Dry firing practice is a great way to help with trigger control and preventing flinching. It's something everyone should do from time to time and in fact, when I find myself flinching during range time, I'll unload and do some dry firings until I feel I've overcome the flinch again.
However, last night I realized that if I am to start shooting IDPA like I plan, it's going to take a few more skills that I don't get to practice on the range - Namely drawing from the holster and reloading rapidly. So I spent about an hour last night practicing my draw from various positions - hands up, hands on a counter, and pretty much from the ready.
This isn't something I'm used to, nor is it something I'm able to practice at the ranges I go to - they don't seem to like it when people shoot from the draw - so I'm basing what I think I need to practice on by watching a LOT of IDPA videos on YouTube.
One of the lessons I took away from Todd Jarrett is to place my weak hand at my chest while drawing. This is to help prevent sweeping my fingers with the muzzle of the gun. Once the muzzle clears the holster, I rotate it forward to my target. I then push the pistol outward, contacting the grip with my weak hand. Using the laser, I found that I was able to get on target almost instantly, even before I could line up my sights (I practiced both with and without the laser since I won't be able to use it in competition).
As a Glock guy, safeties to me have always been a pain in the ass. Just keep your finger off the trigger has worked for me forever. However, the 1911 has a safety, and it is just plain dumb to practice drawing without also practicing disengaging the safety at the same time, considering that even though you think you left the safety off, that might not be the case.
For me, I found it helped my right hand to obtain a positive grip before the pistol left the holster. Because I am using a Blackhawk SERPA holster, the action of "pinching" the pistol both disengages the safety and presses the release on the holster. If, for whatever reason the safety isn't on, nothing is lost - my thumb simply slides right to where it's supposed to go.
Of course, I have a lot of practice needed. I still have tendency to try to go fast rather than smooth which finds me missing the release switch and giving myself a quick wedgie from time to time. That SERPA holster simply will not let go of the pistol! However, I was rather happy with my aim from the draw. Seems like I can get on target relatively quickly if I remember to take it easy. We'll have to see how that goes under pressure.
The other thing I practiced last night was reloads. Unfortunately, I don't have any dummy ammunition for the 45, so I couldn't practice combat reloads - dropping and empty with the slide open, replacing it with a charged mag, and fingering the slide release. Instead, I focused on tactical reloads (releasing a mag that it not empty, maintaining it, and reloading with a fresh mag) and then just dumping the mag and reinserting a fresh one, focusing on smooth rather than fast.
Again, the laser pointer helped me tremendously here. When reloading, I found the muzzle going every which way, sometimes in an unsafe manner. So I concentrated on keeping the pistol pointed in a safe direction while performing a reload. I found that simply rotating the pistol 45 degrees clockwise was enough to present the spent magazine and mag well. The Para ejects the spent mag with enough force that straight up and down alignment isn't necessary.
I also practiced doing all this on the move, walking between my bathroom and bedroom, using the closets as "cover". I had to slow down my movement to ensure I could get reloading done in time before I exposed myself to the next "targets".
I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed the practice. This is new territory for me and I felt I did pretty good considering I've never really focused on this aspect of shooting. I hope that running around like a fool in my house helps prepare me for what I have in store at the IDPA match.