ROFL I love ARFCOM analogies...
It's not math. Shoot closer and dry fire a lot. Easy as pie, cheaper, fits schedules and budgets better.



Then seek help as needed.





 

Guess we'll see how the OP progresses.

This is a fantastic exercise

That's been outdated for a long time.





Straight dry firing is much more effective.
 

Please reserve that type of response for GD.  

Perhaps you could post a video of you on the range you work at conducting live fire and conducting dry fire.  This way the OP could see what you are writing about.  Judging from the picture in the Op's original post he is all over the place.  Another idea would be you arrange to spend some time with the OP and give them some instruction on the basic fundamentals of handgun shooting.

An interesting idea!  I'll see what I can do.  Might want to ask some of the others here giving advice the same thing to see what they can provide as well!



 

Well, that's the thing, the brain doesn't know if there is a live round about to fire or not. Same problem with doing the same style of drill with revolvers (random empty cylinders).



The brain only knows what's going to happen through repetition.  



Lots, and lots, and lots of dry fire will train your brain to not expect anything other than a click and a sight picture. During live fire, one random dummy round here and there isn't going to make a difference over the course of shooting.  Stopping and dry firing multiple times will, and I'll often do that for students who start dropping rounds with anticipation to get their brain back into the "nothing is going to happen" mode.
IMHO the only time dummy rounds should be mixed with live rounds is for immediate action drills.



 

This. No shame in shooting at 3-4 yards while getting acquainted with the handgun. It's a good warm-up. If you can't hold a group at 3-4 then you'll be all over the place at 7-10. I typically start at 3-4 and decide how quickly I want to move the target out to a longer range.

Take your time getting a sight picture and squeezing the trigger slowly. Figure out what it takes to get it right; then do that repeatedly.

That kind of the crux of the issue, if an anticipation of recoil or anything else shows up during live fire with snap caps, that's exposing an imprinted reaction/ muscle memory. (It will also show up on paper just as well, especially shooting close).  That means they are already behind the curve, and have to dig themselves out at the cost of LOTS of dryfire.  Much more to get rid of the bad habits than it took to create them.  That's why to me, there is not much point in doing it.   It seems like more of a carryover from the days before people started really getting into neurology  advances, and applying them to sports.
There's a great paper out, and I'll see if I can find it later that explains muscle memory and repetitions, and some of the numbers that get stated for how long it takes to create muscle memory (Typically states as 1000-4000 repetition).



Boils down to, that's about how long it takes to overwrite bad habits/ muscle memory.





It only takes a few hundred repetitions to create a habit/ muscle memory.



So a few snap caps in a mag at best are going to tell people what they can see on paper or watch, but are going to do little to correct anything.
 

One of the guys I learned a lot from had people shoot at 5-7 feet.   While I never went that close with people, it's great to isolate group size from group placement.



 

You're thinking about too much!  You're shooting a 4" bbl auto for self defense.  You're distances should be 5-10yds.  If you have an encounter, it will probably be five feet or less!  Put the front sight on target, the trigger control will come with practice.  Focus on front sight!  Take your time, speed will come.  Most of all, have fun!  Relaxing will help you most of all!  I've been shooting handguns for 35+ yrs, I sort of know about this shooting thing.  Practice and have fun, you'll achieve your goal!

Really?





Is this something that happens in real life to you, or are you just saying that for sake of argument?





Because large amounts of dry fire are exactly what it takes to not have anticipation of recoil.     If you start "Flinching" again after starting live fire....   more large amounts of dry fire.





I'm not big time instructor, but I've turned out a few hundred new shooters from classs, and have done hundreds of hours of private instruction cranking out safe accurate shooters.  I start everyone off with dry fire and only have a minority that begin with any large anticipation of recoil.   Of those, as soon as it's identified (with as few rounds as possible, preferable only one), I stop them on live fire and go back to dry fire for awhile then try live fire again.





I myself started out with TERRIBLE anticipation of recoil, it wasn't even worth trying to shoot pistols.  I would drop rounds FEET.   I could barely hit targets.  Then, I started dry firing and actually stopped shooting for quite awhile and did nothing but dry fire practice.    When I came back to shooting live ammo the difference was night and day.





Now, thanks to building a great foundation though dry fire, then going to live fire and practicing marksmanship, then training for action shooting (which involved dryfire drills) I went from missing targets or hitting the bottom, to shooting like this;







 

The ball and dummy drill is one of the best diagnostic tools in your repertoire to check and see if you are employing the same sound techniques in live fire as you are in dry fire.

Yea, the problem with it, is that it is VERY limited, and has a short duration of usefulness in the course of a shooters learning curve.

Physiologically it only works before a shooter's subconscious develops a more refined recoil control.

That's why results of paper IMHO are a MUCH better indicator.  

Plus, watching what the gun is doing means you're not watching the shooters face, which is a much better indicator of what's going on.





For someone like the OP though, who's going to the range and doing it himself, at least for now, there's no one to watch him.  If he does the ball and dummy drill, will he know if he was anticipating recoil?  Will he know why?   For him, results on paper will tell the story.  If shooting at 10' all his hits are POA/ POI but when he hits the dummy round the gun drops then is he truly "flinching" or was it recoil managment?  



In my classes I just avoided it entirely by having student dry fire a bunch in the classroom, then moving out to the line, and shooting .22's with the more confident students shooting first, and the less watching getting used to the noise.  Then when we moved to 9mm, I'd have them all dry fire a bit, the shoot one round at a time, then dry fire as I moved down the line handing out ammo round by round.  Once they got used to that with tons of dry fire between individual rounds, I'd give them 2-3 at a time or whatever they were comfortable with.  



After everyone was confident (and by extension, safe) I'd let them do their thing, and then move the targets a bit farther out (but not real far) for those who were doing well.



Of course that's a small part of the 6 hours, but that's just the relevant part.



 

Oh yea, OP if you're still reading this.
Not my video, but one of the most important things to verify before you get too far.   Finding out eye dominance can literally change peoples shooting lives for the better.  



I had one older guy while giving his wife some private instruction he saw me do the below with her, so I let him kind of jump in, and he found he was hight hand left eye. I showed him how to work around it real quick and he cleared out to let me get back to teaching.   He came back nearly chocked up and slipped me a hundred.  Apparently he had resigned himself to a life time (was in his 70's) to just not being good with a handgun, and just that little change had his group size smaller and hitting point of aim, point of impact.

 

You don't incorporate kinesiology and the study of human movements and psycology into training people?





It's exactly what we're talking about.





It's not "pretentious" just because you don't understand it, it's based in the very science that allows people to train in the first place.
 

Edited.  Keep GD style comments in GD.  - DV8

Thanks for posting the video.  Would be nice to know the course of fire, weapon utilized and set up, ammunition used and score.  A quality instructor will utilize any and all techniques to instruct their students to be better shooters.  It would definitely help the OP to receive instruction from a quality instructor.  Once he is taught the proper fundamentals, utilizing several available options and teaching techniques, he should spend time training.  Additionally, I would suggest muscle memory for dry fire does not incorporate the same muscle memory as live fire.  Dry fire muscle memory deals with proper sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control.  We could agree these are the most important parts of accurate shooting.  Live fire muscle memory incorporates all of the dry fire muscle memory and introdcues recoil management and re-establishing sight alignment, sight picture and trigger control.  Obviously, proper grip, stance, body alignment, body / shooting position can also be trained utilizing both dry-fire and live fire. Being a wise instructor includes the ability to have an open mind and continue to educate oneself in order to be the best teacher possible.  It was nice to see the members of this community try and help the OP.  A task that is next to impossible without observing the OP shoot.  Yet people were nice enough to try and help.  Sad, when some helpful advice gets ripped apart, especially, advice that the OP should seek instruction. Glad to see the OP trying to self-educate by watching videos and scheduling himself for a handgun class later in the month.  The OP can pay special attention in your video to your grip and body position, especially your arm extension and rolling of the shoulders forward.  The OP should also pay attention in your video to watching the front sight flip up.  This helps with speed of re-acquisition of the front sight and re-acquiring the target.  It also demonstrates your not flinching.  Dry-Fire pays off.
To all that have posted trying to help the OP thanks.  That is what a shooting forum should be about.  I enjoyed reading all the posts, checking out the dot drill posted and watching the videos.
To the OP happy shooting! Enjoy your Glock!  

Still here and reading...watching vids, been dry firing. My official pistol class 1 in in a few weeks.
Haven't had time since last range visit to get back and get some shooting in.

Will post pics once I get back to the range..hope next weekend.

Glad to hear OP, good luck with the class!  Several others have mentioned that you should shoot from a much closer distance on your next trip to the range.  Good advice to consider.  3-5 yards would be ample, 7 yards max.If you can post a video of you shooting, that would be great.  Team Glock has some good youtube clips.

Made me LOL.

Going to the range today for some more practice myself!