Why you suck - Ben Stoeger & Joel Park

You are not as good as you would like to be. That is a fact that holds true of about everyone. It certainly holds true if you are reading this.

This book is not intended to be a detailed description of shooting technique. This is a training guide. However, these two concepts are intertwined in some ways, so it is important to spend some time to understand technique.

If training is the fuel to get you where you want to go, then technique is the car. Even if you load up a slow car with the best fuel, you cannot get around as quickly as the better car.

Training is what makes you better. Most shooters are quicker to put $500 into a new optic than they are to put $500 into training ammunition or a class. Even though the shooting community intellectually accepts that training is what is needed to get exceptionally good, they do not usually act on that information.

It bears repeating, training is what makes you better.

Shooting vs Training

There is a difference between shooting and training. Shooting is just that… shooting.

Shooting in the context of competition preparation means going to the range and doing what you know how to do. This could be shooting drills or mini stages that you are comfortable with. When you are shooting, you just note the scores that you are producing.

Have you ever gone to the range and shot a drill or some test and noted the score, then shot it again trying to get a higher score? As you repeat this process, your focus will shift from the technique you are employing to the result you are trying to produce.

You can improve by going and shooting. Many high-level shooters got there with motivation and a lot of shooting. Their desire to shoot high scores is what made them so good. They kept focused on driving up the hit factors when they shot at their practice range. Guys like this generally focus little on process or technique. They want the result and they will not quit until they get it.

Read the rest of the chapter from Ben and Joel's new book here!