Slow In Practice = Fast In Combat

Sometimes the most effective way to shoot faster and more accurately is to is to take one step back, slow down, and change your approach.

Personally, I don’t like slowing down.

It’s not in my nature.

I want to shoot faster without compromising accuracy by simply moving faster.

Put another way, I want the results, but I don’t want to put in the effort needed to get those results.

I just want to do more of what I’m already doing and get better results.

As Dexter Rutecki said in “Aspen Extreme,” that’s the definition of insanity. (Ok…maybe he was quoting Tony Robbins who was quoting Einstein)

When people do that–add speed to mediocre technique–they just get more mediocre results.

It’s like the sign that says, “Drink coffee…make more mistakes faster and with more energy!”

(For those of you who think, “slow is slow and fast is fast and slow is not fast”…I’ll cover why that is 100% incorrect and wastes a phenomenal amount of time, energy, and money.)

There is another way…a better way. And it’s not growing a beard and changing your wardrobe so that you look more like an operator.

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Quick note:  Right now…through January 4th, I’m doing a super-blowout sale on empty-hands self-defense DVDs with Tim Larkin where you can save 60% when you use the code OX2021 at checkout.

One of the coolest bonuses that you’ll get, no matter which package you buy, is a white paper that Tim did with the scientist from the TV show, “World’s Deadliest Warrior” on slow training from a scientific perspective and how, exactly, it translates over to high speed performance in the real world.  Get the white paper and save 60% now by clicking >HERE<

I was incredibly fortunate to go to a few resident summer camps 25 or so years ago where I had the opportunity to train with Olympic track & field athletes and coaches. I was exposed to cutting edge mental, physical, and psychological training methods, and one of the most powerful training techniques for building high quality speed was “slow training.” It still works for Olympians and it’s been proven incredibly effective for martial arts (think Bruce Lee) and firearms training as well.

A well-practiced shooter can react, draw, aim, and put accurate rounds on target in under a 1.25 seconds. Many can put 1 or more accurate rounds on target in under a second as I’ve demonstrated for you several times.  (if you haven’t seen it, here’s some demo videos: https://dryfiretrainingcards.com/praxis )

That’s too fast to think about any individual part of the process. And you can’t have any wasted movement in your technique and perform that quickly.

It’s got to be automatic.

Conditioned.

Pop culture calls it “muscle memory.”

Science calls it “neural pathways,” “myelination,” and “automaticity.”

Myelination is a process of basically wrapping and insulating nerve fibers or axons in the brain.  It changes the speed that signals are transmitted along neural pathways from roughly 2 miles per hour to 200 miles per hour.  It lets us execute complex movement quicker than an untrained person, and the thicker this insulation, the better we can perform under stress.

In fact, it’s one of the keys to how you can train less and still shoot faster and more accurately under extreme stress.

Watch a high level shot putter or discus, javelin, or hammer thrower and you’ll see them executing a series of complex motor skills WAY faster than they could if they had to think through each movement.

Watch a professional pianist or drummer and you’ll see the same phenomenon.

Do fast shooters, throwers, and musicians get fast by starting fast?

Did they get faster by adding speed to sloppy form?

No.

They developed and perfected their form at a MUCH slower pace and then speed came as a natural byproduct of the myelination process.

Ideally, they practiced at a speed that allowed them to do the same motion with perfect efficiency and form until it’s automatic.

EXACTLY the same way, every time…until it became automatic and required no conscious thought to do. (this process takes way less time or effort than most people think)

And then start adding in challenges to make the technique resilient.

You might be thinking that combat skills are different.

They’re not.  In fact, the faster you intend to execute a given skill and the more stress that you think you might be under when you execute it, the more critical it is that you start by practicing slowly and focusing on the details.

You definitely want to speed up and push yourself to where you’re not succeeding 100% of the time and making the skill resilient.

A skill executed fast has different balance requirements and your limbs have inertia, so practicing at speed is necessary eventually, but you want to start with slow & perfect.

It’s because of a principle called the Weber Fechner rule.  Basically, as stimulus increases, the brain’s ability to pick out details drops.

Let’s take a draw stroke as an example.  When you do it full speed, your brain is flooded with sensory input and can’t pick out details about what you’re doing in real time.

Just the processing required to keep your balance while drawing quickly is pretty amazing.  When we watch someone draw, we see the arm moving, but 90% of the motor output coming out of the brain is going to the other side of the body to maintain balance.

But when you slow down, your brain is able to focus on the details of what you’re doing and eliminate wasted movement during each step of the technique.  And the elimination of wasted movement is the key to speed.

Or, as world champion shooter, Max Michel says (paraphrased),

when you practice at full speed, all you are aware of is the very beginning and the very end…everything else is a blur.  That’s why you should do roughly 80% of your dry fire practice at 50% speed…so you can spot and fix errors and refine technique between the very beginning and the very end of your draw stroke.

But the benefits of slow practice goes beyond just eliminating wasted movement and getting faster.  It also helps you perform better under stress.  Here’s how.

Let’s say you have two people trying to cut through two identical pieces of particularly hard, stubborn pieces of wood with a hand saw.

The first guy REALLY wants to do it the fastest and so he pours on the speed immediately. His saw is bouncing around and sawdust is flying. But the board looks more like someone went at it with a hatchet than with a saw. There are several shallow cuts at slightly different angles, mostly close to where he intended to make the cut. Within a few minutes he’s got a triangle shaped notch that’s an inch wide and an inch deep.

The second guy takes the time to start painfully slow and get a groove started. He moved as slow as necessary so that every cut is on the exact same line. The deeper the groove gets, the less attention he has to pay to the details and the more speed he adds. Eventually, the groove is deep enough that he saws with reckless abandon. As he finishes cutting through the board, he’s sawing faster than the guy who’s still making shallow cuts on the surface of the board.

In this example, cutting through the board is building muscle memory/neural pathways and when your technique is identical from repetition to repetition at first, the process goes much faster.

When you take the time to practice as slow as you need to to practice technique perfectly, the groove of your technique gets so deep that nothing will knock you off.

As I said earlier, that myelin sheath speeds up how fast the signals travel along the neural pathway by 100 times.  Not only that, it speeds up how fast you can send a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th signal on that same neural pathway by 30X!

So slow, perfect training will not only help you perform better at higher speeds, it will also help you perform better under extreme stress.

Not only that, but slow training will help you get to the level of performance that you want to achieve faster and cheaper than always trying to push your speed.

Think about it…that means that you can spend less time and less money practicing and you can shoot faster and more accurately than you are now.

How’s that possible?

The vast majority of shooters have wasted movement in their technique and they have more opportunity for improvement by removing wasted movement than by simply trying to execute their current technique faster.

It’s like tightening up loose steering on a car. You can keep a car with loose steering on the road, but you can keep a car with tight steering under control at MUCH higher speeds.

Put another way, if you’ve got a race car with loose steering, which is going to help you win races…

a. beefing up the supercharger

or

b. tightening up the steering?

Add power & speed without control and you’re likely to go into a wall.

Can you do all of your training at slow speed and execute high quality technique at high speed?

It depends.

In some cases, it seems to work out that way, but the most predictable way to get fast, high quality technique is to start slow and add speed over time.

What about the “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” saying?

No matter how much you dislike it, it is correct…but it has a time component to it.

It’s not saying that if you start a skill today and practice slow and smooth that you’ll be able to execute quickly today.

It’s saying that if you start a skill today and practice slow and smooth, you’ll develop consistent, efficient technique.  If you practice that consistent, efficient technique at faster and faster speeds, you’ll eventually have high quality speed combined with precision rather than erratic speed.

So here’s 3 tools to help you get the most out of your slow training…

1. Use a metronome. I use an iPhone app called “Metro Timer” and use it even more than I use my shot timers.The hardest part about training slow is…doing stuff slowly. This is especially true if you’re already somewhat fast.There’s a natural tendency to speed up way too soon. With slow training, the focus is on how many PERFECT reps you can do in a row, not how quickly you speed up.As an example, if you’re trying to improve your draw stroke, break it up into several component parts, slow your metronome down to 1-2 beats per second, and focus on perfecting each component part. Slowly speed up, but only go as fast as you can and still keep perfect form for 10-20 reps in a row.

   (This is phase 1…when your form perfect for 10-20 rounds, then start adding speed, balance, angle, or complexity challenges until you’re at about an 80-90% success rate)

2. Use a camera phone. I use an iPhone and 2 apps…Coach’s Eye and Hudl Technique.They both allow you to watch videos at slow speed and high speed.I watch my full speed videos at slow speed and pick them apart to find easy opportunities for improvement.  Then I’ll practice the technique at slow speed…either choppy with a metronome or just slow, like a 10 second draw stroke.If I’m practicing smooth and slow, I’ll record my technique and play it back at 2x or whatever speed I need to for it to be “real” speed to make sure that there isn’t any wasted movement.

   In general, if you find someone with technique that you want to mimic, you can slow down video of them performing until you can watch & mirror it perfectly. The more you practice, the more you’ll be able to speed up the video and still follow along with them.

   Likewise, if you’re practicing a technique at ½ or ¼ speed, you should be able to play it back at 2x or 4x and have it look the way you want it to look in real-time.

If you have a choice between doing 5 minutes of slow dry fire training per day for 7 days or a single 35 minute live fire session, I’d suggest 5 minutes of slow dry fire to 99 shooters out of 100. It’s that much more effective.

3. Use high quality dry fire drills and use every learning cheat and hack possible.  If you do dry fire wrong, using the drills that most articles and YouTube videos tell you to do, your mind will separate live fire and dry fire and the benefits of dry fire don’t carry over.It’s a very common problem for people who try to cobble together their own dry fire training from things they see on YouTube and read on blogs.Our Praxis training does dry fire right and has been proven develop skills that will work in high stress shooting situations faster and cheaper than what is possible with live fire training or old-school dry fire training.  It combines cutting edge brain science with accelerated learning techniques in a way that no other training does.One way to think of the course is that it’s like a workout video where you’re doing follow-along dry fire drills with a pistol.  This gives you the opportunity to CONTINUALLY mirror perfect form on the screen in front of you.  You don’t have to rely on memory from your last course and hope that you’re practicing the way that you should be.

   With Praxis, you’ll always know how you should be doing a particular technique as well as why.  Check out this week’s specials, by clicking >HERE<  You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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