"I come ti dance" or Don't Toy with a Sundowner

 "I come to dance...."  Royal Wade Kimes.

It was a beautiful day at Pioneer with the top finishers being Short Keg, Hitch, and QC Carver. Short Keg was undefeated but for three shots by Wyoming Ranger.  I thought I had Short Keg in the finals when with the match tied 2 to 2 and I hit my best draw of the day,  but alas the announcer was slow on the button and the timer failed to registered a time.  Short Keg, ever the gentleman, called a thumb rock on himself, being startled by the quickness of my draw, so the match continued.  On the next shot he showed me that he clearly was the "faster gun" and not to toy with a Sundowner.

 Training Tip:  For an event, never ever change your draw.  I started poorly shooting the first four rounds with a .96 gunfighter rating. (.40 accuracy and .56 speed index). The next 3 rounds were shot with a 1.327 rating (.74 accuracy and .587 speed index).  I did not change my draw in any way just shot the Alleluia System adjusting my alignment only. By the shoot off I was dialed in. I shot the shoot offs with a gunfighter rating of 1.48 (accuracy .90 and speed index of .58).  The tip is never change your draw. Once you change you draw you are lost. Change your alignment before the set command and constantly get better both quickness and accuracy. Shoot the system.  It works.

I stayed focused with the system until the second to last shot when I thought "he is not beating me on speed," which of course led to the world record no time.

Messages Sent:  I am not sure I believe the "thumb rock."  Short Keg has always been such a gentlemen I accept his assertion, but I know he intended to send a message that he was the "faster gun" which he did.  I intended to send the message that if you draw me, you had better hit the plate, because on the mountain we don't practice missing as Wyoming Ranger also showed.

Four Days to Cali.

 This post is for the mtn shooters.  There are four Wednesday left before the California State and Western Territorial and since there are only so many Wednesdays in a lifetime we are not going to waste these four. So we will be shooting Arizona Bigs the next four Wednesday on the mtn.

The Target:  The target will be the CFDA 24 inch target with a 10 inch black circle on it.  Target height will be 45 inches.  We arrive at that height because muzzle height of most shooters is between 38 and 41 inches which means the appropriate target height would be between 44 and 46 inches at 10 feet.  We shoot at 10 feet because "we don't practice missing" on the mtn.  A shooter only benefits from a shot if they see the actual hit.  A miss off of the target is just wasted wax and primer.

Scoring:  A hit on the target nets you the time of the hit.  A hit in the black, including thumb nails, the time is divided by 2.  A clear hit in the light the time is divided by 3.  Winning and time really is not important but we have such a bunch of competitors that it amounts to the heckle factor.  We will not be publishing standings.  But scoring is important to keep the shooters focused.  It matters not only that you hit but where you hit.  The point of Arizona Bigs is to give the shooter the opportunity to improve with every shot and with every match.  By seeing every hit the shooter has the opportunity to store those small incremental changes in the subconscious that are so important in being a tough gunfighter. (See "Chunking Data" May 30, 2016 of this blog)

The Format:  We will shoot Arizona Five.  It uses 25% less range time which means you can get more rounds in.  It also sorts better that other formats.  It also duplicates the pressure you get in a titled match.  You need to hit, and hit right now.  We will shoot two sets of Arizona Five each match.  We are only going to record the score of the first match in the computer.  This was the standard format of the mtn for more than five years until the advent of the marble match.  

2 Shooter or 3 Shooter:  Whether we shoot 2 shooter or 3 shooter matches will depend on the number of shooters we have.  If we have 12 or less we will shoot 2 shooter matches.  If we have 15 or more will shoot 3 shooter matches.

Brackets:  We will be shooting brackets because that is the most efficient type of match.  You will be bracketed by your current 2nd fastest time of the year.  We will have either 2 brackets or 3 brackets.  Since you are going to shooting someone with a comparable speed, you can not slow down if you want to win which every one does.

How to shoot Arizona Bigs:  The point is to allow the shooter to get better with every shot and every match.  You want to use your quickest finalized draw.  Never ever slow down.  You need to improve your quickest draw, not learn how to slow shoot.  Don't worry about your speed.  Just go as quick as you can.  What you got is what you got.  

Never worry about where you are going to hit.  We do not aim.  You will hit where you are aligned. You are so close and the target is so big, don't worry about it.  If you have a solid hit let your subconscious work for you.  You mind and your body will move the hits closer to the black and the light.  You are chunking data on how to walk your hits to the light.  Let it happen.  If you are off the target or if you feel you need to change your alignment do it before the set command.  Then forget it.  If you think about it you will over compensate and you get the wide swings that lead to missing.

Data:  By Thursday morning, I hope to e-mail a spreadsheet that will show the hit percentage, in black percentage, and gunfighter rating of each match and a combined gunfighter rating for the entire day to each shooter. Standings will not be kept or published.  No shoot offs.

"Chunking and automation travel together on the march toward expertise."  The Sports Gene.

Arizona Blockers continued

Don't misunderstand, we shoot for fun. I think the AZ Blockers were a lot of fun.  My perception is that the matches were more competitive than they would have been otherwise.  The scoring opened the door for some shooters to compete with some super fast competitors.  They were still talking the next day about how that .330 got beat by a hit in the black. "Well, you should have been in the black too!"

 

Bias! The Arizona Five has a gunfighter bias. The 10 foot target has a speed bias.  Some would say the scoring has a accuracy bias (a myth).  It all balances out.  "It just practice, man, practice, what are we talking about, practice, man, practice."

But even if you are having fun you might as well be getting better. 

 

Perception vs Reality:   I did a spreadsheet to verify my perception that shooters improved, however it only dealt with hit percentage and "in the black" percentage.  To further verify what I perceived, I have calculated the gunfighter rating for all of the matches.  Generally, the rating of all of the shooters improved  significantly from round 1 to round 7 except for Shady. He started at 1.590 and maintained that near perfect rating in every round.  

 

Improvements:  If we ever do this again one change I will make is to record the fastest actual time as the fastest time on the score sheet.  That will be easy to do and then the fastest time report and bracket report would be available for data analysis.  I think I can modify my spreadsheet to input the fastest time for each match and the computer would automatically compute the rating for each match if I get the formulas correct.  Might be useful.

 

Heh, those obsolete 24 inch targets may be of use to you and you might get better too.  Remember:

Never ever slow down;

Never ever worry about where you are going to hit; you are going hit where you are aligned.

Never ever worry about speed; what you got is what you got, worry only slows you down.

Never ever practice missing;

 

Arizona Blockers

 We tried Arizona Blockers again on the mountain. I think it was very successful for a practice session. I do have some data that would indicate that it does help shooters get better.

The format: We shot Arizona Five which sorts better and put pressure on the shooter to hit right away.  It has a gunfighter bias. There were no matches resulting in a double loses and only one match resulting in a double win out of 27 matches.  We shot two shooter matches, if we had had more shooters we would have shot three shooters matches which have a speed bias.

Targets: We used 24 inch targets set at 10 feet. Target height was 45 inches. The personal target height of the shooters ran from 44 inches to 46 inches so we set the height at 45. The larger targets at a closer distances creates a speed bias.  

Scoring:  The targets had a 10 inch black area with the balance being a different color, red or green. A hit in the colored area resulted in the time displayed. A hit in the black including thumb nails resulted in the time being divided by 2.  A clean hit in the light resulted in the time being divided by 3.

The point of Arizona Blockers is to motivate the shooter to care about where they hit on the target.  This motivation and the practice should result in the shooters getting better as the event progresses.  With several of the shooters it was obvious that they improved significantly during the event.  The final match of the shoot off really showed the results with both shooters hitting 100% with 50% in the black.

Group Data:  My perception was that the shooters improved significantly as the event progressed.  However, perceptions can be incorrect so I put the data in a spreadsheet to confirm what I thought happened.  The group as  whole shot 72% with 24 % in the black in round 1.  Generally the group improved as the event progressed with the best round being round 6 at 85% and 40%.  As I stated before the final match was 100% with 50 % in the black.  There was no lollygagging all day.  Fastest times report ranges from .122 to .337, of course, the scoring affects that report.

I don't know if we will do this again, but "we don't practice missing on the mtn."

Ratings and where are we going???

When I get my hands on score sheets from matches I do gunfighter ratings on the shooters. I have the ratings of 59 shooters who shot at Pioneer in January 2017 and the ratings of 39 shooters who shot on January 2, 2021.

Interesting Trends:  The average hit percentage in 2017 was 41%.  The average hit percentage in 2021 was 41%.  The average speed index in 2017 was .38. In 2021, the average speed index was .47.  What this tells me is that our accuracy has not improved but our speed has.  The average shooter has moved from being a low 6 shooter to a low/mid 5 shooter.   

Ratings:  Generally, a rating of 1.0 or above will put you in the top 15% of shooters. In the 2017 shoot, there were 5 shooters (8%) at 1.0 or better. In the 2021 shoot, there were 6 shooters (15%) at 1.0 or better. Expanding the view to .97 or better, results in 18% of the shooters being included in both 2017 and 2021.   Final two shooters in 2017 were at 1.27 and 1.208. Final two shooters in 2021 were at 1.34 and 1.26.  (I might add the top shooter at 2021 event followed up with a 1.41 rating in his next 37 shooter event.)

How do you rate?  It is really easy to do. You combine an accuracy index with a comparable speed index.  The accuracy index is simply your hit percentage.  For the speed index, in order to have a comparable number, you subtract the speed from the number of 1.  For example, a shooter shooting .325 would have a speed index of .675, a .5 shooter would have a speed index of .5, a .700 shooter would have a speed index of .30.

What speed do you use?  The easiest number to use is the speed listed in the bracket report which is your second fastest time.

It really does not matter how you get your rating. A 7 shooter hitting 70% will have a rating of 1.0. A 3 flat shooter hitting 30% will have a rating of 1.0.  Those are evenly matched gunfighters.

 

Where to?  The numbers seem to reflect our obsession with speed.  Speed has improved but accuracy has not.  At Shady Mtn we never practice accuracy, only speed, but we try to avoid practicing missing.  If you see every hit you mind and body will naturally move your hits to the light. Practicing at championship distance and missing 70 % of your shots means you have wasted that wax unless you can actually see the exact location of your hit.  Average hit percentage for an Alleluia shooter ought to be 80% without ever practicing accuracy.

Dishearten on the Mtn!

 Many times it is more important to find out what does not work than what does.  I was somewhat dishearten how poorly Arizona Bigs worked but the sun came up this morning anyway.

Color:  Neither the red nor the green allowed the shooters to consistently see their hits which was the point of the target.  I think if we do this again we will have to go with all black targets with some sort of inscribed circle

Overall Results:  We shot four rounds. In rounds one and two, the hit percentage was 45% and 40% which is no better than the CFDA average for titled events.  The targets completely failed to allow the shooters to improve during a match.  I attribute this  in part to the color of the targets.  I was so disappointed that I moved the shooters to 10 feet for rounds 3 and 4 and the hit percentage improved to 57% and 55%, better, but not what you would expect.

Fundamental Error:  When I moved the shooters to 10 feet I did not adjust the target height.  I should have adjusted the target height to 44 inches which would be the standard for a typical CFDA shooter but did not do so.  This probably accounts for the poor shooting.  A clear example was the poster shooter, who hit 75% at 15 feet but hit 0% at 10 feet.  Having the targets at the incorrect target height is going to hurt the shooter with the more finalized draw more.

Individual Results:  The current National Champion crushed these targets hitting 80% with 25% of his hits in the black. You would expect these results because he has been using this training technique for years on blocker targets.  Only one shooter had a higher in the black percentage than his hit percentage.  Half of the shooters had a hit percentage above the CFDA average.  

Grumblings:  There were several instances where a quicker shooter lost to a "in the black" shooter.   The point of the match is to train the shooter to stay focus and put them "in the black."  Looking at the fastest time report, there was no lollygagging.  Nine out of ten shooters had in the black times.

I will post the results on the mountain.

Arizona Bigs

 The knock against blocker targets among CFDA shooters is that they ruin your draw for professional events.  Many of the good shooters in the valley of the sun refuse to shoot blockers for that reason. However, blockers can be beneficial for training if you have the proper focus. The advantages can be that:

 1. Because of the large size you see the actual hit of most of your shots.  If you see the actual hit, your mind and body will adjust your draw to bring the shots onto the center of the target.  A shooter that is hitting 30% on a small target is wasting 70% of his wax, his effort and his time.  Why not hit 100% and get the benefit of the subconscious moving the hits to the light.

2.  Because of the large size of the target, some of the stress of trying to hit the target is removed.  When we shoot up close at 5 feet and then move back to 15 feet, our times are always much slower than what is accounted for by the distance.  The additional time results from the stress of trying to hit the target.  Larger targets remove some of this additional stress.

ARIZONA BIGS:  The target is a standard 24 inch CFDA target with a 10 inch black circle in the middle.  We initially painted the outer circle grey which did not work well.  We are experimenting with red or green.  The grey color did not allow the shooter to see the hits which is the whole point of the target.  If the shooter hits "in the black" the time is divided by 2.  If he hits in the outer circle he gets  that time. 

The target is designed to be shot at 10 feet but we probably will be shooting it at 15 feet.  At 10 feet target height is 44 5/16 based on the CFDA's calculation of standard muzzle height of 39".  At 15 feet target height would be 47".  Shooters would benefit more at 10 feet because higher hit percentage, but there seems to be some resistances to that distance so we will try it at 15.

Poster Shooter:  At our first test Holli Day hit 93% of 14 shots, her first shot being .375 and her final shot being .348.  Her final 5 shots were all "in the black" and were all within a 3 inch circle.  The speed was not remarkable, but the  consistency was.  She got better and better, quicker and more accurate.  That is the point of the target.  The goal is to finalize your draw and to walk your hits to the light.

"We don't practice missing and we don't lollygag." Alleluia Ruah