Help Wanted: USPSA Production M or GM

[two shoes]

L-10 would work too

Hoping that there'll be someone from Loveland/Greeley North... but if not, I can travel too.

I realize that I need some help if I want to improve. I am talking about EVRYTHING... basics (grip, stance etc) and Dry Fire techniques to stage break down. Not all of it has to be "range time". The only thing I am not looking to change is the pistol I am using, but can make minor changes to it.... Be warned, it's a Glock... [Flower]

If you or know someone up to the task, PM me. I don't know what the going rate is per hour, but let me know what you think. About once a month...

[Sawin]

Give my friend Laran a buzz. http://www.dftofco.com/

[SA Friday]

Ron Avery is the highest end of USPSA instruction in the state.

RW Swainson is in Littleton and also does classes.

Paul Clark Jr is in Greeley, and would probably do training classes with you.

Jerry (the section director) is in the Greeley area and might do training classes with you.

The above are all high end shooters (and there is a couple more in that area), and could put you on the right track. Realistically, a good class with any of the high end USPSA instructors around the USA would do it. It's more about practicing the right skills and regularly than anything. Having a training partner is a must too.

dry firing practice can be done at home, and helps a metric ton for draws, reloads and sight acquisition. Jerry Anderson sells a book about dry firing that will help. Reading Brian Enos' book will help a lot with your live fire practice and how to look at shooting.

[CHA-LEE]

Effective Training/Coaching costs money. Instead of looking for a GM in a particular gun division I would suggest you pick a trainer by their proven training effectiveness, budget, and location. The better the trainer the more the training is going to cost you.

If you are looking for a good USPSA competition trainer in the Loveland/Greeley area I would suggest you contact Jerry Westcott. If you need his contact information send me a PM and I will get it to you.

Just keep in mind that trainers can point out your weaknesses and show you the right way to do things. But in the end its up to you to put in the hard work and practice to make changes and hone your skills. There is not a "Magic Pill" that will give you instant awesome shooting skills. You have to earn it with a ton of hard and effective practice.

[two shoes]

Thanks for all of the leads guys. I truly appreciate it. I understand that I need to follow through and do my part if I want to see real results.

[Redwoods]

I too would go to Jerry Westcott for training in your area.
At the end of your training Jerry will have you going home with three shoes insead of two!

[Limited GM]

The best instructor I've ever known was a guy I could beat at most any match.

The best shooters aren't necessarily the best instructors.

I personally found Michael Plaxco's book the most informative of any I've read. Sure wish I remembered who I loaned it.

Like any sport, you'll get out of it what you will put into it.

Opinions will vary.

[DocMedic]

A call for help with "everything" is pretty broad, and can be definitely approached by several different avenues. But first and foremost you need to ask yourself on how bad you want it. Once you have that figure out then you need to do a complete a no BS assessment of yourself, such as what do you believe you need help on the most, and why do you think you need the most help in that area. The reality of it is you need to set true attainable goals first before you consider any type of training, or you'll just end up where you are now getting frustrated.

Once you have set some goals for yourself, now its time to figure out on how to develop the skill to improve those skills. This could be through either self-help such as dry/live fire practice, Books, self analysis and critique, such as watching a video of yourself and having someone explain to you what you your doing well and not so well or Instructor based courses were a "professional" will watch you as your shooting and give you critical feedback, this is important because many times, were lead to believe we've always been doing a particular skill right but when viewed by someone else in that instant it could be exactly the opposite. but the combination of both will make you develop skills leaps and bounds above just any doing one or the other.

If your leaning more into getting professionally instructed, then several names already posted here would be a great start, but "professional" instruction also cost money. Not saying it wouldn't be money well spent, but as I said earlier, its all about how bad you want it and how much time you want to take to learn these skills. But understand, if you want to get better at Action Pistol sports, you need to take an ACTION-Pistol Sports class! You wouldn't go to a quarter-back coach to learn to throw the ball if you’re trying to become a pitcher. Also know that while you will learn from instruction in a class, you'd retain it better if you were coached. I believe CHA-LEE is a great example of this. You can read his Diary on Eno's but to sum it up, he got real serious on wanting to be one of the very best, so he went the professional route, but he just didn't take class here and there, he basically had professional coaching by one of the best USPSA shooters in the Area.

Myself, I'm kind of a against the grind person. I'm not against professional coaching but until shooting could pay a good portion of my bills, I believe at least for myself the money can be spent elsewhere that can also help me improve depending on my dedication. When I switched division back in September I did a lot and I mean A LOT of dry firing, recently due to finals and some stressors in life I’ve cut down quite a bit, but I would easily spend a hour a night working on different skill sets that I felt that I needed to improve. I also tried to get at least one Live fire practice in that wasn't a match. And that another thing you need to ask yourself, how many matches do you plan to attend in a month? Myself, I would hit every pistol match in the state, minus some of the really far ones. I bought my car in January with 8miles on it, today I just broke 10k, while I do like to do live fire drills, and it’s really hard to mimic stressors that are only brought by real matches.

Books, books are great, video is better but a combination of the both is awesome. Brian Eno's book was mention in here, it is a good book, but personally I didn't like it, for me it’s a little too dry and too much of a "Yin & Yen"nny for me, and honestly USPSA has change quite a bit since the day's he shot it, even though it still focus on the core essentials of the sport ,it definitely feels a bit outdated. The book I currently liking is Mike Seeklanders book, he really focuses on more of what the sport is now, doesn't really talk about his "emotions". The book explains on what skills he works on and why he believe it’s a good skill to work on, reminds me more of a military manual :). he also made a video set that goes with his book about doing dry fire and live fire practices. To me it’s really a must have.

Either way you want to go through to improve your skill the very first thing you need to establish are Measureable goals.

[CHA-LEE]

A very effective training tool you can use is to have a shooting partner that can practice and go to matches with you. Having someone shoot with you that also wants to get batter is priceless. You two may not be at the exact same skill level but that really does not matter if you both keep an open mind and can express what you see in each others shooting. Hell, even watching other people shoot can get you thinking about making changes to your own skill set.

DocMedic touched on this only a little bit so I wanted to bring it up again. In order to get better at anything you first need to be an expert student of yourself. You need to know what you require to learn things effectively. The better your skills are at training yourself new things the faster you will be able to properly learn and execute new skills. For example, I know that if I want to retrain myself on a mechanical gun handling skill, such as reloading, it will take about two weeks of daily dry fire practicing the skill before it will be burned in and made a subconscious action. Knowing what practice is needed and how long it takes to relearn a skill is HUGE. Unfortunately the only person who is going to know what it takes for YOU to learn or relearn a skill is you. Nobody else is going to be able to tell you exactly what is needed on your end to properly learn a new skill.

The learning process is at least a three phase process. The first phase is identifying an issue in your skills. The second phase is figuring out the proper fix for that skill. The last phase is using your known "Train yourself" program to burn in the new skill to fix the issue.

A proffessional trainer can help you with Phase 1 & 2, then give you some suggestions for performing phase 3 but only you really know what is needed to effectively complete phase 3.

[two shoes]

Thanks guys for the input. I have felt a bit ignorant of my ignorance... meaning I didn't know what I needed to work on or where I am at or what to start with. Right now I can only gauge "what I need" by my results so far.... Accuracy (mikes and NSs), Stage breakdown and reloads (slow or cumbersome) top that list (for now, I'll confirm after the RM300).... Looks like video and training partner will be very beneficial.

[Fromk]

From your last post it really seems like the best thing you can do is keep going to matches and talking to people when your'e there. If you can get a buddy to shoot with and get video of you it would be better. Get out there and have fun first. Work on getting better second.

[two shoes]

From your last post it really seems like the best thing you can do is keep going to matches and talking to people when your'e there. If you can get a buddy to shoot with and get video of you it would be better. Get out there and have fun first. Work on getting better second.

Even with the mikes and NSs I still have a metric ton of fun. I spent the last 3 days working on my reloads and draws for about 15-20 minutes each. Hope to get out and do a little live fire Friday afternoon, really focusing on accuracy, not speed. This weekend should be GREAT!!!