Progressing classifications as precision pistol shooter

Quality over quantity!
I keep reading about or hearing about shooters expending large quantities of ammunition and not making progress.
Yeah shooting is supposed to be fun, sorta lol. But if you’re not making impressive gains with all the ammunition you are shooting, I’d highly recommend getting a coach and spending time on learning how to shoot quality shots vs. quantity of shots. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been shooting 30 years, etc. If you’re not climbing the ladder you’re doing something wrong.
Back in the day they used to say “you had to be knee deep in brass”. Reflecting back on that I disagree unless they are truly quality shots and not just going through the motions.
Get a coach that’s been there done that. They know how to do it.
Jon

Jon, 
Two well respected shooters at my club have told me to don’t expect to improve if you train/practice only once a week.  What are your thoughts on this please.   
Thank you.

Once a week of anything isn’t enough to master anything….in my opinion. If you can only live fire once a week and dry fire 3x a week you can improve. Dry firing trains you and live fire reinforces the dry firing. A regimented dry firing plan can take you far. Once upon a time I shot a lot. Now not much at all. But if I do know I’ll be shooting a match I can normally be ready with two weeks of dry firing and two range sessions and shoot close to 2600 +- 10 points or so. Why? Because my dry fire plan is serious and vigorous sessions. The live fire shows me my gripping issues if any and I can quickly correct them. Also my chance to confirm zero and ammunition. Dry firing is all to often overlooked as a serious training plan. It only lacks the recoil. Recoil is mostly mental. Pistol is going to recoil the same whether you shoot once a week or five days a week. It’s part of the shooting experience. It does help to shoot reduced loads if you’re not shooting much. So if you can only make it to the range on limited basis, then adapt your training to compensate. Lanny Basham won Gold at 1976 Olympics only getting one range day in a year before the Olympics. But he dry fired the entire year and ran a mental management program. He’s proven the power of dry firing!
Quality training always beats quantity. Can’t just go through the motions. Gotta really train.
Jon

Keith Sanderson, a now top level Olympic Rapid Fire  did the same. He used to use tons of ammo but in his recent performance only shot 1 brick all summer. He did dry fire daily. I also know folks who only did DF and never progressed so the old addage on perfect practice applies. DF with bad form only ingrains bad habits. Feedback is needed from the shot. You can succeed with DF alone but extreme attention is needed

A good coach should shave years and several thousand rounds off the diy course.  Unfortunately they are 10x harder to find than primers.

A related item to look at would be realistic goal setting. If you have limited time to devote (range and outside of) that is ok, just be realistic about with what you can do with the time you have available. 

In regards to dryfire, it is more than just making the gun go click. You need to shoot and dryfire identically. If you are in the camp where you dryfire perfectly every time but fall apart in live fire, you likely need to reevaluate your dryfiring.

Jon Eulette wrote:Once a week of anything isn’t enough to master anything….in my opinion. If you can only live fire once a week and dry fire 3x a week you can improve. Dry firing trains you and live fire reinforces the dry firing. A regimented dry firing plan can take you far. Once upon a time I shot a lot. Now not much at all. But if I do know I’ll be shooting a match I can normally be ready with two weeks of dry firing and two range sessions and shoot close to 2600 +- 10 points or so. Why? Because my dry fire plan is serious and vigorous sessions. The live fire shows me my gripping issues if any and I can quickly correct them. Also my chance to confirm zero and ammunition. Dry firing is all to often overlooked as a serious training plan. It only lacks the recoil. Recoil is mostly mental. Pistol is going to recoil the same whether you shoot once a week or five days a week. It’s part of the shooting experience. It does help to shoot reduced loads if you’re not shooting much. So if you can only make it to the range on limited basis, then adapt your training to compensate. Lanny Basham won Gold at 1976 Olympics only getting one range day in a year before the Olympics. But he dry fired the entire year and ran a mental management program. He’s proven the power of dry firing!
Quality training always beats quantity. Can’t just go through the motions. Gotta really train.
Jon

Jon,
Can you please share what your dryfire workout looks like? 

For example, 3 sets of 10 shots: slowfire, train for breaking shot within x-amount of time, etc. 

Thanks,
-TH

Very well said Jon. Arnie is smiling at your words. Because of his recent passing I tried to dig out my notes from one of his collegiate team clinics but I have not found them yet. I do remember two of his quotes that he constantly said:

"The trigger is your life"
"You are never too good to stop dry fire”"

Larry Bassham’s “With Winning in Mind” tackles this problem where there are imbalances of the conscious, subconscious, and self image areas of performance.