Friday, December 7, 2007

Standards Drills for Practice

What does the word "Standards" make you think of? Torture? Inhuman cruelty? Sadistic match direction? Or, does it inspire thoughts of confidence? Smug satisfaction at free match points? I'll bet its one of the first ones, isn't it?

Why do standards exercises invoke such fear and concern in most people? Hmmmm... Can it be that we've forgotten how to actually SHOOT in the midst of all of our running around and whatnot? I suggest that you lose your fear of standards by facing them in practice. In fact, I have several standards drills that I track progress with that I'll share with you in the full article on the DR Performance Shooting main site!

7 comments:

catfish said...

Standards separate the men from the boys.

Period.

Calamity Jane said...

Dave and I were looking at the standards drills. Are the par times for open guns, or do they apply for all guns? If the par time is desinged for open guns, how do you adjust the par times for limited guns?

DaveRe said...

Hi, Jane - same par times for any gun. Just like a fixed time classifier. In theory, that means that you should be capable of shooting better scores on the drill with the Open gun - but really, the point is the to have drill that you can practice with and track progress, etc.

I haven't managed a perfect score on any of these, but I'm left with the impression that its not impossible. One must be sharp through the whole drill, no doubt. Something to aspire to, anyway :)

Bryan said...

Standards drills are a great addition to your training. I've probably shot that Ronin's Drill 200 times over the years and used it as one of my benchmark drills, for years. I was never able to max it out but have shot over 95% on it many times - I decided to change the drill up some and do some other things but still using the Ronin's Drill as a foundation. The 680 drill of mine is another good standards test - takes about 40 minutes to shoot it by yourself. The PAR's are doable but the goal is to shoot only A's throughout the drill - Use the available time and shoot for points. These drills will test your ability to maintain the correct focus for each shot and also test your ability to shoot A's on demand.

Great topic, Dave!

catfish said...

Bryan speaks the truth!! He hooked me up with the Ronin drill and his version. The first few times I shot them I always had time left over on most of the strings, but I wasn't getting all A hits....

Then the brilliance of the drills hit me; slowed down, took the extra time and started getting better hits within the allotted time.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. ;)

DaveRe said...

Derrick, you're right - using the whole par is definitely not something we are accustomed to doing in the USPSA/IPSC world.

Par times actually accomplish two things in practice - the first, obvious, one is that they prepare you for shooting within a fixed time stage or game. You learn to judge how much time you have for each shot, and you usually end up having plenty of time...

The second is that par times tend to simulate match pressure in a great way. Try setting a par time on something like El Pres and see if it doesn't get your heart pumping a little ;)

BTW - Bryan informs me that we were somehow insane on the description for his drill. I'll be updating that shortly, when I have a chance... 2 on each A/B at 15 yards in 3.0?? That'd be pretty studly ;)

catfish said...

What, you mean you weren't doing that in 3?? LOL!! :)