While the original plan for the dry fire series posts was a one post per month, it is hard to believe that this series has been going on now for ten months with eight posts. Predictably, the posts in the series don’t get anywhere close to the type of traffic gear review posts. But that doesn’t matter, I keep writing them because dry fire practice is the cornerstone of skillful marksmanship and there is still more to say about it.
So this month, I want to take a step back and return to the fundamentals of dry fire. This is in part inspired by a recent video Bob Vogel recently posted where he shared his thoughts on serious dry fire practice. Go ahead and watch it if you haven’t and you want the additional context before reading on.
There are two things that Bob Vogel said in the video that struck a chord with me. Actually, there were more than two things, but two things that I want to key in on.
- How you practice is more important than what you practice
- You have to be mentally connected when you are practicing
Both of these things are critically important for skill development. They are even more important to avoid inadvertently and unintentionally introduce bad habits, which could negatively affect our skill or, even worse, create a safety issue, that we have to later correct.
For me, the most fundamental part of good dry fire practice is being present in your practice. I suspect this is similar to what Bob Vogel means when says being mentally connected. It’s about being an active participant in the practice rather than a passive participant that is just going through the motions of a routine. When we are engaged we can perceive all of the details of what we are doing. In other words, we are more aware. We can recall the entire process in vivid detail. We can answer questions and explain things like:
- How we defeated the concealment garment (assuming we are using one) before establishing the master firing grip on the holstered pistol
- Where the manual safety was defeated (assuming a manual safety was present) exactly in the draw stroke
- When and where the support hand joined the grip
- How the firearm was aligned in relationship to the eye-target line when the presentation was complete
- When our finger first touched the trigger
- Whether or not the grip pressure was consistent with the grip pressure we use in live fire
- How much and what path did the sighting system take when the trigger broke
- Whether or not we used correct trigger pressure for subsequent shots
- Where our visual focus was during each trigger press or while performing a transition
- What happened that resulted in a magazine being thrown across the room when doing that reload
- Whether or not we let everything fall apart during the final trigger press of the drill we were working on
All of these details help us ensure that the dry fire is done in a manner that is consistent with how we want to perform when running the gun with live ammunition. Additionally, the details are inputs that allow us to make micro corrections in the middle of a drill. They are also inputs to what we want to do differently in the next repetition of the drill we are working on.
Being present helps us practice better. Better practice helps us improve more efficiently. It doesn’t matter how you slice it, the details matter. The details always matter.
This might seem a little cerebral. So I’ll try to illustrate how getting back to the fundamentals can be applied in practice with some recent changes I’ve made in my dry fire practice.
Many returning readers are aware that I will be attending Gabe White’s Pistol Shooting Solutions course for a third time about two weeks after this post is published. While there is a lot more to Gabe White’s class than the coveted turbo pin, I have a personal goal of earning and walking away with one of those pins this time around. To accomplish that goal, I will have to meet or exceed some stringent standards in this technical skills tests. As such, virtually all of my dry fire practice has been completely focused on practicing the four drills that make the technical skills tests.
A few weeks ago, I started meeting those standards pretty consistently in dry fire practice. That, however, is not enough. I need a buffer to account the pressure I will be under when it comes time to perform in class for score. Not long after that I noticed that I wasn’t getting faster. At least, not fast enough. So I decided to make a change.
The first change was introducing a few perfect reps without time pressure. Okay, perhaps not exactly perfect. But as perfect as I could get them. Part of the process for the “perfect rep” involves paying attention to every single detail that I want to execute to ensure accurate accountable hits during the drill with as little wasted motion as possible. I’m paying attention to:
- Where my hands are reseting before I begin defeating the concealment garment.
- Where and my support hand grabs the t-shirt (similar to what I will be wearing in class) and the path it takes to expose the gun (again with as little motion as possible).
- When my strong hand starts moving and the path it takes to establish the grip
- The path the strong hand and arm takes to pull the gun from the holster
- Where and when my hands meet after the pistol has been rotated and the safety is defeated
- Where my eyes are focused the entire time this is all happening
- The path the gun takes to the eye-target line and when it begins to decelerate as the presentation reaches full extension
- Where along that path full grip pressure has been achieved and applied
- Where along that path the trigger finger meets the trigger and starts prepping it for the first shot
- The visual confirmation I am waiting for to finish pressing the trigger and breaking the first shot
- The pressure I apply to each subsequent shot
An important thing to know is that even though there is no time pressure, I’m not doing these reps at a snail’s pace. I’m moving. I’m just not concerned with beating a par time.
It might require a few adjustments to get the “prefect reps” just right. So I keep working it until I can get a few of those “perfect reps” in one after the other. This is how I want to execute the drill in detail.
Next I set the timer to 1/10th less than the last time I was able to beat consistently and run the drill how I practiced running it at speed. If I’m hitting or beating the time and I’m aware that I’m executing the drill how I want to execute it, then great. I can move on to the next drill starting with a few perfect reps.
If I can’t beat the new time, then I remove hit accountability and simply try to beat the time to get a feel for how fast I need to move. After I start beating the time a few times in a row, I reintroduce hit accountability back in and work on executing the drill how I want to execute it at the speed I want to execute it with. I repeat the process as needed until I start beating that new time, or fatigue starts setting in and it’s time to take a break.
After using this approach for about a week, I’m starting to notice a little gap between the last trigger press and the par time beep on each drill. It’s hard to say whether or not that gap would be present had I not made the change to how I’m practicing. However, I suspect that the changes in how I am practicing have been a net positive.
If nothing else, then these changes have forced me to return to the fundamentals which have been a welcome reminder to be a present and active participant in my dry fire practice. And being a present and active participant is the foundation of good dry fire practice.