Shooting a gun is not very difficult, though shooting one well has never been that easy. Not unlike many other things. Today, it is easier to learn than ever before, but still, people are people. The number one issue that needs to be overcome in order to shoot well at all, is the flinch.
I am clearly talking about the most basic of shooting ability, but if you do not overcome your flinch, no real progress can be made. Due to physiology, temperament, effort, desire, or the phases of the moon, some people are just not able to overcome their flinch. Others seem to some of the time but not enough of the time. I am convinced that if they put in more effort, most would overcome their flinch, though keeping that ability will likely take regular maintenance.
A small percentage of people are probably incapable of overcoming their flinch, but that is not usually true of anyone who is really motivated. The easiest and fastest way to get past flinching is with a .22LR. The lack of a .22 is one reason why so many professional gun toters never get good. Even with a .22, some people will still flinch. For those people, maybe golf is the way to go. If you prefer to shoot than to play golf, OVERCOME YOUR FLINCH! It is really that simple. Just decide to not move the gun while releasing the sear. It is literally mind over matter discipline, nothing more nothing less.
flinch was much more difficult to manage 50 years ago, before the excellent hearing protection we have available today, but as you write the .22 is your friend
Yes indeed.
Is there a difference between flinch, recoil anticipation, and recoil control? During slow deliberate fire (even with large caliber handguns) I don’t have issue with flinching. However, when shooting at my faster speeds (low 20 splits bill drill) I will see what I believe is anticipation/recoil control when I have an unexpected failure to fire (e.g. dummy round, dead primer, etc). How would you categorize this and is it fixable?
Good question and not one covered in my brief rant about mental control. There is definitely a difference between the three you mentioned. I’m really only talking about the slow fire flinch. Getting over this is required for accurate bullet placement. At speed, recoil anticipation is usually the bigger issue, as you are engaging more muscles when you shoot at speed and it is very easy to add a little too much pressure, right before the shot goes off. I don’t consider this a flinch, just an out of order operation. When you see the downwards movement on a dead primer or dummy round, it likely isn’t a problem, as you will add some pressure to counter recoil, it just needs to happen after the shot and not before. If your live rounds are going where they should than this is what you are seeing. If your live rounds are going low, and you see the same thing on a dummy round, then you are out of order and anticipating recoil.