Fast or accurate?

Fast or accurate? Pick one, because you can’t have both. Yes sure you can always be faster, you can always be more accurate, and to some degree you can always improve your level of both. But in the end, to get the most accuracy you’ll have to give up some speed, or to get the most speed you’ll have to give up some accuracy.

Caleb is participating in the Bianchi Cup and posted his results from The Mover.

The thing that I’ve learned about Bianchi is that accuracy is EVERYTHING. No one cares about how fast you are, because just about everyone can make the time limits here. Shooting IDPA or USPSA isn’t great practice for Bianchi…but shooting Bianchi will make you better at IDPA and USPSA.

I know I focus a lot on speed. I think about defensive shooting and how seconds are critical, so my brain thinks “must be fast”. Lately I’ve been trying to pull myself back on that. When I do my dry fire practice, I’ve been working on being slow and smooth: “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. I’m trying to be accurate, I’m trying to be precise and correct. I wanted to go to the gun range yesterday and do the KR Training 100 Round Practice drill, but given the impending holiday weekend figured I was better off getting job work done first then visiting the range after the weekend. Still, that sort of drill is all about accuracy (not speed) and what you must to to be accurate.

I think about my last black belt testing or even being in normal classes. One frustrating thing is how there’s so much emphasis on speed. Maybe not directly, such as the instructor saying “OK, everyone go fast” but when you get in a group there’s all this pressure to not be the last one done… so everyone zooms along. I kinda hate to see that because accuracy goes down. You watch the group and it can look like a sloppy mess. If I’m in class and get to do something like forms on my own pace, I take my time. Sure I try to still apply the five principles of form, movements are still meaningful. But I try to be accurate, I try to be correct first, fast later. 

I’ve often said that no one cares about the first person to get the wrong answer. That can apply in many ways. To throw a fast kick that doesn’t find its target, to rush a draw and peel off a shot that misses the A-Zone on an IPSC target. It all doesn’t matter. I want to make every shot count, every punch matter. So, I have to slow down. I know this, I’ve known this. I’m still struggling to apply this, but thankfully it’s happening.