Training or range time?

[MaryFields]

I had one very bare bones handgun training about a year ago (never even got to the range). I have since been going to the range 1 - 2 x per month & lots of internet / youtube informed laser target dry fire at home. I'm hitting body mass at 7 yards but still shoot left (dry firing too) & Flinch. My question is, should I keep going to the range or stop for a couple of months to save for a really good training? For monetary reasons, it needs to be one or the other for now. I'm mostly interested in home / self defense. Thanks for your suggestions.

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[9Cal_OC]

I’d say get training so they can look at your posture, grip, etc and work on that at home. Try that for a while and then go to the range.

[SomeGuy75]

I’ve been shooting competitions off and on for over 30 years. In my experience, many “instructors” are tacticool 5.11 wearing “bros” that have piss poor fundamentals and are only interested in the fastest mag dumps possible. Choose your instructor carefully.
That being said, I do recommend instruction in the beginning. No point in reinforcing poor mechanics that will be more difficult to break later.
Practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent.

[OCEquestrian]

I had one very bare bones handgun training about a year ago (never even got to the range). I have since been going to the range 1 - 2 x per month & lots of internet / youtube informed laser target dry fire at home. I'm hitting body mass at 7 yards but still shoot left (dry firing too) & Flinch. My question is, should I keep going to the range or stop for a couple of months to save for a really good training? For monetary reasons, it needs to be one or the other for now. I'm mostly interested in home / self defense. Thanks for your suggestions.

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Spend the money and get some training before you embed the bad habits so that they are permanent in your shooting. Here is the 2019 training outfit poll and listing of the better training schools in the area.

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1568102

[Wordupmybrotha]

Change to 1-2 times a week at the range.
Come out to a monthly Calguns shoot and ask a fellow Calgunner to watch you shoot. An obvious flaw in technique can be easily seen by someone else even though you're unaware.

Where do you shoot?

[Wordupmybrotha]

If you're a female, 99% chance that your feet are parallel, upper body is leaning back with your arms straight out with elbows locked. No bueno.

Upper body should be tilted forward and elbows slightly bent. I find the weaver stance to be a more natural, athletic stance.

[Stumpfenhammer]

Training, otherwise you have a significant risk of engraining bad habits. Here's where I'd go, notice they have a course coming up at Piru: https://tacticalperformancecenter.com/calendar/

PM sent, check your Inbox.

[Stumpfenhammer]

If you're a female, 99% chance that your feet are parallel, upper body is leaning back with your arms straight out with elbows locked. No bueno.

Upper body should be tilted forward and elbows slightly bent. I find the weaver stance to be a more natural, athletic stance.

Also 99% chance if you are male.

[Stumpfenhammer]

I had one very bare bones handgun training about a year ago (never even got to the range). I have since been going to the range 1 - 2 x per month & lots of internet / youtube informed laser target dry fire at home. I'm hitting body mass at 7 yards but still shoot left (dry firing too) & Flinch. My question is, should I keep going to the range or stop for a couple of months to save for a really good training? For monetary reasons, it needs to be one or the other for now. I'm mostly interested in home / self defense. Thanks for your suggestions.

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I think it can be helpful to know what's possible -- and with a relatively small amount of the right coaching you can go from shooting CoM at 7 yards to 10 rounds in 5" at 20-yards with most pistols.

My SO is 5' tall with small hands and went from where you are to the standard above in about 4-5 range sessions. I took my boxing coach to the range recently for his first time shooting a handgun and by the end of a two hour session he also achieved 10 rounds in 5" at 20 yards. Kind of disturbing actually since it took me a heck of a lot longer than either of them to (consistently) do the same thing. My point, you have a whole lot more potential than you might think.

If you are right handed and assuming a two-handed grip, shooting left is usually the result of positioning your finger either too far or not far enough onto the trigger. Shooting low-left is usually caused by movement/flexing of the last three fingers on your trigger hand. To deal with the flinch do the WHITE WALL FUNDAMENTALS drill mentioned below several times a week and mix in dummy rounds into every magazine you fire at the indoor range. And...if you are at the indoor range and start to flinch or have any other degradation of performance, stop and dry fire ten times before returning to live fire.

The fact that you are shooting left during dry fire is harder to address online. The best I can offer sight unseen is to refer you to the Grip and Trigger Control videos I PM'd, and to offer that your trigger hand should be as firm as possible without inducing tremors or affecting your ability to pull the trigger straight to the rear, the support hand grip should be firmer. There's a trend recently to recommend a crush grip as the solution to trigger control issues, the problem with that is that it doesn't apply to one-handed shooting. In my experience Trigger Control supersedes Grip in the marksmanship hierarchy, both are important and Grip becomes more of an issue for control during rapid fire, but when you can marry both the magic really starts to happen. Regardless, now that you know about the three fingers, dry fire (without a laser) using the White Wall drill should be the path to solving your low left issue.

Here's a thread that may be useful...the DRY FIRE WHITE WALL FUNDAMENTALS drill can be done at home and is foundational to all sorts of future shooting skills. As a rule of thumb doing 10 dry fire trigger pulls for every live round fired at the range will be the most cost-effective way to self-progress your skill level: https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/....php?t=1566941

[MaryFields]

Mostly LAX

[Black Majik]

At your current level, I'd look towards a NRA class that focuses on fundamentals. Forget about the "tactical training" with drawing from holsters and stuff for now.

Many ranges will have NRA classes available, find a good instructor and get to working on marksmanship first with fundamentals in grip, stance and sight picture. May seem kinda boring, but it'll go far to advancing your shooting. Once you start punching one hole groups at your 7 yards, then start branching out into more advanced types of shooting once your fundamentals are set.

[mlevans66]

Training like its cool! Then use what you where taught at the range. Save the funds and ammo till you get the training. Working on dry firing and your basics at home.

[Gryff]

Change to 1-2 times a week at the range.

So that you REALLY reinforce bad technique...

If you're a female, 99% chance that your feet are parallel, upper body is leaning back with your arms straight out with elbows locked. No bueno.

Upper body should be tilted forward and elbows slightly bent. I find the weaver stance to be a more natural, athletic stance.

Leaning back is far from a female-only thing. I find that 95% of all new shooters are standing either straight vertical or leaning backwards to some degree. I'll leave the debate about Weaver stance, other than saying it does totally prepare you to look like a 1980s TV cop (or to take a class at Front Sight).

[gpark09]

A Trainee with a strong Alpha Male Ego, who happens to be a lousy shooter was shooting next to me. Gave me a look saying, "What the F is going on?" after observing missing every single shots to low left. I did not say anything.

The Instructor came in after observing what he was doing, correcting the grip and arm position.

The trainee goes, "I'm self taught since I was 14 years old. I've been shooting like this way over 30 years and I'm comfortable like this".

The instructor goes, "Well buddy, that just make you shooting ****ty for over 30 years"

Something to think about. That little event always reminded me to shut the F up when in a training session.

Get some formal training and practice based on the lecture.

[krb]

I had one very bare bones handgun training about a year ago (never even got to the range). I have since been going to the range 1 - 2 x per month & lots of internet / youtube informed laser target dry fire at home. I'm hitting body mass at 7 yards but still shoot left (dry firing too) & Flinch. My question is, should I keep going to the range or stop for a couple of months to save for a really good training? For monetary reasons, it needs to be one or the other for now. I'm mostly interested in home / self defense. Thanks for your suggestions.

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