 10's in a row as you can,
then exceeding that number in the next session.) This forces your practice into
a competitive mindset and then you have to face that trial.
Finally, keep up
with the wallholding and dryfiring: it works beautifully and cannot be
beat.
Good shooting and thanks to Pete, for mentioning my site
(http://www.targetshooting.ca).
Patrick
Posted by Jim Holtman on September 23, 2001 at 20:24:19:
Besides dry
firing, I like to use the Edelmann Control Targets. They will help with natural
point of aim and also to work on one aspect at a time (vert. hold or horz.
hold). I usually do several days of dry fire on both standard and Control
targets. I then gauge my progress by live fire on standard targets. Edelmann
targets can be purchased from Neal Johnson's Gunsmithing. If you are having
severe hold problems, you should check your position carefully. Another option
that I have not ventured into yet is the electronic trainers (Scatt, Rikka,
etc). I think that they would be extremely helpful, but quite expensive.
Jim
Posted by Pete on September 23, 2001 at 20:31:27:
I spoke to one member of
the AMU, a pistol shooter. He explained that he could do most of his training at
home. Most of his training was holding and other drills not live fire. Dry fire
was just one drill. The other drills were pretty basic and pretty simple:
1.
Stability: eyes closed, not moving, arm extended in the shooting stance.
Practice balance.
2. Hold: use a small pencil dot on the wall as a reference
and hold the sight on the reference.
3. Pump the trigger: Do not cock the
weapon; just pump your trigger finger as fast as you can without disturbing the
sight alignment.
4. Focus on the front sight, concentrate on it. 5. Focus on
the front sight on a blank wall, concentrate on the front sight, what color is
it?
6. Dry fire on a blank wall.
7. Dry fire on a target.
Posted by Pat McCoy on September 23, 2001 at 22:51:58:
We use holding
exercises with our juniors in two ways. First, with relatively new shooters that
are having trouble finding how to relax rather than muscle the rifle in the
standing position, we add a scope (15x) and have them hold (no target or blank
paper). When they get the idea of how still the sight will set when relaxing
they can proceed to a target (with scope) and try for the same "feel".
Second, our more advanced shooters will add a scope and hold on orange
"targ-dots" (usually at home in bedroom or garage), then gradually go to smaller
and smaller dots.
Posted by STL William on September 24, 2001 at 09:59:28:
Excellent
discussion! I think that all of these ideas are very good and every one should
read these posts and choose the exercises that address their specific problems.
My suggestion on this issue concerns pure conditioning. What helped me a lot
last year was just holing the rifle up for long periods of time to build up
endurance and the load bearing muscles? I did this by every night before I went
to bed I watched Jay Leno's monologue (which is about 10 min long) and aimed at
him while I listened without setting the rifle down once. Ideally you have total
bone support in your position but as this exercise will illustrate, you use a
lot of muscles and not that many of them are well worked under normal
conditions.
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