Practice is where I want to learn new things.
An instructor or other shooter may show me a faster way to leave a position. I may see a movement technique that looks more efficient, read about a different training method, or discover another solution while watching someone shoot a stage. Sometimes the idea works immediately. Sometimes it does not work for me at all. Other times, I cannot really tell until I have spent some time with it.
That willingness to experiment is part of improvement, but there is another side to it. If you continually change what you are doing, you may never stay with anything long enough to determine whether it actually works.
Sometimes you need to let it settle.
The process I use is:
Experiment. Integrate. Verify. Trust.
Try the idea. Work it into the rest of your shooting. Give it enough time to become familiar. Verify that it actually improves performance. Then, if the evidence supports it, trust it and use it.
New Shooters Need a Foundation First
There is an important distinction between learning and experimenting.
If you are new to practical shooting, I do not think the best approach is to collect five different ways to perform every skill and immediately begin deciding which one works best for you. At that point, you may not yet have enough experience to make a useful comparison.
You need a foundation first.
Learn one sound way to draw, reload, grip the pistol, transition, move, call shots, and perform the other fundamental skills. Practice those methods long enough that you understand what they are supposed to accomplish and can execute them with reasonable consistency.
That is one of the reasons I believe in a structured training system. A newer shooter should not have to assemble an entire shooting methodology from scattered information. A good training program should already have done much of that work by organizing proven principles and techniques into a logical starting point.
As your experience grows, you will begin recognizing where a technique fits you well, where something may need adjustment, and where another solution may offer an advantage. Experimentation becomes much more useful when you have something solid to compare it against.
Learn From Everybody Without Becoming Everybody
I learned this concept long before I started competitive shooting.
In the early 1990s, I trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu before mixed martial arts became a common term. Our training was not limited to one source. We received instruction from people with different backgrounds, including wrestling, boxing, and Thai boxing.
The objective was not to become a wrestler one week, a boxer the next, and something else after that. We took useful pieces from different disciplines and incorporated them into what we were already doing.
My instructor often expressed the idea as taking what was useful and leaving the rest behind. Years later, I recognized the same philosophy in Bruce Lee's statement:
“Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own.”
That is a good description of how I think about learning now. You can learn from a lot of people without copying any one of them completely.
The objective is not to collect techniques. The objective is to build your shooting.
For a newer shooter, that process should come later. Build the foundation first. Once you understand the fundamentals and have enough experience to recognize what a change is actually doing, outside ideas become much easier to evaluate intelligently.
Experiment
After you have built a foundation, practice becomes the right place to test alternatives.
If another shooter has an interesting way to enter a position, try it. If an instructor teaches a different visual cue, test it. If you think shooting an array while moving may be faster than stopping, compare the two solutions.
There is very little value in rejecting an idea simply because it is different from what you currently do. At the same time, new does not automatically mean better.
The fact that a Grand Master uses a technique does not necessarily mean that technique is the best solution for you. The fact that an instructor teaches something does not mean you need to immediately replace what you already do.
Treat the new idea as something to investigate rather than something you must adopt. You do not have to decide immediately whether it is good or bad. You are gathering information.
Principles and Techniques
Another idea I carried forward came from my Army experience.
I remember being taught to distinguish between the standard that had to be achieved and the tactics used to achieve it. The standard mattered. The leader still had flexibility in determining how to meet that standard.
That way of thinking has influenced how I approach shooting.
There are principles that matter. The shot needs to be acceptable. The reload needs to work. The entry needs to allow you to begin shooting efficiently. The movement needs to get you where you need to go safely and quickly.
The specific technique used to accomplish those things may vary from shooter to shooter.
That distinction keeps us from confusing a principle with a technique.
The principle provides the requirement or direction. The technique is one way of achieving it.
If someone teaches me a different technique that supports the principle more efficiently, I want to investigate it. If my existing technique already works reliably and the alternative offers no meaningful improvement, I may not need to change anything.
Principles give us direction. Techniques give us options.
Do Not Change Just Because Someone Better Does It Differently
Practical shooting gives you access to a lot of talented people.
You may take a class from one instructor and learn one way to accomplish something. A few months later, another instructor may teach a different approach. At a match, a better shooter may show you a third option.
All three may work.
The temptation is to assume that the newest method must replace the previous one. That can create a cycle where you are continually learning but never becoming particularly good at anything.
One week you change how you enter a position. The next week you alter your grip. Then you move equipment on the belt or change your visual cue. Eventually, it becomes difficult to determine what is actually improving.
Learning requires new information. Improvement requires enough stability to evaluate that information.
Integrate the Idea
Once an experiment looks promising, the next question is whether it fits with the rest of your shooting.
A technique does not exist by itself. A faster exit affects the movement that follows it. A different entry affects the first shot and potentially the entire array. A change in visual attention affects transitions, shooting on the move, and difficult targets.
The question is no longer simply:
Can I do this?
It becomes:
Can I use this naturally with everything else I already do?
That is integration.
A new skill that works only when I stop and consciously set it up has not yet become part of my shooting. I need to use it in different situations until I understand how it fits with the rest of the system.
Give It a Fair Chance
One of the problems with testing a new technique is that the old technique usually has a huge advantage: you have already practiced it, maybe hundreds or even thousands of times.
The new technique may initially feel awkward simply because it is unfamiliar. That does not automatically mean it is worse.
If I compare five repetitions of something new against a movement I have practiced for a year, I may only be measuring familiarity. That is why promising ideas need enough time to settle.
I do not mean that you should spend months forcing yourself to use something that is obviously ineffective. If the experiment clearly fails, move on. But if the idea appears sound, give yourself enough repetitions to actually learn it before making the final comparison.
Stop Changing It Long Enough to Learn It
This is where many shooters unintentionally interfere with their own improvement.
They find something promising, but instead of learning it, they keep editing it. They move the hand slightly, change the stance, try another angle, modify the cue, or move the equipment again.
Each change restarts part of the learning process. Eventually, you may no longer know whether the original idea was good because you never actually practiced the same version long enough to become familiar with it.
At some point, stop adjusting it. Do the repetitions and let it settle.
This follows the same principle discussed in Practice Makes Habit. If I believe a behavior is worth adding to my shooting, I need enough quality repetitions for it to become familiar and begin replacing the old behavior.
Improvement Does Not Always Feel Like Improvement
A useful change may temporarily make you worse.
That is especially true when replacing something you previously performed automatically. Your conscious mind becomes involved again, and you begin thinking about a movement that previously required very little attention. The timer may show slower performance during that period.
That temporary decline is not necessarily evidence that the experiment failed.
Return to the reason you made the change. What problem was the new technique supposed to solve?
If a different entry initially takes slightly longer but puts you in a much better position to engage the entire array, that may still be promising. If a movement change reduces wasted steps but initially feels awkward, it may simply need more repetitions.
The question is whether the idea has the potential to improve the complete performance once familiarity catches up.
Do Not Change Too Many Variables at Once
When practical, I prefer to change one important thing at a time.
Shooting is too interconnected for this to be an absolute rule, but it is still useful.
Suppose I change my movement technique, equipment position, and visual cue during the same training period. If performance improves, I may not know which change produced the improvement. If performance gets worse, I have the same problem.
Changing fewer variables gives me cleaner information. If I want to evaluate a different exit technique, I can keep most of the surrounding problem familiar and see what the new exit changes.
Once I understand that result, I can integrate it with more complex shooting.
Practice becomes an experiment with useful information rather than a collection of simultaneous changes.
Verify It
Eventually, the new idea has to produce evidence.
This is the third step:
Verify.
Did the change actually improve something?
Depending on the skill, that may mean looking at time, points, hit factor, consistency, reliability, or the effect on another part of the stage.
Maybe the new exit gets me to the next position sooner. Maybe a different movement approach allows the first shot to happen earlier. Maybe another way of solving an array produces the same points with less time. Maybe the technique looked faster but actually created a poor entry afterward.
The timer and targets can answer questions that feel alone cannot. Every useful change does not need to produce a dramatic numerical improvement immediately, but eventually there should be a reason for keeping it.
Test It Outside the Original Problem
A technique that works in one drill may still fail when everything else is added.
That is why verification should expand beyond the original exercise.
If I am testing an exit, I eventually want to see what happens when the next position is closer, farther away, or in another direction. If I am working on shooting into a position, I need to vary target difficulty. If I am testing a movement solution, I want to know whether it survives when the rest of the stage changes.
This is where integration and verification begin to overlap. You are no longer demonstrating that you can perform the technique. You are determining whether the technique improves your shooting.
Use Standards to Keep Yourself Honest
Repeatable standards can help with verification.
If I have a known drill, classifier, or measurable shooting problem, I can compare my performance before and after a change. That is one reason I value Known Standards.
A repeatable standard gives me a stable reference point. If my performance improves after the new technique has been integrated, that is useful evidence.
If it does not improve, I need to look more closely. Maybe the new technique needs more time, maybe I am measuring the wrong thing, or maybe the new idea simply is not better.
Any of those answers are useful.
A Match Is a Test, Not an Experiment
Competition gives you another level of verification.
Practice gives you repetitions. A match gives you one attempt.
That makes a match a good place to determine whether the new skill is actually available when you need it. It is not the place where I want to introduce a new technique.
I generally avoid making meaningful technique or equipment changes immediately before a match. If the new method has not been practiced and verified, I have not earned a reason to trust it yet.
I am even less interested in changing technique during the match itself.
As discussed in Match Day: Trust What You Brought, competition is where I want to use the skills I already developed. If something goes poorly, I may adjust the amount of visual information I require for the next shot, solve an immediate problem, or respond to what the stage gives me. But I do not want to rebuild my grip, change my reload technique, or install a new movement pattern between stages.
That work belongs in practice.
As discussed in Matches Are Evaluations, the match tells me whether the things I trained actually transferred. Did the new movement happen naturally? Did I trust the technique without thinking my way through it? Did it improve the stage?
If it did, that is strong evidence that the idea has become part of my shooting. If it disappears under match conditions, it may need more integration before I truly trust it.
Practice is where I experiment. Competition is where I evaluate.
Add the Lesson to Your Shooting Knowledge Base
Once I have enough evidence, the conclusion becomes part of my Shooting Knowledge Base.
That does not mean I have discovered a universal rule. It means I have learned something about my own performance.
I may know that a particular exit works better for me when the next position is close, that I can begin shooting during an entry at a certain level of target difficulty, or that one stage solution consistently produces better results than another.
Now, when I encounter a similar problem in a match, I am not simply guessing. I have experience behind the decision.
That accumulated knowledge is one of the major benefits of deliberate practice.
Trust What You Have Verified
The final step is:
Trust.
Once I have experimented with an idea, integrated it, and verified that it works, I want to stop questioning it during execution.
If I have already tested the technique and proven that I can depend on it, there is little benefit in consciously analyzing it while the timer is running. Practice was where I asked the questions and gathered the evidence. The match is where I use the answer.
That is the same idea behind Match Day: Trust What You Brought.
Trust should not be blind.
It should be earned.
Trust Does Not Mean You Stop Learning
A verified solution is not permanent.
Your skills improve. Your understanding changes. You may attend another class, see a better shooter solve the same problem differently, or discover a technique that was not practical for you six months earlier but is practical now.
That creates another opportunity to experiment.
There is no conflict between trusting what you currently know and remaining willing to learn something better. The key is knowing which phase you are in.
When you are experimenting, question things. When you are integrating, do the repetitions. When you are verifying, evaluate honestly. When you are competing, trust what you have already proven.
Then repeat the cycle when new evidence gives you a reason.
Absorb What Is Useful
The lesson I carried from martial arts still applies.
Learn from different people. Pay attention to different approaches. Try things that challenge the way you currently perform, but do not become a collection of disconnected techniques.
Take what works, integrate it with what you already know, and discard what does not help. Eventually, what remains should become your own way of solving the problem.
That does not mean inventing everything yourself. Almost everything we learn came from someone. The value comes from understanding why you kept it.
For a newer shooter, this is not a requirement to search everywhere for alternatives. Build the foundation first. Use a coherent training method and become competent with it. Later, when you have enough experience to make informed comparisons, you can decide where changes may improve your performance.
Constant Improvement Does Not Mean Constant Change
I believe strongly in constant and never ending improvement.
But that does not mean changing things continuously.
Sometimes improvement means finding a better technique. Sometimes it means refining the one you already have. Sometimes it means performing the same good action often enough that it becomes dependable. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop searching for another answer and spend more time learning the answer you already found.
Change is visible, so it can feel productive.
Integration is quieter.
You may perform hundreds of repetitions without discovering anything dramatic. Those repetitions may still be exactly what turns a good idea into a dependable skill.
Give the Training Plan Time Too
The same principle applies to your larger training plan.
In Build a Training Plan That Grows With You, the next priority should come from evidence about where improvement is likely to provide the greatest return.
Once you choose that priority, give it enough time to work. Do not rebuild the entire plan after one frustrating practice session, and do not change priorities every time another skill looks interesting.
Train the current priority. Measure the results. Look for the pattern. Then change direction when the evidence says something else deserves your attention.
A training plan should evolve.
It should not constantly restart.
Let It Settle
If you are new, begin with a sound foundation. Learn one coherent approach well enough that you understand the principles and can perform the fundamental skills consistently.
As your experience grows, keep learning. Take classes. Watch better shooters. Read. Ask questions. Try different techniques and stage solutions when there is a reason to believe they may improve what you already do.
Then stop changing long enough to learn something.
Experiment. Integrate. Verify. Trust.
Absorb what is useful. Leave behind what does not help. Add the lessons that work to your Shooting Knowledge Base and make them part of your own shooting.
Then trust them until new evidence gives you a reason to experiment again.
Constant and never ending improvement requires change.
It also requires enough stability to know which changes actually made you better.
Sometimes you have to let it settle.