Exercise: Visual Patience, 100 rounds, 1 hour

An exercise improves a fundamental. A drill improves a set of connected skills or fundamentals. This exercise builds up 2 core fundamentals – seeing what you need to see, and deciding as early as you can what you need to see.  These are part of a larger process called “Visual Patience”, which you will constantly be working to improve once you have basic fire control fundamentals down.  

Target: Visual Patience Target (a mix of various targets)  (PDF link, you can print from it.)

Goal: Improve ability to present to various target difficulties and see what you need to see.

Procedure:  

This can be done dry only (170 reps). Or live on the range with 170 dry, then 100 hot.

3 to 7 yards depending on your skill.

DO AT THE PACE OF DOING IT RIGHT.  Not slow. Not fast.  The speed you can do it right every time. 

Recommendation: Rebuild stance and grip at least each target.  On early targets, rebuild each rep.

Step 1: Look at the target. Decide, right now, what you need to see in terms of SIGHT PICTURE for each type of target. I’ve done it for how I’d think it for each size/shape/region target. I’m thinking in terms of what alignment I need to see over a SMALLER region of the target, to maximize the chance of a hit.

Step 2. 170 reps. That’s right. 170!

For each target on the page (17):

1. dry fire each target 10 times.
2. Start on the target with the sight picture you want.
3. Come back to compressed imminent threat (CIT), or low ready (LR), (not the holster – focus the hard part…. the end of the draw, not the start).
4. Present to the target
   1. find the sight picture, press the trigger, reset the trigger (even simulated if your gun is an SA), hold and confirm you saw what you needed to see and didn’t move off of it with the trigger press.
5. If you find yourself having trouble with one target, stop, think, and try to get 10 perfect reps.

Step 3.

Same as Step 2. Only live. 5 rounds per target.

You will have 15 rounds left of your hundred. Use 10 of them on your worst target. Use the last 5 on your best. Finish strong!

Step 4

Write this down in your journal. Think about what you learned. Think about what was key. Thing about things you can do to improve results (whether accuracy, time or both).

NOTE: You should be mentally tired at the end of this. Do it at the PACE OF DOING THINGS RIGHT. Each shot – dry or live, should be thought about and done in a calm and measured process oriented manner.

Feel free to rest and to do dry warmups between targets.