Author: hsoi

Shootin’ practice

/ hsoi / 15 Comments

Got to do some live fire practice.

It was telling. sigh

Started with the Farnam Drill, cold. Whoa, I’ve gotten slow. My accuracy was spot on, but I was just too damn slow. As well, the auto-forward “feature” of the M&P continues to irritate me. I opted to just let it go, then the gun proceeded to go “click” because it didn’t put one in the chamber. Sorry, but this is not a feature unless it’s 100% reliable, and it’s not. I actually had a serious thought about switching to a Glock 19 and being done with it. Seriously.

Ran Karl’s current version of “3 Seconds or Less“. Was doing great until I pulled the one-handed shots. Dang it.

Shot the first stage of the IDPA Classifier. That went alright. My transitions were, you guessed it, slow. Slow was the theme of the day. I got better tho. Certainly was much faster here than I was when I started.

So I wound up shooting a bunch of Bill Drills at 3 and 7 yards. My goal was to just push myself and watch the front sight bounce. I wanted to get faster, push myself faster faster faster. I was hitting .33 or so splits at 7 yards (ugh) but had a really good cadence and all A-zone hits. I pushed myself and got down to .25 splits, with good cadence and all A-zone hits. See? That’s what I needed. I also started around like a 2 second concealment draw and got down to like a 1.5 concealment and a 1.3 open carry draw.

Finished up with some slow-fire group shooting.

A lot came down to some simple things:

  1. Just go faster, damnit. I can go faster, it’s not above the speed I can go. But I’ve always been a “mosey” kind of guy, and I just need to go faster. This is mostly about just physically being faster (i.e. sprint, don’t mosey). But it’s also mental: to let/allow myself go faster. To push myself faster because….
  2. No matter how much I know better, my brain still wants to see more than it needs to, in terms of sight picture. That’s part of why the Bill Drills — just shoot and observe, let the brain and eyes just see what’s there and accept “this is as much as you need”. I get acceptable hits, so I just have to keep trusting myself. I think dry fire is actually backfiring on me in this regard, because there everything winds up being “perfect” and you don’t get the feedback of where the shot actually went.
  3. Grip the hell out of the gun and keep focused on that front sight. That last Bill Drill was more of a complete mag dump – 17 rounds, and I just clamped down and kept focused on the front sight. When it was where it needed to be, pressed the trigger. That .25 split was pretty constant through the entire run.

Anyways, things to really work on:

  • One shot draws. This will help me move, get on the gun, get it out, get it to the target quickly, and press off a smooth shot. Call the shot, allow the sight alignment to be acceptable enough for the distance. In fact, if there’s any one thing I work on in dry practice, it should probably be this. Work to consistently hit at least a 1.5 second par time, from concealment.
  • One-handed shooting. I haven’t done much on this in a while, and obviously have regressed.
  • Set up multiple dry targets and work on transitions. Again, speed.
  • Working on reloads wouldn’t be bad either. Again, speed.

There are other things I can do, but that will keep me for a while.

One simple step to deter crime – lock your doors

/ hsoi

I’ve kept track of reports of the thefts from cars in the city where I work (an upper-class suburb with around 35,000 residents) for the last 30 days. While I earlier referred to them as “car break-ins” that is truly a mischaracterization. Here’s how the numbers work out:

Number of vehicles entered- 24

Unlocked vehicles- 20

Locked vehicles- 3

Unknown or unreported status- 1

More than 83% of the vehicles with items stolen were unlocked! In only three cases did thieves actually break a window to steal something. In each of those cases, the item(s) stolen were expensive and clearly within view from the outside of the vehicle. You can safely assume that if there is nothing visible to steal in your car, thieves won’t break windows just to check. On the other hand, if you leave your doors unlocked, thieves will open the door and see what they can find. As the title of the article says: Lock your damn doors! If you don’t want your crap stolen, keep your doors locked and valuables out of sight.

From Greg Ellifritz

I’ve written about this before, about how to keep your car safe.

Locking your doors is a primary deterrent. Second is to keep things out of sight, or better, not in the car at all. Don’t even keep cigarettes and gum, as that may well be desirable (yes, I had a neighbor whose unlocked car was rummaged through, and the only thing taken was their pack of gum).

I have had mixed feelings about locking car doors due to an old friend who worked in the legal system for some time. He never locked his car doors, but also kept the car empty from all things (only thing in the car was the car itself). From his experience, it was better to keep the doors unlocked and avoid the smashed window. As well, if they really want the car itself, it doesn’t matter because if they want something that big that badly, they’ll get it regardless. I see his logic and where it comes from, but still — I’m a door locker and car emptier.

It holds for houses too:

The same advice also applies to your house as well. We had at least four burglaries last month where thieves entered through an unlocked door. The standard M.O. for these burglars is to find a house that appears unoccupied. They’ll knock on the door and if no one answers, they will walk around the house looking for an unlocked entrance. If they find a door unlocked, they go inside.

The thieves go straight to the master bedroom and steal jewelry and all the small electronics they can gather on the way. They are in and out of the house in only a few minutes.

I’ve seen countless surveillance videos to back this up. BTW, ever have someone knock on your door and when you answered gave a strange response? You may have been cased. I had this in my younger days: someone knocked, I answered and they said their friend needed a glass of water. I gave them one, then when I went to go look they were no where to be found. A teachable moment for myself.

If you have an alarm on the house? I sometimes question the utility of it for the above reason: by the time they are in and out it’s only a few minutes and police will not respond in time. Nevertheless, I have an alarm system — and use it — because I think every layer of deterrent is useful and adds up towards making my car, my home less of a target. Locking doors and windows, well-lit exterior, having and using an alarm system, attentive neighbors, dogs, etc.. Note that most burglars aren’t undertaking a major heist: they just want a quick and easy score. The harder I can be to score against, the better. One just cannot have a false sense of invulnerability, no matter how thick one’s layers may be.

This is especially true regarding dogs.

I have a big dog. She’s a livestock guardian dog, so by nature she’s extremely protective. She’s certainly another layer to our home and family security system. But reading this gave me pause:

The thieves saw the dogs and concocted a plan. They entered the (unlocked) detached garage. One of them grabbed a yard rake and the other grabbed a scrap piece of lumber. They used the rake and lumber to drive the dogs back into an area where they could close a pet gate and isolate them to a small area of the house. With the dogs walled off, the criminals went straight for the bedroom and stole the jewelry. They left the rake and the piece of lumber in the house entryway.

I don’t know what sort of dogs, or even if the dogs’ temperament played a possible role here (e.g. a friendly lab vs. a protective pit). Still, it shows that a determined burglar (or group of) can get what they want. Nothing is bulletproof, so the more layers you can have, the better.

Bottom line: lock your doors. It’s a simple step, and will prevent a lot of problems.

2014-05-14 training log

/ hsoi

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

  • Squat – working max: 295
    • BW x 10
    • BW x 10
    • bar x 5
    • bar x 5
    • 120 x 5
    • 150 x 4
    • 175 x 3
    • 225 x 2
    • 250 x 1
    • 215 x 12
    • 215 x 5
  • Stiff Leg Deadlift
    • 205 x 8
    • 205 x 8
    • 205 x 4
  • Walking Lunge
    • BW x 10e
    • BW x 10e
    • BW x 10e
  • Standing Calf Raises
    • 45 x 12
    • 45 x 12
    • 45 x 12

I am adjusting to this workload. The 73% working max is ass-kicking, especially doing the 50% style. But it’s a good level of work here, and reps increase week over week. So, all good.

This is just a lot of work, so I dropped the leg presses. I’ll try to come back to them in time, but for now, I’m pretty damn worked.

Did standing vs. seated raises, mostly due to other people in the gym and equipment access. No worries. I kept the methodology the same. I’m doing more ankle work outside of the gym too, mostly simple things like full range movement, stretches, rotations, etc.. I noticed some improvement today when in the “down” position, so I think that’s all paying off and getting me my range of motion back as well as continuing to strengthen the ankle.

I have to admit… I started feeling a twinge of wanting to not do Base Building after this cycle and instead do a 9-week Strong-15. I debate. I want to get my strength back up, but I know that base building would probably be better for me in the long run. It would help my conditioning, build more mass, and build a more solid strength base. So, I’ll just keep thinking about it.

KR Training – 2014-05-10 – BP2/DPS1 Quick Hits

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

It’s tough to beat those days when you help people become more able, more confident in themselves, to overcome sticking-points in their lives. It’s really cool to watch it unfold. Student comes to class, starts out rather unsure of themselves, then are rockin’ it and giddy-thrilled after a few hours of hard work.

Had one of those days this past Saturday at KR Training. We had a Basic Pistol 2 (which is being evolved into “Defensive Pistol Essentials”) and a Defensive Pistol Skills 1. People of varying backgrounds and demographics, some came for one class, but many stayed for both. The weather was great, tho certainly we can tell we’re creeping into summertime.

Drink water. Wear sunscreen.

A few points for those in class (and to anyone willing to read this):

  • Marksmanship still matters. Yes, classes like this introduce you to the concept that time matters, speed matters — you don’t have all day to get comfortable and peel off a shot whenever you feel ready and able. But the fastest miss matters not. You must work to get acceptable hits.
    • At this stage if you need to slow down to ensure acceptable hits, then do so. Speed will come.
    • On the same token, some of you are making such tight groups that you can afford to speed up little more. It’s OK to let those groups open up a bit, as long as they remain in the target area (e.g. that 6″ circle). Speed up 10% over what you’re doing now, then work to get the groups back down in size at that increased speed. Repeat until you’re acceptably both fast and accurate.
  • Work on the simultaneous motion: pressing gun out, pressing trigger in. This is how you can “go faster without going faster“.
  • Trigger press (control) is vital. Dry fire practice all the things we did in class. In fact, if any of you were paying attention during DPS1, I went to demo a drill, there wasn’t a round in the chamber, and I watched my front sight dip — yeah, I need more practice too. 🙂

Thank you all for coming out and spending your time with us.

2014-05-12 training log

/ hsoi

Solid.

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

  • Incline Press – Working max: 205
    • 45 x 5
    • 45 x 5
    • 85 x 5
    • 105 x 4
    • 125 x 3
    • 155 x 2
    • 175 x 1
    • 160 x 13
    • 160 x 5
  • DB Bench Press
    • 60e x 10
    • 60e x 10
    • 60e x 9
    • 60e x 7
    • 60e x 6
  • Behind the Neck Press
    • 90 x 8
    • 90 x 8
    • 90 x 8
  • BB Upright Row
    • 60 x 15
    • 60 x 15
    • 60 x 15
    • 60 x 15
    • 60 x 13
  • Tricep Pushdowns
    • 40 x bunch… rest-pause… some more… rest-pause… a few more

Today felt solid. Nothing really more to say.

Tho I will say, I’m kinda itching to try the base-building part. And I even wonder if I’ll have the patience to do it for so many weeks with what will seem (on paper) like a lack of progress. Maybe I’m feeling impatient to get my numbers back up. I was reading some Cube Method group postings where a bunch of people just finished a 10-week cycle under Brandon and seeing how they all increased their numbers got me itching. But I need to be patient.

Sunday Metal – Top Metal Albums 1990-2000 – #12 Stratovarius

/ hsoi

When Metal-Rules.com posted their Top 30 Metal Albums 1990-2000, I thought it’d make a fun list for Sunday Metal.

#12 – Stratovarius – Infinite

“Infinity”

Country music vs. Heavy metal

/ hsoi

The other day I was showing Oldest this video about “why country music was awful in 2013”

Watching this again, I realized there’s a key difference between country music and heavy metal.

With country music, it’s agrarian. Time is relative to when the moon comes up and the sun goes down.

With heavy metal, it’s technical and precise.

2 Minutes To Midnight

with “10 Seconds to Love” (NSFW)

Although sometimes it might be a little more vague, because we’re “Livin’ After Midnight”

or just waiting for the “Witching Hour”

Then there’s rap music.

2014-05-09 training log

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Something’s not right with me….

Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

  • BB Rows
    • 140 x 8
    • 140 x 8
    • 140 x 8
    • 140 x 7
    • 140 x 5
  • Seated Cable Rows
    • 95 x 15
    • 95 x 15
    • 95 x 15
  • Shrugs
    • 155 x 20
    • 155 x 20
    • 155 x 20
    • 155 x 16
    • 155 x 12
  • Wide, Neutral-grip Pulldowns
    • 95 x 15
    • 95 x 15
    • 95 x 15
    • 95 x 10
    • 85 x 12
  • BB Curls
    • 45 x 12
    • 45 x 10
    • 45 x 10

    • I don’t know what it is, but I’m just wonky.

    The best I can figure, when I step back and look at the whole of my life right now, is my body is reacting to my life change. My sleep is all messed up, tho it shows signs of normalizing. I’m more stressed out than I realized. I’ve been propping myself up with caffeine on and off for the past 2 years, and I’ve essentially given it up for the past week.

    I think my body is crashing, trying to deal with all of this. Bleah.

    It’s probably just going to take time to normalize. Try to get as much rest as I can. Eat well. Keep exercising. I’ll get there.

    I have thought tho that it might be good to visit a doctor and get a full blood panel done, looking at everything (including test levels). I’ll give it a little bit tho. Let myself attempt to normalize first.

    But anyways, today was what it was. Overall not too bad. Rest periods were very short and tight. I got to the gym much later than I have been, so there were others there. I kept earbuds in and just wanted to focus on lifting, so I kept a very tight watch of the clock and probably took 45-60 seconds of rest between sets, fairly strictly. Not a bad thing.

    Got my work in, and away I go.

    Regarding “base building”

    / hsoi

    When I want to really understand something, I have to keep coming back to it. So I read or take a class or whatever gets me started. Then I go do it for a bit, then come back and read the book again or take another class, then do it again. Sometimes I step away for a bit and forget about it, doing something else with my time. Then I come back and do it all again. Every time I do this, my understanding deepens.

    And so, I’ve been reading and re-reading Paul Carter’s 3 eBooks to digest his training strategy, programs, and philosophy. It started out out of need, because while I really love Paul’s writing and think he’s a very knowledgable and insightful person, I found the eBooks are a wee disjointed and unorganized — at least upon first read. The more I reread the 3 books, the more it all starts to gel because all the information is in there, but maybe the explanation for one thing is in another book, or the knowledge to really grok the concepts just has to come from immersion in his concepts. So reading and rereading his stuff has been quite useful because the more I do it, the more I understand.

    So from this, I’m looking at his “base building” as the plan to follow for a while. I think what appeals to me about it (vs. Big-15, Strong-15, or other programs) is that it is about getting stronger through volume. How you look at guys like Coan and Kaz, and they were strong as hell and big as an ox. It’s a philosophy you find in the Cube Method as well. How the entire base building cycle you might stick with the same weight, but if you can move it faster, move it to a point where the last rep of the last set is like nothing — that’s getting stronger, that’s building the base.

    But it really sunk in the other morning in an unlikely way.

    I live in a 2-story house. When we first move into the house, all the going up and down the stairs was tiring! We’d find our legs getting tired from all the stair walking. Now granted, this isn’t a huge stress, but it was still something our bodies had to adjust to. After a week of this, the body was no longer tired. After months of this, we could fly up and down the stairs all day long, 2-steps at a time, and it was no problem.

    This is base building, to speak.

    It hit me again recently. See, after 2 years of working in an office and with my home office being upstairs, well… many times I would come home, dump my bag on the floor, and that was it for me for the night. I might go a couple days before I went upstairs. Then I had my ankle injury and didn’t go up the stairs much at all. Some weeks ago, I tried going up the stairs 2 at a time, and could not — my left leg was just not happy about it. It looks like between the ankle injury, the fasciitis, then doing a lot of compensation to avoid aggravating those conditions well… I lost something in my left leg (which I even noticed when squatting). This is part of why I’m wanting to do more one-legged work, to help remedy this.

    Well, in the week I’ve been back full-time at home, I’ve been doing a lot more stair walking. I didn’t realize it at first, but after a week I looked back and realized that yeah, it was something I had to adapt to again (the ankle/leg problems made it more evident). I also made some other adjustments in how I walk so I was no longer compensating for my pain, instead trying to be smart about working through it to help overcome the issues. So far, it’s working, because things are strengthening.

    And again, this is base building.

    I’m not changing weights, I’m not changing reps, but I am working the same thing over, faster, quicker, shorter. There’s more intensity, and trying to build up a more solid foundation of strength so that I’m just strong and keeping that strength. We tend to measure progress in the weight room primarily by more weight on the bar and secondary by doing more reps. But there are other factors too, and this is where base building is.

    So ok…. it’s going to be many months before I really know how this works out for me, but the more I think about it, the more I read and experience…. yeah, the more it makes sense to me.

    2014-05-07 training log

    / hsoi

    I guess today would be a -10% day

    Based upon Paul Carter’s Base Building – Mass cycle

    • Squat – working max: 295
      • BW x 10
      • BW x 10
      • bar x 5
      • bar x 5
      • 120 x 5
      • 150 x 4
      • 175 x 3
      • 225 x 2
      • 250 x 1
      • 215 x 10
      • 215 x 5
    • Stiff Leg Deadlift
      • 205 x 8
      • 205 x 4
    • Walking Lunge
      • BW x 10 each leg
      • BW x 10 each leg
      • BW x 10 each leg
    • Seated Calf Raises
      • 25 x 5 — for… I don’t know how many sets. See below.

    If I had to classify today, I’d have to put it into the -10% column. I’m pooped. Since I changed my employment position, I’ve not gotten much sleep. I sleep maybe 4-5 hours, wake up because I need to go to the bathroom, then cannot get back to bed because my brain starts going. I think the job situation allows me more freedom, but is also bringing a little more stress and worry. I’ll adapt and figure things out in time. But meantime, I’m not getting enough rest.

    Compounding it, yesterday I didn’t get much sleep at all, then woke up and dealt with a picnic table all day. Drove up to Michele’s uncle’s house (about 2 hours away), loaded it up, hauled it back, stained and assembled it. It’s a nice table, but it was just a lot of labor. Spending 4-5 hours yesterday “bent over” to stain it really took a toll on my lower back and glutes. But at least the lack of sleep coupled with that work made me sleep like a rock for about 8.5 hours. Huzzah! Maybe that’s what I needed to help me kick my rhythms to where they need to be — blessing in disguise.

    That said, the session wasn’t horrible. It was my first using adjusted squat numbers per Paul Carter’s percentages (Big-15 style). I kept the tempo up, basically changing plates then squatting again — little rest. That 250 didn’t go up like a rocket (first indication it was a -10% day). And the 215 reps? Holy geez…. last week I was doing 185 for reps, and today 215 for almost the same number of reps. That felt good, but oye… that, plus yesterday, took a bunch out of me.

    I did my first set of stiff-legs and barely made it to 8. I started feeling dizzy, and I mentally checked out… thus the 4 reps on the second set. I just did not want to risk passing out while lifting and totally psyched myself out. I figured given my recovery situation it wasn’t best to push it too crazy. Skipped the leg presses and just did walking lunges. I want to do some one-legged work to help my ankle situation. I settled on walking lunges because I think that will also help me emphasize some posture improvements too…. plus it’s less boring to walk than to just work “in place”.

    After that, seated-calf raises because again, my ankle. This was interesting tho. I did NOT want to go heavy because it was more about getting the most from the movement for my ankle. I just put 25# on for a cursory weight. I would settle into the bottom position… maybe a good 5 seconds, really letting things settle in and stretch. I can tell I have some shortened mobility in my left ankle due to things, so I just let the stretch settle in — hurt a little bit (like “bad way” hurt), so I didn’t push it but did try to improve. I’d slowly raise up, hold for a couple seconds, then lower, stretch, and repeat. I could only manage about 5 reps each time because the pads resting on my lower thighs started cutting off circulation enough that my pumped/burning quads got upset with me. 😉 So I’d get about 5 reps, then rest a few seconds to let the blood flow in my thighs again, then do it again. I have no idea how many sets and reps I did. It didn’t exhaust me at all, but it did feel good for my ankle and that’s more of what I need right now.

    I also had an epiphany regarding “base building”. I’ll write on that separately.

    So, not an awesome day, but not too bad. I got the main work in, and what I really needed with acessories (ankle) I got. So, life goes on. And hopefully sleep will improve.