Tim Herron–IPSC World Shoot Gold Medalist: Why Most Shooters Never Reach Their Potential

Multi-division USPSA Grand Master and IPSC World Shoot Gold Medalist Tim Herron joins former Royal Marine Commando Terry Vaughan for a deep dive into the hidden side of shooting performance.

While most shooters focus on speed, accuracy, and equipment, Tim argues that long-term improvement has far more to do with emotional control, self-awareness, and learning how to perform under pressure.

In this conversation, Tim explains why so many shooters plateau, how elite competitors use failure as a training tool, and why embracing discomfort is essential for growth. He shares the mindset shifts that transformed him from a new gun owner into one of the world's top competitive shooters, along with practical strategies for training smarter, developing consistency, and managing the mental side of performance.

Terry and Tim discuss:

• Why competition is really emotional regulation in public
• The difference between training and simply practicing
• How top shooters use pressure to improve instead of avoiding it
• Why most people accidentally train themselves to plateau
• The power of randomization and problem-solving in practice
• How to recover quickly from mistakes without spiraling emotionally
• The role of dry fire in accelerating improvement
• What competition shooting can teach concealed carriers and defensive shooters

Whether you're a competitive shooter, firearms instructor, concealed carrier, or simply someone looking to perform better under pressure, this episode offers a masterclass on the mindset behind elite performance. 

Transcript

0:00

So randomization um is is definitely it's it's not doing the same thing multiple times in a row, right? If you're shooting something lay left to right, now you're gonna shoot it right to left, and then the next time you're gonna shoot it middle, left, right, and the next time after that, you're gonna go right, left, middle, and the next time after that, you're gonna go middle, right, left, and then you're gonna go left, middle, left. You know, like you're you're randomizing it every single time so that you're you're avoiding the the the chance or the opportunity to just shoot based on choreography, and you have to like you're keeping you're keeping the brain power engaged in solving the problem a different way. Hello, my name's Terry Vaughan and welcome to Making Shooters Better, brought to you by Laser Ammo. Most people think when it comes to competitive shooting that it's all about speed, and it isn't. It's about emotional regulation in public. It's about solving problems when your heart rate spikes, your vision narrows, the clock is judging you, and everyone standing behind you gets to watch your nervous system either rise to the occasion or betray you completely. Because competition gives you consequences without chaos and real violence gives you chaos without rules, it's important to establish a means and way to control your emotional regulation or your emotional system. While a match can never replicate a real gunfight, learning how to control your emotions I think will help you perform both at the range competitively, but also if the worst ever happens and you end up in a gunfight. Today's guest is Tim Heron, multi-division USPSA grandmaster, full-time coach, and member of the US team that brought home the gold at the Ipsick IPSC World Shoot in South Africa. So today we're diving into what pressure really does to people and how you can begin to emulate one of the best shooters in the world by mastering your emotional response to fear and stress. Tim, welcome to the podcast, mate. Thanks, Jerry. I appreciate you having me on. I'm so excited about this. So you went to you went to Africa, World Champions, Ipsy, and won. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. We uh so the the the world shoot happens kind of similar to the Olympics. So it happens every well, it wasn't on an every three-year, now it's on an every four-year rotation. But yeah, the the previous world shoot was in Thailand in when was that, 2022? And so 2025, it was scheduled for South Africa in uh Clerkstore. And that was my first world shoot experience. Um, but yeah, the US delegation, they choose uh like basically four-person teams for each division that is uh you know that's uh recognized within IpsyC. So I was part of the classic division team, uh, which is kind of the good old-fashioned Ironsights 1911 uh platform, which has kind of been my specialty for uh a god, almost my entire career. So I got to be part of the the four-person team. And yeah, we uh we fought to the finish, uh very, very, very close finish against the Filipino team uh to finish first overall and win the come home with the gold medal. And one of our gold medalist team members uh was also the silver medalist in the individual as well. So a guy by the name of Jeff Cawthan. So yeah, we had a very, very successful year as a as a world shoot team. So now if we wait four years for the next one, and all the whole qualification process starts over again beginning this year for the next three years, uh, you got to shoot certain qualifying matches, uh national matches and things like that, that are recognized as qualification matches for the next world shoot, which will be in 2029. Um in 29, 26, 27, 28, yeah, uh 2020, yeah, 2028 or 2029, I can't remember when it is, in uh uh Italy is where the next world shoot will be. And of course, everybody's excited to go to Italy. So it'll be a really, really tough qualification path this next three years in uh in build up for that. So I'm looking forward to it though. Yeah, because everybody's gonna want that trip to Italy. Like, you just like to go there and shoot. Right. Right. Like South Africa was very deceiving, you know, because it it it's it's not as uh like most people don't put South Africa on their uh on their playlist for like vacation planning and stuff. But it was an amazing experience. It was beautiful, the people were wonderful. Like I had a great time to the point that I will definitely go back to South Africa without pistols and without shooting a match just to go back and and see the country. It was it was awesome. Great experience. That's awesome. Well, I definitely want to revisit a little bit later in the episode the emotion that must have gone along with that experience because I'm fascinated by how someone like yourself ends up managing the pressure and the stress and the emotion of that. Sure. So we're gonna come back. But I always ask every guest right at the very beginning, how old were you when you first started to shoot? Um, I just turned 49 Saturday, May the 16th. So I started shooting at 30, 32 or 33. This is my 16th year. So yeah. Wow. Okay. So I was quite I was late. I was not a young guy. I didn't start this back, you know, like I wasn't from a family of gun owners and things like that. Uh I mean, shooting was I didn't even know this sport existed, you know, back in 2010 when I picked up my first my first pistol, you know, it was done primarily for the same reason that, you know, 99% of the world that you know owns a firearm kind of got into especially handguns. It like I looked at it as a like I'd like to learn how to defend myself with a firearm. I I know I don't know anything, especially with regards to to firearms. So I sought out, you know, some training and uh and coaching. And I had come from a background in automotive racing uh for about 13 years prior to getting into shooting. And so I was always interested in like the competitive aspect of stuff, but I had no idea Ipsic and USPSA or IDPA or shooting sports even existed. Uh like it just it blew me away to find out that like, oh, there's a sport where you're timed against other people and you know you have to like draw the gun and you have to be effective and efficient, and you know, it like that really appealed to me. So um about six months to seven months into kind of gun ownership, in about July of 2010, um, I I found USPSA and found a mentor that uh that kind of brought me into the sport and he stuck around the sport for a couple of years just to kind of help me and guide me, you know, through uh, you know, kind of getting not only my feet wet, but just kind of jumping into the deep end of competition. And yeah, it's it's it's been a it's been an awesome experience. I never would have thought that turning something like a hobby would turn into now. Uh this is my seventh, eighth year uh like as a full-time, a full-time coach and instructor. So like I quit my 26-year career prior to this, you know, or I should I say kind of retired from it to pursue teaching full-time back in 2019, and I've been doing this ever since, and absolutely to this day still love it. Sometimes the the air travel is kind of a pain in the butt, but I yeah, I love the I still love the travel. I love going to new places, I love meeting people and helping people like achieve their you know, their expectations, their dreams, their goals. It's it's such a rewarding and fulfilling career. Yeah, because from your standpoint, particularly a mentor helped cultivate the shooter that you are now. And I, you know, I try to encourage people as much as possible to go and get training, seek out great instructors and people that can challenge you. But it's not just about their shooting skills, it's about their capacity, if they're good, to share information that will cut your learning curve down to you know the bare minimum. There are still some hurdles you're gonna have to, you know, sure succumb to, but yeah, you still have to do the work. Yes, but to get that guidance and you know, kind of a you know, kind of a personal cheering squad from someone, but you know, at the same time to you know to kind of give you the caveats of like what to do, ooh, and don't do that, avoid that, you know, like that. I've I've had the most amazing mentors throughout my my progression as a shooter and throughout my journey that like it just like I love to teach. Yeah, you know, like I said, uh from automotive racing, I was also uh a driving instructor for a number of years as well. So the teaching chops kind of I don't want to say didn't come easy, but the teaching chops were something that were kind of naturally a part of just who I am and wanting people to succeed. And it just carried right over in into shooting. Just one of those like, well, this is what I learned from you know these people, and this is what I've been able to do with this information. Let me share this with you so that I can also guide you to you know the successes that you want as a as a shooter as well. It's been pretty cool. Yeah, I'll bet. Which and that's absolutely huge because someone that loves to teach, loves to mentor, that passion is clearly evident at every interaction. And that is encouraging in and of itself because when a good coach is telling you, listen, you did this well, you could definitely improve this, and for the love of don't do that again, that's the supportive kind of environment where I know personally I do best in. Yeah. And it needs to be, you know, it it like I I like to bring forth a really positive experience too. I'm I'm not I'm not the type of coach that's like a drill instructor, you know, or like yells and screams at students or tries to put them under, you know, some kind of crazy, you know, like militarized type stress. And I don't like to talk down to students. I I like everybody to feel welcome and encouraged and positive and and generate that kind of energy, you know, to all 12 or 13 students that are at every class that I go to as well. I mean, it it's super cool when you know when one guy just like has an awesome drill or a great stage round or something like that, and everybody is cheering them on. You know, it's not like, oh man, now I have to follow that. It's like, oh my God, Terry, that was amazing. You know, you when you've got the support of the entire group, it's it's what a what a cool thing to cultivate with people. Well, as I mentioned at the very beginning, I think a lot of people when it comes to competitive shooting, they associate that with speed, which is certainly a factor, you know, along with accuracy, etc. But how much of that do you also think is tied to the the confidence, their emotional control, etc. A ton. Um especially, I mean, at the very beginning, and and I I do I kind of lead students on this this journey a little bit too. You know, I I tell people preface the training with, hey, listen, you know, like you're starting out, it's 85% the skill set that you're trying to build with about a 15% kind of a mental or emotional, you know, at like aspect of this that you're trying to learn to control. And then it becomes kind of role reversal, like kind of somewhere along the, you know, I'd say anywhere between the the you know, the the one and a half to two year, two and a half year mark, where then it becomes more like maybe 15 to 20 percent the the hard skills, and it's so much more you know, 80 to 85 percent the mental and emotional, the mental and emotional control, you know, understanding kind of like we talk like what you mentioned earlier, process versus outcome-oriented, you know, goal sets and things like that. So and it it it's it's pretty crazy where you have learning to shoot definitely is a is a hard like that's a hard skill set itself to to learn, right? But then the like once you once you kind of get the gist of like what it is to just shoot the gun, and honestly, it's simple, as as Rob Latham used to tell me, it's simple, but it's not easy. But once you understand the simplicity of that, it kind of runs in the background. So then all of your all of your mental capacity then is going the other direction, like like where do I go next in the stage? How do I blend things together? You right? Like kind of keeping the mental capacity open for the balance of speed and accuracy, and not just letting yourself go off the rails and just run completely at the subconscious level, but also at the same time not letting your conscious mind take over so much that you don't allow yourself to just perform to the subconscious level that you know that you that you know you can achieve too. And we see guys do that all the time. One mistake, if they can let that mistake go and get back on track and continue on through the rest of their stage or whatever, like in a competition, like that guy's got some mental fortitude, right? Like he's got it figured out. And then you see the other person, you know, on the other side of the fence, it's like they make one mistake and the snowball happens, right? It's like one mistake turns into three mistakes, turns into five mistakes, and all of a sudden, right, the dumpster's on fire and it's rolling down the hill, you know, at a grand speed. And like they can't get it back. And that is because you're trying to control everything through emotion instead of just like letting it go and remembering your like your process orientation. Yeah. Now I've always run into a situation with news shooters where everybody seems to be striving to be as fast as possible. Now, it isn't true across the board, but a lot of guys will show up and they just want to be faster. And I'm like, we we've got to you you do the crawl, walk, run, and the mechanics, and I think at least initially, they fill up cognition. That is our prefrontal cortex buried under sort of the mechanics, the steps of shooting, which in some cases is really good because then it doesn't leave much room, I don't think, for the emotional side to take over. But as the mechanics get smooth and it moves from our frontal cortex into the deep recesses of the subconscious mind, now we've taken it to an automatic place. We know those mechanics, and we've for the most part, we're probably doing them without thinking, well, now that opens the door upon the emotional side, and now we start feeling the fear or feeling the stress. And I think that's a lot for a lot of people, it's like, okay, we're going to work the mechanics for X and just get that right. But once we get there, we've got to find another mechanism to focus the frontal cortex on so the emotions aren't bleeding in to start on unraveling people. Because I think you're right. When somebody screws up, they go one way or the other. They can either set that aside and go, as I often do, I go, well, that's my screw up for the day. I got it out of the way. Let's get on with the rest of this shoot. Or wheels come off. That's a hundred percent of it. But at the at the same time, too, most people they find, they find a level of cognition that then becomes very comfortable for them, and they don't learn to push beyond that, right? So then practice like training no longer is about training, training just becomes practice. And there's there's a different mindset between training and practice. Like, you know, practice is kind of like practicing something that you already know what to do to ensure the confidence in doing that one thing. Whereas training, like training to me means like you are you're you're piquing interest in something that maybe you don't have completely figured out yet, right? And so you're going to crash and burn. Like in in your training, you're going to set yourself up for failure to kind of learn and understand and evaluate your skill, your technique to kind of that hardest, kind of that hardest corner of your emotional mindset too, to see how you're how you're going to perform. Most people, like I said, once they get the skill set down, then it just becomes like, all right, now I'm just going to, you know, kind of bring in a car analogy to it. Now I'm just going to set the cruise control right here, and I'm just going to, I'm just going to drive the car. Right. So like the shooting just becomes then, they just repeat the same thing that they already know how to do, and then they wonder why they plateau. And then they wonder why when they go to matches, they they get super emotional about things. They don't understand what their body is doing, you know, like when the heart rate raises and the adrenaline starts to flow, and then you get that huge source of adrenaline jump and they get the jitters and the shakes and you know and the shortness of breath and they they freak out about it, you know. And I used to be the same way. And it's because you're not finding ways in practice to pattern your training or pattern your practice to basically to involve yourself like within that level of pressure. You try every best to avoid it. Well, I'm just going to keep doing the things that I know what I I know how to do because it makes me feel good. Right? Nobody likes to nobody likes to fall on their face in practice, so they avoid it. And then when it's time to rise to the occasion, uh they can't because they don't know what to do amidst the pressure. If they've never learned how to it's it's not emotionally control it in my respect. I think it's emotionally embracing it. Like you have to embrace the pressure. Pressure's always going to be there. Like the guys at the top level of the sport, you don't think that they don't get nervous? Heck yes, they get nervous. You know, like that would surprise a lot of people because the outward manifestation or those outward man those mannerisms, they don't look like they're nervous. Sure. Sure. But if you watch j if you watch like the the little subtle details of their mannerisms, right? Like the the guys at the peak of the sport, they're also like they're make ready procedures as they're making ready and getting ready for a stage. I I mean, they they mimic one after the other after the other after the other. On a 20-stage match, you'll see 20 make readies that are absolutely by the book the exact same way. And there's there's reasoning behind that, right? Like it's it's mentally preparing yourself to embrace to embrace the pressure to be able to perform, right? Like it's some guys, uh, you know, they'll stand there, like I know I stand there with like the with my hand on the gun in the holster, and I'll take a few deep breaths, and I'm I'm vividly visualizing the stage in my mind one more time before I release the gun, you know, I release my hand from the gun and put my hands at my sides to to to to let the RO know, uh, you know, are you ready? Stand by and proceed amongst the stage. But I mean, there's there's little habits that that guys along the way or shooters along the way build to help them learn, like to prepare themselves to embrace the pressure that they're about to experience. And the guys that are at the absolute top of the heap, those guys thrive on the pressure, right? Like they're not trying to do anything ever to eliminate the pressure. They're trying to embrace and bring that pressure into their own practice and training every single time they go to the range, every single time they're thinking about shooting, they're trying to that they're trying to prepare their bodies physically and mentally to embrace the pressure, like accept it, like that's a part of it. It's it's like, why do adrenaline junkies love to jump out of airplanes and jump dirt bikes over, you know, you know, over canyons and things like that? It's because they've they they they've become a junkie for that. Like that that that adrenaline jump is something that they that they thrive on, not something that they they try to push off to the side. If you're a firearms instructor teaching beginners all the way through full-blown tactical classes, and you'd like your students to get better faster, and also add an additional revenue stream to your business, consider becoming a laser ammo dealer. Dry fire lasers, reactive targets, smokeless range simulators, all these bits of kit help your clients and you, of course, get more trigger time without burning through hundreds of dollars worth of ammo. Shoot me an email, Terry at laser ammo.com, and let's get you and your clients dialed in with the best dry fire laser-based training equipment available. And now, back to the episode. So is there a practice or a or a series of steps that you go through when you're not competing, you're at the range, you are now performing your training, not just your practice. Are there a mental, like is there mental visualization exercises that you're doing to in to try to instill some of that emotional uh response to stress? In my you are talking like in my own practice and training? Yeah, when you are going to the range to shoot? Every single time. So a lot of it is I've got to find a way to instill the like the main thing is you've got to get creative. Like practice or training, like either or should not feel I I hate to say this because people are gonna take take uh kind of a wild offense to this. Practice and training should not feel comfortable. It should not feel good. If it feels good, you're just validating skill sets that you already that you already possess and you're just you're doing it for the sake of making your so own self feel good. Now there are times don't get me wrong, there are times that I want to validate a skill set and validate my own. confidence level before a big match just just to prove to myself like, see Tim, there's you can you can do anything, you can do anything that we put out here, right? Like I I can see a target 50 yards away and like, I can hit that. But there's there's a difference, right? When I'm going to practice to really learn how to embrace the the the emotional side of things and the pressure, you've you've got to make your practice hard. And so ways that I found to do that are like obviously could be really hard standards. You know, things that I know that I'm not maybe the best at performing. Perhaps it's target arrays that I know were very, very difficult and creating then say like a like like a system or a sequence on that target array that I have to remember and giving myself like a very very short amount of time to memorize the the target sequence and then giving yourself like, okay, I've got one I've got one rep to get this right. You know so it's like I'm doing things to try to incorporate the same level of pressure that you feel at a match. Because at a match you don't get a mulligan. You know you like when you hear the beep if you flub the draw you don't go oh sorry RO let me put that gun back in the holster I want to try that again. Like the RO's going to be stand there with the timer like proceed what are you doing? You know so in your practice you cannot like like I'm a huge advocate of you don't get to throw away the first run. You don't get to throw away the second run the third run the fourth run. It depends on what it is I'm trying to do. So like just yesterday uh I I was I was out in training um because I found a couple of little deficiencies that I had over the weekend at uh at a match that I was uh performing at in uh in Arizona and a couple of those things were just kind of watching my own my own kind of video performance I was like I'm shooting on the move but I'm not moving as aggressively as I should be despite the targets the the target distance of difficulty you know I'm taking these like small little kind of baby steps I'm I'm covering ground but I'm not covering ground so I I decided I'm gonna set up a similar scenario and force myself to like no Tim you are going to take wider longer more aggressive steps keep the gun up and keep shooting and you've got one one time to do it right and we're gonna score it. So I keep score both in in time right and accuracy so and utilizing hit factor just like we we do in USPSA for the stage run. And so there's a lot that ties into that too like I gave myself a three minute walkthrough so my my little my little scenario you know once I I stapled up the last target and I kind of took a look at it I didn't give myself like this incredibly long amount of time to to prep for it to dry fire it to air gun it to walk it it was like all right starting now and set to set the the clock on my watch and was like I got three minutes to walk it through and iron out every single detail that I want and then it's time to perform and that that that being under that same amount of pressure like you like I feel it. I mean you know when if even when you know nobody's watching I could tell myself that like well if I flood the draw or I get a bad yeah like oh it's a nobody saw that I'm gonna go back to the beginning and do it again. Like you have to like self-honesty is what's really really needed. And like high levels of criticism you know to yourself I mean to the point you're you you're almost your own worst enemy you know like the I had a guy this over this weekend he was like do you ever feel good? I mean do you ever feel satisfied in a stage run and a performance or in your own practice and I was like can I do you do you want me to give you the answer you're looking for or do you want the real answer? Because the real answer is hardly ever am I satisfied ever in practice in training I mean there are times that I feel like I'm ready to take my gun off and my whole entire belt rig and everything and just kind of put it in the trash can next to the bay and be like I don't even deserve to wear this today because this was hard and I'm not as maybe I'm not as good a shooter as I thought I was you know there are other times that it can be very very fulfilling when you overcome a a bump in the road right you know some sort of a a training paradigm that you've been struggling with but holy cow you know like I said even when you feel slightly satisfied then it becomes like okay now you have to do it again. And it's like well I succeeded the first time it's like yeah but one level of one little measure of success isn't enough. Now we need to turn that one measure of success into can you do it five times in a row without failure? Can you do it 10 times in a row without failure? And it kind of goes back to the you know the guys that are great don't practice until they get it wrong. They practice until they can't get it right. You know and it's that that becomes what we're what I'm striving for is to maximize time under the pressure all the time. You know and nothing really incorporates the pressure they're like okay I got it right finally and it's like okay now you got to do it three times back to back without failure. And if you screw up once you got to go all the way back to the beginning and and do it again. It's like man that's that's hard. And most people they they don't they don't want to put themselves in that in that mindset. And then they struggle because it's uh it's uncomfortable. Most people are there I think arrive at a range they and the first 15 20 30 minutes is kind of warming up just getting a feel for everything again. Then maybe they're like oh I'm gonna shoot this or maybe I'll shoot that drill or maybe I'll do this and they'll put themselves under if you're lucky under a little bit of pressure. Maybe they'll get the timer out and go. And it's always interesting how many people will leave the range going okay you know they go through a hundred rounds of ammo but what they actually achieved in terms of growth is minimal. And they haven't put themselves under their own spotlight and said okay can you get this right the very first time like run an actual challenging drill. I know sometimes particularly with indoor ranges it can be difficult to you know have a little bit of freedom but there are so many ways that you can challenge yourself at an indoor range put yourself under pressure and do it the first time like stone cold you go don't get it wrong right or you know like turning like people like to do that like right like you said that oh I'll just I want to warm up first you know I want to shake out the shake off the rust a little bit so you know their first 50 rounds will be just basically doing some group shooting or you know shooting shooting some bullseye stuff or whatever the case may be and then they they fall right into the habits of well now I'm just gonna do the things that I'm always I know I'm good at doing all the time and they'll tell themselves like well I'm gonna I'm gonna test myself and can I do that one thing that I already know how to do and I know I already know how to do it well I'm gonna do that five times in a row and then of course then they're then they're instilling a false sense of confidence instead of okay what am I not very good at and some people I think that the people at the higher the higher end of the spectrum of the sport right are very hypercritical of themselves on the mistakes that they make and they take those mistakes and those become like the catalyst for like their next two or three practice sessions versus the major the overwhelming majority of shooters like they they they take the successes from the previous you know from their previous performance at the at the match or at the range or in their own practice and they just want to repeat the things that they know that they've they're succeeding at because it makes them feel good. They don't like the feeling of failure. Who does right? But because you don't like the feeling of failure you try to avoid it and and again instead of trying to embrace it to learn how to overcome it. Yeah. So in your own practice obviously you know you're operating at a level that most of us are never going to even see in our lifetime but do you ever and this was a question I had a couple of weeks ago from someone do you ever chunk your training like the mechanics of the draw do you ever chunk it so that you are literally just practicing 10 times going to the grip. Yep 20 times 30 times 100% I do it in so chunking is a huge part of it. Musicians understand this quite a bit right like a musician doesn't take a brand new piece of music right and they'll say a a pianist right and a pianist may open up the the sheet music and the sheet music may be 20 pages long right and they may try to fumble through that new piece all the way through one time but then what do they do? Do they go back to the beginning of page one and then you just try to play out the entire piece again no they chunk it. Okay I'm gonna learn the first the first sheet right page one and page one may be a bunch of fumbles and stumbles and things and then they go okay well now I'm gonna work on the first line of music and maybe I'm struggling on the first line so then they chunk it down to the first bar or the first measure right and and and your shooting and training I I really feel like needs to be approached the same way. There's no difference in how we approach musicianship how we approach weightlifting or working out. Like you don't you don't go to the gym and you go well I'd like to learn how to bench press 300 pounds so I'm gonna throw 300 pounds on the bar and I'm going to basically crush my sternum and kill myself trying to pick up the 300 pounds like you work up to it right and we do things like repetition we do sets I mean it's it the problem is in most of the time in in shooting training we don't approach it with the same level of of kind of respect or comeuppance that we do in anything else that we do. So chunking is a huge part of it. You know at randomization you know is also something that I I I I work on you know a lot too. But anytime that like you you're trying to to understand the entire technique so good does it it pays dividends to then well like what does it feel like for my hand to just contact the gun in the holster every time what's my support hand doing and just getting just getting that repetition down first understanding that I want the entire base of my palm to contact the backstrap of the gun of the gun. And if I don't achieve that first then what good is it to try to lift the gun out of the holster or marry my support hand to it and drive the gun out on the target? Like I've already screwed up step one. So going to step five is is not going to benefit me not going to help anywhere. Right. So I do the same thing even with big long drawn out drills. Like just yesterday like I was talking about like working on shooting on the move. You know it it became like well should I chunk this like I'm gonna chunk this out to should I take a step with my my lead foot being my right foot or my left foot? And me being left-handed like my gun's on the left side so if I move my left foot first my hip swivels just a touch forward which moves the gun in the holster slightly away from where my left hand's going to be so do I draw and move my left hand my left foot first or do I move my right foot first which allow my hips to stay in position for my hand to contact the gun and get a better draw. You know and then of course it's like well what direction am I going? What would that what would that do? So let's let's let's try that first so like there were five or six reps of taking a step with the right foot first and then taking a few steps with the left foot first and trying to draw incorporate the draw to the first shot and just measuring not just time but measuring was the dot or were the sights on target every single time I press the trigger was I stable enough to fire the gun? Was I stable enough to continue moving and fire the gun or was there was there a hitch in the step someplace and then ironing that part out and then to things like should I be doing a cross step, a crossover step or should I be rotating my hips to turret myself more? I mean it like yeah I I mean everything everything gets criticized and and scrutinized to understand what's best not only in that particular like it at that particular moment but then to understand too like okay well when the target is X amount of degrees away from me this is kind of the skill set that I want to use to achieve what I'm after. So you're you you're training your brain to basically and I I use this term like an old man like to Rolodex that information back like to know like okay cool when I see something like that again I know the skill that I want to incorporate there because of what I've what I've scrutinized in practice. Yeah. Well I've got I've got two questions now so going back you mentioned randomization and I'd like you to expand on that and then just so I don't forget I also want to talk about your process for when you are chunking you screw up a portion let's just say you've indexed to your holstered gun you're you're practicing literally just hand to gun hand to gun hand to gun and you get it wrong what is your process for separating from that mistake before you go back into another set of chunks drills so let's go back expand on randomization. So randomization um is is definitely it's it's not doing the same thing multiple times in a row right at some point in time like a lot of my training now is randomized. So when I go out to the range like I know what I want to work on. So like yesterday again yesterday is fresh on my mind. So yesterday being uh like a a shooting on the move type of day um I set I set the drill up or the the stage you know I had six or seven targets and a couple of pieces of steel so it was like a 16 round exercise. So randomization I started and it was kind of an L shape like I I created kind of an L-shaped like stage. So there was like a downrange and so you had to shoot backing up out of position shoot some targets off to your right that were kind of more lateral to you and then round the corner and then you're charging in on targets that were kind of downrange to you and rotating in to kind of finish the finish the stage. Well instead of like okay I shot that that way once and that felt good let me go back and do it again and see if I can make it feel better. And then just getting stuck in a series of I got to shoot the same stage the same way over and over and over again until you get the until you get the results that you want that the the randomization is I must do something different every single every single new rep. So the next rep was now I'm gonna run it in reverse order. So instead of getting yourself into a situation of comfort where you're like well now it's it's becoming a dance rehearsal right you know I'm I'm choreography I'm choreographing every single step the same way to just get good at the drill I'm challenging myself with different things like okay this this is the natural way I'd like to shoot these targets well now you're forcing yourself to shoot the targets in a completely in a completely different order or visit the positions in a completely different order. Or start if you're shooting something lay left to right now you're gonna shoot it right to left and then the next time you're gonna shoot it middle left right and the next time after that you're gonna go right left middle and the next time after that you're gonna go middle right left and then you're gonna go left middle left you know like you're you're randomizing it every single time so that you're you're avoiding the the the chance or the opportunity to just shoot based on choreography and you have to like you're keeping you're keeping the brain power engaged in solving the problem a different way. But the underlying format right the thing that you're still working on is like for me yesterday shooting on the move I still have to move but now I have to move to slightly different areas of the stage to engage the targets in a completely different order instead of just running a program. So you're you're you're much more keeping the the the the cognition moving and achieving towards a goal instead of it just becoming like this subconscious thing that you're like, yep, I've done it 20 times and I feel good about the fact that I did it 20 times. It'd be the same thing as a musician playing one scale over and over and over and over and over again and they get really good at that scale and they're like well let me go ahead and throw that video up on Instagram of me rocking out that scale because I spent my entire hour long practice session playing that one scale. You know it's like well that's great. But again it's a false sense it's a false sense of security instead of like making the conscious mind kind of stay conscientious about problem solving. So randomization has been really really really huge for me especially over the last two years. And that's been a big cue or takeaway um from me training with Eric Rafel who is arguably the greatest shooter that has ever walked the face of the earth I mean he's a 10 time world champion. He's he's been undefeated in world competition for over 30 years. And I get to train with him once a year when he comes to the United States and and teaches. And uh that that's been a big thing for him. He's like you don't do this like you will not do the same driller exercise twice in this class because I don't do that in my own training. Like everything is randomization. So it's forcing the brain and you know the body to never get comfortable with a pattern. Constantly adapt I love that and not something I've actually used very much of I have reversed course I've had a you know shot pattern of drills I've run it a few times I'm like okay I'm gonna go backwards I'm gonna start in the middle or I'm gonna do something that then sort of throws a curveball into the mechanics of that but not every rep like changing it every single time but I can see how that would force the brain and the body to adapt in a way that it isn't necessarily used to having to do. Well and that's and that's the thing too like people are like yeah but you know like I'm struggling with this one target and so like I want to come in on that same target the same way so that I can understand like what the repetition looks like what like and it's like fine chunk that out avoid doing the entire rep of the entire drill and just like if that's your trouble spot like there's nothing stopping you from saying okay I am overrunning this target or I'm not locking my like I'm not locking my eyes to the correct spot on the target to properly land the gun to that spot. You know, like I'm overdriving or I'm underdriving or I'm sweeping through that target. Okay, great, chalk that out. Four or five reps that way. But at the same time the randomization allows you to like you can still keep the the target engagement you know like you don't have to like you're going downrange every time and swapping the targets around I you know two it doesn't have to be that complicated or that randomized but you're getting an opportunity to attack maybe that trouble target from multiple different angles too. You know like one rep you're doing it from left to right the next rep you might be doing it from right to left. The next rep it might be from the target right next to it to that target. Maybe it's a farther target away to that target or from that target to a farther target away. So you're getting repetition but the randomization keeps you from just kind of falling into that that that sense of security of just like well now it's now it's just something that subconsciously I'm just doing without without like without any sort of conscious effort or pressure. And I you want to try to keep incorporating that pressure to learn how to to how to solve the problem as best you can. So now to go back to how do you have a process for the screw ups? Like let's say this was a couple of weeks ago I was practicing my draw and the first five to the gun were great. I felt like my support hammer's in the right place grip to the backstrap of the pistol was perfect. It was great. Number six I screwed up I did two things I interrupted the cognitive process by just stepping back for a second. I didn't want to just keep repeating that pattern for a moment I wanted to break it and then I tried to um not become emotional about the screw up uh critical but not in a self-deprecating way more in a okay we're going to do this again here's how we're gonna try it this time now we're gonna try this it was much more supportive and I tried to keep my natural tendency to start calling myself names for screwing it up because I tried to extract the emotion. I'm trying to minimize so there's not as many highs or lows within that practice right I don't want to be super excited when I get it right and I don't want to be super critical when I get it wrong but somewhere in the middle do you have a process that's like that or is it nothing like that at all and you don't completely different I do you you are like me I can I can nerd out on this stuff my entire career like I love the mental game and mental training and aspect I love to even read a lot of books about this stuff as well. Probably my favorite mental management book ever was written in 1975 or 1976 by a gentleman by the name of Timothy Galway right The Inner Game of Tennis my absolute favorite book I read it I read it once a year and I have now for like God 13, 14 years. And a lot of people are like well if you're a shooter what the hell does that have to do with tennis? And it it it's all about yes. And so Uh Galway does a great uh uh great work regarding conscious mind versus subconscious mind, right? And he just refers to this self-one versus self-two. And like in in kind of like the tennis world, of course, it revolves around the book. And he was talking about like you screw up one forehand serve, you know, or one forehand return. And so what's the conscious mind immediately do? God dang it, Tim, you screwed that up. Ugh, you know, what are you doing? You know, and then you start to overanalyze things. You screwed it up one time, you made one mistake, and all of a sudden, like the conscious mind takes over, and it's just like, you're such an idiot. How could you do that? And then you start analyzing to the nth degree what caused the screw up. Well, maybe I broke my wrist too soon. Well, maybe my wrist wasn't too rigid, well, maybe I didn't rotate my thumb into the forehand, you know. Uh maybe I didn't snap my wrist through the return. And so you start thinking about those things, and what happens? Another mistake and another mistake, and another mistake. And every single time there's slightly different mistakes, right? So we refer this back to like in dry fire, like just in working the gun in dry fire. Man, okay, I'm gonna do 10 connections, right? Just chunking out, connecting my hands to the gun before I've ever even left the holster. I want 10 connections that are absolutely perfect. And you get one where your hand was slightly rotated left or right. You know, I'm gonna use a blue gun for this, you know. Like, I want the connection to be here every single time. Oops, no, I got my hand just slightly high, and now I'm feeling the beaver tail into the web of my hand. My hand should have been here, not here. But then immediately, instead of just dismissing it, yeah, okay, you're gonna take note. Okay, there was a slight mistake there, right? Let your body make the correction subconsciously. It knows how to run the program. And instead, you consciously go, oh man, I was a little too high, so now I need to adjust my hand a little bit low. And then what happens? The next grip, now you're an inch away or a half inch away from the beaver tail, and you go, okay, crap. Now I've gone too far the other way. Well, yeah, because the conscious mind's taken over. Terry is the one now trying to control the situation instead of letting subconscious Terry just immediately know what subconscious Terry knows how to do. So you notate the one mistake. Okay, I made a mistake, right? I'm going to correct the mistake and I'm going to get back on the subconscious program until I knock out the 10 connective reps the same way. And then I'll move on. But if the one mistake and I can't let go of it, maybe it turns into two or three, two or three times now. I've made that mistake, let's say in 10 reps, then I go, okay, there is something underlying that I am doing differently here, and I need to kind of figure out why. So then instead of going into beratement mode, you know, where you're just going to be like, damn it, I screwed up. What am I doing wrong? I I'm going to be critical of everything. Like, first of all, is my gear even on my body the same way? You know, and it's critical. A lot of people don't think about the fact that, like, well, what if my holster is rotated a quarter of an inch forward or a quarter of an inch back? And that's causing, you know, a little bit of connection issues. Um I start also looking at things like, did I eat some breakfast this morning? Did I have four cups of coffee or three? Am I three-quarters of the way through that energy drink that I probably shouldn't have had before I started my practice session? You know, like how am I overall kind of feeling? You know, if it like you know what I mean? You got to be a little more critical of things. Instead of just berating, man, I screwed this up, like get to the bottom of, man, is it a like what is the connection issue? Is it starting it because I'm flaring my elbow out a little bit? You know, so now I'm not getting my hand in the same place. Am I tucking my elbow too far back? Like what is causing that that underlying concern? And then uh again, kind of like being the technician, so to speak, and the diagnostician to diagnose that problem. And then once you diagnose it, then like understand, like, oh, you know what? I am flaring my elbow out, or I'm dropping, like for some reason, I'm I'm adding extra effort into this, and I'm noticing that my shoulder is rolling forward a little bit, and that's changing how my hand is contacting the gun. Well, if I just don't do that, let me let me just kind of keep conscious effort on just keeping my shoulder stable and boom, oh, my hand's hitting the gun right where it needs to. Cool, game on. So now we go back into let's chunk it out, let's do 10 reps back to back with my hand connecting like it's supposed to and moving on from it. So nothing is ever a self-deprecating, you know, God, you suck. This is terrible. Why are you doing that? It it turns into an opportunity to troubleshoot and diagnose why the process isn't working that you have you've put into place. Yeah, and I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that because that's essentially my process. The interruption after the screw up is to step away and not at that point begin overanalyzing why you screw up. Because at the end of the day, we're not we're we're human, we're not robots, and replicating and reproducing the exact same movement to within a millimeter of every time, you know, you're starting to push the boundaries of what are we physically capable of. And it's a great deal. Look at fighter pilots and their ability to do things, you know, in a very complex and speedy way. That but they also make minor mistakes. They everybody does. And it's okay, where do I draw the line between the self-criticism and the self-coaching? And I often find if I screw up for whatever reason during one of the practices, I'll give myself a grace period of stepping away just for a moment and I'll come back. And as long as I don't make the same mistake again, I chalk it up to the nuance of being human, right? Um, that's just how I approach it. Well, and you can't dwell on it. Right. If you dwell on it, then you're letting the conscious mind control everything. Right? And it it's it's the same thing as when people like they they make one little mistake, or it's it's the same thing. They shift gears and they go, okay, now I'm gonna try to go faster. That word try is your enemy, right? Because the word try basically means I am no longer going to trust my subconscious side to just perform the way it knows how to perform. I have to try, I have to apply more effort, I have to do something different, which means I'm stepping in the way of myself to because I don't trust myself. So now I have to I have to force myself into something else, which makes more mistakes happen. Of like, oh, okay, now I need to try to go faster. Don't try to go faster, just go a little faster. But keep self-one out of the way of self two and just less self two just run the program. Like self-one should be the diagnostician, the troubleshooter in the event that mistakes are made. Self one needs to stay out of the way of being the active participant or the active coach in because it just like that's that that's a that's the micromanager, right? And nobody likes a micromanager. No, completely. I agree. It's too much. So I know it's not necessarily your wheelhouse, but I definitely see a correlation here with the the tactical side of me and the military bit that's you know left over, where the adaptability and the randomization of running a shooting drill in a variety of ways, never repeating the same one twice, is a great recipe for preparation for if you ever got into it, some sort of self-defense situation. Because self-defense is never going to happen the way you think it's gonna be, when it's gonna be, in the environment you hope it will be. Everything is going to be sort of up in the air and it's forcing your brain to adapt. Do you do you see that correlation, do you think, with with the self-defense situations? 100%. I mean anybody that says, yeah, and that's the thing with like we we still, I mean, I've been shooting this sport for 16 years, and for 16 years we've had this argument between the the tactical slash defensive crowd and the competitive crowd. You know, there's still the you know, the finger pointing at each other, you know, well, no, competition's better and it gets you prepared, and uh no, well, tactics are better and that gets you prepared. Ultimately, like I will say that like putting yourself in some a competitive environment or or in an environment where you have to like you you have to perform, right? You have to be able to execute on demand in a variety of ways is never a bad thing. Yes, I understand that like competition doesn't necessarily well, people are standing in the middle of wide open spaces and shooting the targets, and that's not tactically correct. Well, no kidding, right? But ultimately, what we're trying to do is we're trying to impose pressure on a person with a little BP box device, right? And and keeping like by by keeping score and time to promote and like to promote people to to work under pressure. And that's never a bad thing. Where else are you gonna do it? There's nowhere else. You know, people are like, well, you could do force on force. Cool. Do you have $800 to $1,000 to do force on force training every single weekend? Every single time. Yeah. And if you don't, well, do you at least have $25 in a free Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon to go to a three-stage to five-stage match or a or a local indoor match on a Tuesday evening for, I don't know, once a month to at least put yourself under some sort of a time constraint to initiate some of that pressure to see how you perform under that pressure. Right? Nowhere else in the history of really of kind of any other sport, like race car drivers, the only way they can get good at race car driving is to constantly put themselves under pressure on a track. You don't see race car drivers doing, you know, 150 miles an hour on the interstate and putting themselves in danger and others in danger to practice getting good at racing. They are so limited in how much time or track time they can get to become good at race car driving that they have to supplement those things with things like, you know, uh uh like systems, you know, uh whether it be computer simulations or race car simulators and things like that. But there's a lot of visual things that they can do. There's uh there's there's other things, right, that they can use to supplement being good at it. And really in the shooting sports, like that's so easy. Like I wish I were better at my draw, dry fire. I wish I were better at at visual execution of target transitions and moving the gun, and and you know, that we hear things like eyes lead the eyes lead the gun to the next target and target acquisition and getting good at reloads. And it's like there is. I mean, you could do that in the comfort of your own home. You don't have to go to the range to do those things. You don't have to even spend money on ammunition to get really, really good at all of the cognitive details that go into shooting. And then you can use your range time so much more valuable to test and evaluate how good your your homework has been in dry fire, you know, and that's like taking the pop quiz. And then I'm not I'm not encouraging, I would love to encourage everybody to go shoot as many matches and and competition as they can, but I'm not encouraging that for the sake of at least get out and shoot a local match once a once a month. Try it. Try it. Just to see what is it like for me to operate under pressure. And to see both sides of the house. What did I do well under pressure and what did I absolutely fail at under pressure? And then let that be the motivation to continue on your practice to correct those things. And then once you feel like you've got a better you've developed a better resolution for those things, then go back and see kind of another competition and test it. Like the competition is the test of how do I perform under that stress or pressure without it harming the lives of anybody else or myself. You know, I don't have to like meet somebody on the street and be like, you, you look like a good guy to test my skills against. Let's do this. Yeah, we don't it doesn't have to turn into that. Like it doesn't have to be such a polarizing aspect of competition versus defensive. Like what we there's there's great aspects to take away that help in every respective shooting. Yeah. No, I agree, and I particularly agree with the compartmentalization of different areas of your shooting skills. From the dry fire that you can practice at home as often as you have time to do. And if that's only five or ten minutes a day, that's five or ten minutes practiced, ready to test what you've practiced at the range the next time you go. I we get this a lot actually with with laser ammo and our gear. We hear, you know, if I'm going to draw my gun, I'm going to the range to throw lead. And I invariably say, I wonder how well you're actually doing at that. If you're not No, right? If you're not padding out those range trips with dry fire, and you know, the ways and means for you to practice chunking different skills together safely in your own home, you've lost all that muscle memory that you would have otherwise gathered before you even get to the range. And then you can test different aspects. And if you add in competition as well, fantastic. Because now you're under pressure with an audience. Maybe you put some cameras up there and you actually record your segment. Let's see what you did wrong. Like, really have a look at it. It's a brilliant way to kind of tie it all together and to ensure that you are improving and not just plateauing. Right. And that's the thing too, right? I think people they look at it as a it needs to be an either or, right? Like, well, if I'm going to go to a competition and shoot competition, and it's it's human, it's human design, it's who we are, right? Like I want to be good at the thing. Instead of looking at it from a from an objective of I want to go to this match to test my skill set, test my mind power, test my processing ability under some pressure. And if it turns into something that it becomes something you're very passionate about and it and it becomes a pursuit like it has for me, then great. But if you're just the person that wants to come to a match just to kind of test your prowess and understand where your where your shortcomings are, that's perfectly okay. I'm gonna stand behind you and support you a hundred percent of the 100% of the way. Not everybody wants to pour their their life into becoming, you know, uh the greatest shooter to walk the earth kind of thing. And that's fine. But don't also use the excuse that you don't have the ability, you know, to to test those things because that's that that's why this sport was invented in 1976 to begin with, right? Uh the whole the whole theory behind International Practical Shooting Confederation or IpsyC was to test the best theory and skill sets of the time from the the like from the world, right? And so it it it it brought up it brought upon the best military and law enforcement guys from all over the world as a means of testing who's got the best who's who's got the best chops and why. What makes their stuff better than somebody else's, so that it became a free trade of information to make everybody better. And I think we've lost a little bit of this just because of the uh again, the polarization of competition can be bad if you're a defensive-minded guy versus a competitive-minded guy, you know, defensive shooting, those guys don't know anything. It doesn't need to be that way. Like this is supposed to be a shared experience for everybody to culminate better skill sets for everybody. Yeah, and when you think about particularly away from the range in a self-defense situation, do you not want to be as good as you can possibly be? Right. 100% lives are on the line. And like, and that's why, like that the the young man that asked me, you know, like, are you ever satisfied? No. I'm sure even like Eric Rafel or Christian Seiler or you know, these other world champions, I'm sure if you you you come off of the stage or even from a practice session and ask him, like, you totally satisfied with that? Like, I know Christian pretty well, and he'd be like, Nope. But I'm I'm gonna be back at it tomorrow. You know, like I don't think there's ever really an end in the journey of anything if you're just being a human being and and like we all want to be good at something, whether that's again musicianship, or that's I don't know, if you're a jujitsu guy or a martial artist, or you know, just being good at your job, you know. I mean, everybody wants to be good at something. And so, like, you're willing to put yourself in an in a in a place to fail to learn from those failings or those shortcomings to to round the edges and correct them off and and sharpen things. And, you know, it okay, so you don't want to be the best shooter there is, that's fine, but do you want to at least be better than you were yesterday? You know, and if that's the case, I mean that's that's that's the human condition, right? So it it and it like I said, I I tell people in classes all the time, they're like, man, it'd be cool to have the skill sets you have. You're right. However, it it's a huge sacrifice. Like, I would love to be as big as a you know, as a bodybuilder. I'm also only five foot six and 145 pounds. Like, like understanding those limitations too, but also understanding like like what what sacrifices are you willing to make to be as good as you want to be versus as good as you you can be with your limitations, your life, your family, your you know, whatever. And I've I've I've never I've never looked down or snubbed my nose at anybody for their level of involvement. I think it's just I think it's cool that the shooting sports grow and that people want to grow as shooters and and you know they want to train, they want to learn. What they do with that beyond that, uh again, is is is up to them. Yeah. Well, I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, given the depth of knowledge for you. This has been an hour-long masterclass in processes and the mental approach to improving shooting. There's a lot of people out there now that will probably walk away from the podcast going super interesting, but then won't take that next step. And I think it's putting that together with actually attending a class and training that that allows them to take that sort of cognitive knowledge and put it into some sort of physiological and practical uh process of training. Where would uh you like people to try and get a hold of you if they're interested in taking classes with you? Oh, I mean, uh the best way, honestly, I I'm I'm I try to be the most available coach and and trainer in the United States. Uh so I've got an Instagram page uh which is Tim Heron shooting. I've got a YouTube channel, um, and I try to put uh I I'm not as good at it as some, you know, I'm because I'm not a social media guy. I'm I'm a coach. Um so but I I try to put uh like really good resources in video and constantly update that all the time. I think I've got like over a hundred different videos from everything from how to draw the gun to how to reload to how to shoot stages to all kinds of great stuff. So um if those kind of things interest you, I'd love you to you know kind of take a peek at the things I have to offer for free, you know, and those resources through you know, through all the social media platforms and channels. I'm on Facebook. Um the only one I'm not on is I I don't do Twitter much. So it's just um, but I've got a website, so which is just TimHeronshooting.com. And on the website you can find a whole list of all the classes I have to offer. Um, if you go to my schedule, you can look at everything for the schedule for 2026, and uh I'll start putting classes now for 2027. I'm I'm scheduling now into next year for that. Um, but all my classes and class schedule, uh all my offerings, everything from online training and virtual training uh opportunities to one-on-one coaching. If me come to you or you come to me here in New Mexico, to you know, two-day classes, one-day classes, three-day classes, mental management classes, you know, like how to train classes. I've I've got a a little bit, a little bit for everybody. Um, but that's the best way. Uh if you wanted to email me, uh the contact information's on the website there as well. Um but email my email address is really easy. It's Tim at timheronshooting.com. Um, but yeah, I mean send me a private message through Facebook or Instagram or you know, shoot me a shoot me an email. I I would love the opportunity to to talk with you, answer any questions you have, and and and be able to train with everybody that would that would love to come and train with me. That's fantastic. Well, thank you for being a part of today's episode and this conversation of helping shooters get better. It's been brilliant. My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks, mate. All right, thank you for listening to today's episode. Don't forget to hit that like button, share it, subscribe. It helps the algorithm pick up the channel and spread it to more people. And of course, it also helps us bring you the guests that you want to hear from for now. That's the end of today's episode. And uh thanks for joining us. We'll see you in the next one. Cheers