How well do you shoot & the 10,000 hour theory

[Eric. 9]

I have two hobbies- shooting precision rifle and shooting Pool.  Actually, the two have lots in common, such as; preshot routine, alignment, sighting picture, etc. With precision rifle, I believe I would be a C class shooter. Typically, I shoot around 1 MOA, consistently. I'm do not include the few days that the sun, moon and winds line up and I shoot a ridiculously tight group, then post it for the Interwebs to see, lol.

 

I've been involved with shooting rifles and shooting Pool the same amount of years, but not the same amount of total hours.  With rifles, I feel lucky if I get to the range once or twice a month and spend a few hours, shooting 200-300 shots.  Also, I regularly dry fire at home, to get some fundamentals practice.

 

With Pool, I have a table at home, practice 6 days a week and put in far more hours a month than shooting rifles.  I'm considered an "A player" and shoot Pool far better than I shoot rifles, relatively speaking.

 

So, that brings me to the topic.  There is a something called the "10,000 hour rule" by a professor named Anders Ericsson and highlighted in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29

 

Basically, the rule states that to be great or an expert at a task, you would need to put in 10,000 hours into it.  There's more to it, but that is the gist.

 

I have no where near 10,000 hours of actual shooting.  At the rate I've been at, I may not hit that number until I'm old enough taht I can't see the target anymore.

 

I'm curious if any other shooters feel that the 10,000 hour rule applies to shooting guns?

 

 

Eric

[Krdshrk 3,877]

I believe it's more of constant, consistent practice, not just the number of hours.

 

If you shoot for many hours at a time, but only occasionally, you're not going to be as good as someone who gets an hour of shooting in a day.

[High Exposure 5,661]

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Practice alone will not make you better.

 

If you practice your drawstroke 5000 times, but you are doing it wrong, what have you done to better yourself? You have only turned a bad habit into a training scar that now needs to be forgotten and replaced with a proper draw stroke.

 

Training, under the watchful eye of someone who knows what they are doing, is what is needed. Then practice, followed up by more training at regular short intervals to make sure what you did was right.

 

I am curious when the golden 10,000 hours starts. The very first time you pick up a gun? Immediately after your first training session? Does it take into account natural talent, idiots, and everyone in between?

 

I absolutely suck at pool. If I just pick up a pool cue and start whacking balls () will

I be a grandmaster in 10,000 hours? I may be better than when I started, but I will never be great. Because I don't even know what I don't know about the game.

[Eric. 9]

I believe it's more of constant, consistent practice, not just the number of hours.

 

If you shoot for many hours at a time, but only occasionally, you're not going to be as good as someone who gets an hour of shooting in a day.

Though the 10,000 hour rule doesn't address that specifically, but I would tend to agree. 

 

To reach 10,000 hours, you would have to have a constant and consistent routine.  If not, shooting 5 hours, twice a month(10 hours total) for example, would take you 1000 months or 83 years.

 

 

Eric

[Eric. 9]

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Practice alone will not make you better.

 

If you practice your drawstroke 5000 times, but you are doing it wrong, what have you done to better yourself? You have only turned a bad habit into a training scar that now needs to be forgotten and replaced with a proper draw stroke.

 

Training, under the watchful eye of someone who knows what they are doing, is what is needed. Then practice, followed up by more training at revular abort intervals to make sure what you did was right.

 

I am curious when the golden 10,000 hours starts. The very first time you pick up a gun? Immediately after your first training session? Does it take into account natural talent, idiots, and everyone in between?

 

I absolutely suck at pool. If I just pick up a pool cue and start whacking balls ( ) will

I be a grandmaster in 10,000 hours? I may be better than when I started, but I will never be great. Because I don't even know what I don't know about the game.

Agreed.  I don't want to over simplify the 10,000 hour rule.  Training, talent and proper practice can possibly cut the learning curve.

 

Part of what is interesting about the 10,000 hour thing is that in theory, even without proper training and practicing "the wrong way", the theory says that you will still become highly proficient, despite all that.  Not to sound too perjorative, but I'm not sure I want to get into a rifle shooting contest against "hillbillies" or eskimos.

 

 

Eric

[illy 1]

What H.E. wrote makes perfect sense.

 

However, I think the idea behind Gladwell's argument is that 10k hours of practice will eventually make you better, even if you start out being really bad at whatever the skill set is.

 

For instance, playing an instrument: even someone who knows nothing about playing guitar, has no talent and is self-taught, the theory says, will eventually figure out what he's doing wrong and actually become really good at it.

 

While someone with natural talent and a good teacher will, with 10k hours of practice, become a virtuoso.

[djg0770 481]

10,000 hours at work = 5 years of experience.  The theory has some flaws, but I think we can pretty much agree that once a person has 5 years experience at a job, they know what they are going to know.  Just look at job postings - most of them state "minimum five years experience".  Do you think that's because HR read about the 10,000 hour rule or because, in practice, it tends to weed out those who have no experience and know nothing.

[maintenanceguy 510]

Quick estimate says that 10,000 hour is half a million dollars in ammo.

[usnmars 136]

I must be pretty darn close considering my shooting schedule

[Vlad G 345]

Well so what is 1h? I mean there is a pretty good definition of walking for 1h, or watching cat video's for 1h, but I'm not really sure what shooting for 1h is.

 

Does it include getting my gear packed up? Is it careful shooting from a bench at one round every 10sec, or doing mag dumps until you burn out the barrel? Do I count the time to replace the barrel or oil the gun?

 

What happens when technology changes? What if your 10000 hours are obsolete by the time they've passed. If you spend 10000 learning how to work an abacus you might a master right up until someone events a calculator.

 

For me learning to shoot never ends, there is no master, even Jerry learns new things.

[High Exposure 5,661]

I want to be better tomorrow than I was today. There is nothing else.

 

I wish I could shoot every day. But I can't. So I dry fire when I can, I do dry manipulations when possible. Do those count to my 10K?

 

Think of how good some self taught shooters you know are. Then imagine how much better they could be if they were trained by someone that knows what they are doing.

 

Again, you don't know what you don't know. You may be able to hit the target repeatedly, but there is much more to shooting than that.

[Eric. 9]

Just to address a couple of points-

 

I believe the 10,000 hours addressess the actual performing of the skill.  My guess is that including packing of gear and maintenance in your totals is just silly.

 

Good training cannot be denied.  Learning windage or bullet drop compensation, for example, can cut the learning curve. But, even with all the knowledge in the world, if that knowledge cannot be executed well, how effective is it?

 

 

Eric 

[10X 3,296]

Quick estimate says that 10,000 hour is half a million dollars in ammo.

 

That's a sobering thought...  Fortunately, I think I passed 10K hours back when I was a serious smaller competitor, and match grade .22 was a lot cheaper, so I figure I did it for no more than $50K.   Even with .22 being much more expensive now, you could probably do it for $100k-$150K.   Trap or skeet would come in at around $150K, I estimate.   Now, if you are trying to get to 10,000 hours in one of the speed events, that will get expensive quickly! 

[Vlad G 345]

 

I believe the 10,000 hours addressess the actual performing of the skill.  My guess is that including packing of gear and maintenance in your totals is just silly.

 

I actually disagree. Well, not with the packing gear part, but there is a lot more to shooting then pressing the trigger. Dry fire, equipment maintenance, analysis of your performance, loading ammunition, etc, etc. All of those are parts of the learning process if you use them correctly.

 

I say again .. how does one compare 1h of slow fire precision shooting, with 1h of running and gunning? Is it trigger presses that matter or everything that goes along with it?

[JackDaWack 2,895]

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Practice alone will not make you better.

 

If you practice your drawstroke 5000 times, but you are doing it wrong, what have you done to better yourself? You have only turned a bad habit into a training scar that now needs to be forgotten and replaced with a proper draw stroke.

 

Training, under the watchful eye of someone who knows what they are doing, is what is needed. Then practice, followed up by more training at regular short intervals to make sure what you did was right.

 

I am curious when the golden 10,000 hours starts. The very first time you pick up a gun? Immediately after your first training session? Does it take into account natural talent, idiots, and everyone in between?

 

I absolutely suck at pool. If I just pick up a pool cue and start whacking balls ( ) will

I be a grandmaster in 10,000 hours? I may be better than when I started, but I will never be great. Because I don't even know what I don't know about the game.

 

Well, if you had put in 10k hours playing pool, and knew nothing about it prior... i would say you'd be pretty damn good either way... The goal is to exercise your time with quality training.. it would be equivalent to going to the range 24 hours per week for 8 years. It doesn't matter what your routine is, if you don't consistently push yourself, you well never excel in anything. The 10k hours implies a trial error method, where you have vested all the error in those 10k hours. A mentor type scenario reveals years of experience in hours for a student to practice and later master.

[Eric. 9]

I actually disagree. Well, not with the packing gear part, but there is a lot more to shooting then pressing the trigger. Dry fire, equipment maintenance, analysis of your performance, loading ammunition, etc, etc. All of those are parts of the learning process if you use them correctly.

 

I say again .. how does one compare 1h of slow fire precision shooting, with 1h of running and gunning? Is it trigger presses that matter or everything that goes along with it?

You see? Its hard to take a guy like you seriously when you say stupid shit like "does the 10000 hours include packing gear, doing mag dumps, oiling your gun..."  I wonder if you are that dumb or just being a dick.

 

I didn't think this needed clarification but, the 10,000hour theory is based on dedicated practice for the skill you are trying to achieve.  If you put the time towards slow fire precision, then you should be very good at it, eventually.  Same goes for runnin and gunnin.  I would say that everything that goes along with the act of performing the overall skill gets improvement.

 

 

Eric

[Eric. 9]

What H.E. wrote makes perfect sense.

 

However, I think the idea behind Gladwell's argument is that 10k hours of practice will eventually make you better, even if you start out being really bad at whatever the skill set is.

 

For instance, playing an instrument: even someone who knows nothing about playing guitar, has no talent and is self-taught, the theory says, will eventually figure out what he's doing wrong and actually become really good at it.

 

While someone with natural talent and a good teacher will, with 10k hours of practice, become a virtuoso.

Exactly.  In other words, after 10,000 hours, everyone will be very good but there will still be different levels of "good".  No one will be just mediocre.

 

 

Eric

[supranatural 66]

That theory was actually severely mis-interpreted and bastardized, particularly by Malcom Gladwell as a matter of fact.  The theory was originally based on a study of musicians and was an average of what it took to reach a very high level of expertise - world class playing as a matter of fact.  It has since been shown that some people can become world class in a lot less hours, some people spend 10,000 hours and never reach a level anywhere near world class, etc.  I've made it a hobby to read up and study on these theories and done my own research, and I believe the theory that there are genetic "gifts" that allow some people to achieve a lot more with the same amount of practice than others.  I have to run to  a meeting but I'll post a bit more later.

[Vlad G 345]

You see? Its hard to take a guy like you seriously when you say stupid shit like "does the 10000 hours include packing gear, doing mag dumps, oiling your gun..."  I wonder if you are that dumb or just being a dick.

 

Ooh Ooh, name calling will surely show me and prove your point.

 

Also you are seriously not getting it if you don't think that auxiliary preparation for the shooting tasks is not part of one's success at that particular endeavor.  \

 

My point here is that the whole 10000h this is complete nonsense, and I can prove it pretty quickly. There are many national level shooting champions who didn't need to spend 20h per week for 10 years to be where they are.

 

So you can call me whatever you want, it doesn't however mean some dude's theory is correct or applicable to every damn human endeavor.

[Eric. 9]

Ooh Ooh, name calling will surely show me and prove your point.

 

Also you are seriously not getting it if you don't think that auxiliary preparation for the shooting tasks is not part of one's success at that particular endeavor. \

 

My point here is that the whole 10000h this is complete nonsense, and I can prove it pretty quickly. There are many national level shooting champions who didn't need to spend 20h per week for 10 years to be where they are.

 

So you can call me whatever you want, it doesn't however mean some dude's theory is correct or applicable to every damn human endeavor.

Yeah, ok, Vlad.

 

 

Eric

[Vlad G 345]

Dude you started this thread by asking a question

 

 

I'm curious if any other shooters feel that the 10,000 hour rule applies to shooting guns?

I've asked for some clarification of what you mean and I've concluded that no, that rule doesn't apply.

 

I really have no clue what you are bent out of shape over.

[Eric. 9]

Dude you started this thread by asking a question

 

 

 

I've asked for some clarification of what you mean and I've concluded that no, that rule doesn't apply.

 

I really have no clue what you are bent out of shape over.

Yeah, ok, Vlad.

[sinjin 1]

I wonder how many hours a marine scout sniper trains/practices before being put into combat, or being put into Chris Kyle type scenarios.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[raz-0 1,259]

There's been a number of evaluations of the 10,000 hours theory. The conclusion is, as a number, it's a load of crap. Different skills require differing amounts of effort, and different people have a harder/easier time with any given skill. 

[High Exposure 5,661]

Well, if you had put in 10k hours playing pool, and knew nothing about it prior... i would say you'd be pretty damn good either way...

How could I be good if I knew nothing about pool prior? In my mind, one foot has to always be off the floor and the idea is to get all the colored balls in the pockets by hitting them directly with the bridge, using only one hand, without disturbing the white ball in any way. I can do this 100% of the time after 10k hours. Am I a grand master?

 

How good am I now that I practiced the game as played above?

 

Would I have learned concepts like putting english/spin on the ball? How about what a true scratch is? Would I learn 9 ball as well as billiards? How about snooker? Would I learn the true strategic side of playing pool, or only how to hit the balls into pockets?

 

 

The goal is to exercise your time with quality training.. it would be equivalent to going to the range 24 hours per week for 8 years. It doesn't matter what your routine is, if you don't consistently push yourself, you well never excel in anything. The 10k hours implies a trial error method, where you have vested all the error in those 10k hours. A mentor type scenario reveals years of experience in hours for a student to practice and later master.

You are right, training is key - but - Training is not the same as practice. Training requires a teacher, an observer, and for the lack of a better word a "grader" that can measure your success and failure and keep a record of your improvements in a realistic, repeatable, and consistent manner. The practice is what happens in between the training sessions, after a "test" and before a new block of instruction.

 

Another part in this is human nature. How many people practice what you are bad at? Not many. Most people do what they enjoy for a hobby. People want to be entertained, have fun, and feel good about themselves. How much training/practice value is there in repeatedly doing what you can already easily accomplish?

 

A buddy of mine said "Learning only occurs after repeated demoralizing failures". How many folks put themselves through "repeated demoralizing failures" of their own volition in the name of bettering themselves at thier hobby?

[Newtonian 453]

There are lots of variables. There is such a thing as talent. I've played about 1000 serious games of chess in my life, about 4 hours each. Plus another 10k games averaging about 1 hour each. I was once in the 96th percentile. I'll never be that good at shooting. 

 

It's not just practice, but the right practice with the right teacher that matters.

 

Do you play in a pool league? 10' table? 9'? bar table? I was once good at pool as well but I measure my experience not in the number of hours but the number of dollars I lost

 

I used to play in a league up here. Quit.

[Eric. 9]

There are lots of variables. There is such a thing as talent. I've played about 1000 serious games of chess in my life, about 4 hours each. Plus another 10k games averaging about 1 hour each. I was once in the 96th percentile. I'll never be that good at shooting. 

 

It's not just practice, but the right practice with the right teacher that matters.

 

Do you play in a pool league? 10' table? 9'? bar table? I was once good at pool as well but I measure my experience not in the number of hours but the number of dollars I lost

 

I used to play in a league up here. Quit.

Yes, there are a lot of variables. Talent, instruction and coaching, mainly.

 

I do play in a Pool league, once a week.  It gives me a little bit of somewhat competitive practice.  I don't play as much as I used to, at my peak.  I also will play a local, weekly cash tourney and regional "open" tourney, once in a while.  Long story, short- I still practice a good amount and compete a little.  With Pool, it takes a top level amateur to beat me.  I've practiced and competed for many years contijuously. I'm not one of these guys that "payed their way thru college with Pool winnings".  Honestly, I would swim thru a pond of shit to gamble with those guys.

 

The reason I put the question out there on the 10,000 hr thing is that since 2008, I've been trying it out as a personal experiment.  Including my Pool hours before 2008, I would say I have around 9000 hrs of dedicated practice, instruction and actual competition, all combined.  By the time I log in 10,000 hrs, I might be around a low "open" level player, which would be considered a top amateur or"semi pro".  I don't consider myself extraordinarily talented and have only had a moderate amount of coaching and instruction.  I am, however, dedicated when it comes to practice .

 

So, while the 10,000hr thing may or may not hold water, in my Pool experiment, it seems to be holding true.

 

BTW, how "good" were you at Pool?  Would ya like to gamble a lil?

 

 

Eric

[raz-0 1,259]

 

So, while the 10,000hr thing may or may not hold water, in my Pool experiment, it seems to be holding true.

 

 

 

 

Eric

Except it hasn't. 10k hours is supposed to make you world class good. Not semi-pro good.

 

You don't get REALLY good plugging away practicing skills you think are good enough. You get good constantly improving. Some folks get instruction, some folks can figure it out, some folks spin there wheels.

 

The 10,000 hour rule is just simply not right, even in the context in which it was developed, which was playing an instrument.

 

 

[supranatural 66]

I wonder how many hours a marine scout sniper trains/practices before being put into combat, or being put into Chris Kyle type scenarios.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nowhere near 10,000 hours I can assure you...

[Eric. 9]

Except it hasn't. 10k hours is supposed to make you world class good. Not semi-pro good.

 

You don't get REALLY good plugging away practicing skills you think are good enough. You get good constantly improving. Some folks get instruction, some folks can figure it out, some folks spin there wheels.

 

The 10,000 hour rule is just simply not right, even in the context in which it was developed, which was playing an instrument.

I do agree that the 10000hr rule might have some holes.  Even still, its not completely without merit either.

 

One of the underlying suggestions is that with dedicated practice (to be redundant: practice&coaching&instruction&competition), anyone can reach a high level of proficiency.  That doesn't mean they can play like the top of the field, but they won't be mediocre, by a long shot.

 

For that matter, if anyone plays Pool on this forum, I'd be willing to challenge anyone, if you would like to see what 9000 hours of dedicated practice and play time can produce.  I know this comes across as arrogant but really,its just confidence in knowing where my abilities are, on the totum pole.

 

If anyone feels like reading something interesting, google "the dan plan".  Its about a guy that took up golf 5 years ago, at 30 yrs old.  Dan is running uis own 10k hr experiment.

 

 

Eric