Microgunner,
We may be talking past each other. Not a true disagreement so much as needing a little more context to be sure we're on the same page. Let's see...
Having worked as both a lead instructor and as a coach with hundreds of beginning, intermediate, and experienced shooters over the past 12 years, I'm reasonably familiar with what works and what doesn't in teaching people to shoot better. Pretty much everything I've said comes through the context of teaching people to shoot within a formal class setting, and with how people practice after they leave the formal class setting.
Within that context, I'd say you're absolutely right that it's important for the beginner to focus completely on building a good technique. They need to learn the basic skill set before adding any stress, doing everything smoothly and correctly. That repetition builds in some good strong neural connections that will tend to endure when we add more complexity or more difficulty to the task.
As you noted, people will naturally move a little more quickly and with significantly more confidence once those neural connections are in place and well-practiced.
They won't, however, move anywhere near as fast as they're actually capable of moving. That type of speed only comes with deliberate effort.
The sequence is:
So first work on accuracy and basic gun manipulations. Then push for speed.
You do have to push for speed, because once they've learned that they can hit the target accurately, even confident shooters will (almost always) settle themselves into a comfortable shooting pace that's nowhere near as fast as they're really capable of going.
They do that because they don't want to give up the satisfaction of hitting where they aim.
That's also how you get the shooter who's proud and happy to put a dozen shots somewhere on paper as long as he shoots them all super-fast: he can't shoot more accurately even if he slows down, so he might as well pride himself on his speed.
By the way, as far as I can tell, many if not most untaught and self taught shooters settle for step 1 plus practice. Once they can make the gun go bang and sometimes hit paper, they're happy enough to just keep doing that. When we get those guys into a class, they're often shocked at how much better they can be and how much wider the field is of things they could learn.
pax
We may be talking past each other. Not a true disagreement so much as needing a little more context to be sure we're on the same page. Let's see...
Having worked as both a lead instructor and as a coach with hundreds of beginning, intermediate, and experienced shooters over the past 12 years, I'm reasonably familiar with what works and what doesn't in teaching people to shoot better. Pretty much everything I've said comes through the context of teaching people to shoot within a formal class setting, and with how people practice after they leave the formal class setting.
Within that context, I'd say you're absolutely right that it's important for the beginner to focus completely on building a good technique. They need to learn the basic skill set before adding any stress, doing everything smoothly and correctly. That repetition builds in some good strong neural connections that will tend to endure when we add more complexity or more difficulty to the task.
As you noted, people will naturally move a little more quickly and with significantly more confidence once those neural connections are in place and well-practiced.
They won't, however, move anywhere near as fast as they're actually capable of moving. That type of speed only comes with deliberate effort.
The sequence is:
- Learn the broad outlines of the skill.
- Practice the broad outlines just until you have the basic idea.
- Refine your technique to get all the "little stuff" in place (grip the magazine in this particular way, or bend your elbow to that particular angle).
- Practice performing the complete, refined skill in a way that is smooth, efficient, fluid, and safe. Do this until you can do it without focusing on each tiny step along the way. At first, you run through a type of mental checklist ("Is the top of the front sight equal with the top of the rear sight? Is there an equal amount of light on both sides of the front sight? Is the front sight lined up in the middle of my target?" etc etc). But later on, you just think, "Front sight, press." The checklist has become second nature, and gets activated whenever you decide to line up your sights. Practice until you reach that point, and a bit beyond.
- As the skill becomes "more natural" to you, add extras to increase difficulty: speed, movement, distance, additional steps (such as drawing and moving at the same time, or shooting multiple targets).
- Push for increased speed.
- Push for improved accuracy at that speed.
- Repeat steps 5, 6, 7, and 8.
So first work on accuracy and basic gun manipulations. Then push for speed.
You do have to push for speed, because once they've learned that they can hit the target accurately, even confident shooters will (almost always) settle themselves into a comfortable shooting pace that's nowhere near as fast as they're really capable of going.
They do that because they don't want to give up the satisfaction of hitting where they aim.
That's also how you get the shooter who's proud and happy to put a dozen shots somewhere on paper as long as he shoots them all super-fast: he can't shoot more accurately even if he slows down, so he might as well pride himself on his speed.
By the way, as far as I can tell, many if not most untaught and self taught shooters settle for step 1 plus practice. Once they can make the gun go bang and sometimes hit paper, they're happy enough to just keep doing that. When we get those guys into a class, they're often shocked at how much better they can be and how much wider the field is of things they could learn.
pax