Ace Member Spotlight: Q&A with Matt Little
This week, we sat down with Ace Founding Player Matt Little, known online as Greybeard, to chat about his background in Army Special Forces Green Beret and Chicago Police. Matt has written a book called The Way is in Training, and he hosts training classes around the country for skill development and application. You can also find Matt on YouTube: Greybeard Actual.
Q: Let’s start with an overview about who you are and your background.
A: I’m Matt Little, retired from a dual career as Special Forces in the Army and a 21 year stint with Chicago PD, 5 of which I was an instructor. Today, I teach open enrollment training classes for pistol and carbine skills development and application, and for military, law enforcement, and other agencies.
At the urging of some friends who were competitive shooters, I started shooting USPSA, and realized how much I had to learn about shooting, despite shooting at a high level professionally for decades, and how my training had been deficient up to the point.
Fast forward to now, I teach four flagship classes for open enrollment students focused on how to train, and lessons learned from gun fights and active duty.
Q: How long have you been shooting with Ace?
A: I was one of the founding members of Ace. A Special Forces friend told me about it. I hopped on and immediately saw the potential of Ace. It’s been a little over a year now. August 2023. Ace has been a big help for me.
I’m a big fan of the Ace Virtual Shooting system. You see pilots, medical professionals, race car drivers all training with VR simulation. I just watched a documentary on the Blue Angels, and they had this whole setup with VR flying and formation, and it just makes sense. The preferred training modality for shooters is dry fire because you can’t get enough reps in live fire. I’m at 525,000 virtual rounds fired in the last year - I couldn’t do that in live fire, even if I could afford it! Cleaning, setup, maintenance, etc. I did 2,500 reps in Ace just this morning. It’s a game changer for sure.
Q: How often do you run drills with Ace and any idea how many rounds you’ve fired?
A: I shoot Ace almost every day. At a bare minimum, I jump in and do the Drill of the Day. I take it when I travel to training classes and when I travel to matches. I’ll run my reps in the hotel in the morning so I’m already warmed up by the time I get to the shooting range. I’m over 525,000 rounds.
Q: Which Ace handset are you using today?
A: I’m running the new Staccato P - I had the original test model. It’s super close to the break and pull weight of my real Staccatos.
Q: Let’s talk about how you use Ace and the specific skills you’re focusing on and goals you have. Fill us in on what you’re training on and how.
A: I’ve got a baseline template for most of my training sessions on Ace. The Core Drills Free Range was added to the platform at my suggestions. So a lot of the time, I’m shooting outside of the ranked runs on the free range.
I’ll practice draws in the ‘Sight Acquisition’ Skill builder, strong hand, weak hand, and then practice reloads, and Burkett reloads. I’ll draw, fire one round, mimic a complete reload, and then fire another round. I’m going through the full range of physical motion and visualizing it in my head.
Q: What are the metrics that you’re measuring yourself by and how do you set your goals, what are you chasing, and where are you looking to improve?
A: It’s easy in the Drills section because I can see my PR [personal record]. I use the shot timer to keep track of splits. I stole an idea from Tim Herron - PR’s are not the best way to quantify improvement. Consistency close to your PR is what matters. I’ll record the PRs, but the rest of the time I’m working to make sure I’m not having these big swings up and down; the peaks don’t matter. This helps me ensure I’m getting the mental aspect of shooting right. Shooting for me is very zen. How well I’m doing at being consistent is a litmus test for how I’m doing with relaxation and subconscious as a whole throughout my life.
Q: Can you share some specific examples of where you’ve wanted to improve, where you’ve practiced that in Ace, and then seen those gains on the range or at a match in live fire shooting?
A: I’ve got a couple videos on this on my YouTube channel - running a drill in Ace and running it in live fire - and they’re nearly identical. Go watch my Transition Hell video.
I’ve found transitions are a skill that transfers to real life remarkably well. One of the pitfalls of conventional dry fire is that you’re always faster in dry fire than live fire. This is compounded by the fact that most people probably aren’t as honest with themselves in dry fire as they should be. When I do these comparison videos in Ace versus live fire, it’s remarkable how close they are. Not just for transitions, but draws, splits, and stages with movement. I run them true to form, I don’t use the teleport feature for movements.
Q: Do you use other dry fire / training tools?
A: I’ve tried all the other dry fire tools, and I’ve stuck with none of them. I didn’t feel they had any added benefit. There is value for beginners who are working on tightening groups. But once you reach a certain point of shooting, it doesn’t have much value for you anymore. I found that the CO2 systems are finicky, and those guns jam up. It just ended up being more trouble than it was worth.
Q: You recently attained Grand Master in USPSA - that’s huge! Tell us about that journey.
A: Well, it took me 3 months to make Master and then 8 years to make Grand Master. I really credit Ace with helping me finally get over the hump and achieve Grand Master in USPSA. I hammered away at the USPSA qualifiers in Ace’s shooting platform and went to the matches and did them. I think I would have gotten it eventually but it would have taken longer without Ace.
Q: What are your favorite stages or drills to run in Ace? Which ones do you enjoy the most?
A: So, I’ve got my fundamentals routine I go through basically every time on the open range in Ace. I’ll do my core drills: Bill Drills, Blake Drills, and Gear Change. Three targets at different differences and change the sequences - Near, Far, Middle, then Far, Near, Middle, then Middle, Far, Near, etc you get the idea.
Then I’ll shoot the Popper Rack Drill - I just use the plate rack, shoot from the holster with my strong hand only, then do weak hand only. I’ll shoot plates right to left, then left to right. I love the new Transition Hell drill.
I really like Tim Herron’s headbox bill drill and the accuracy component as fast as I can.
Then I move on to movement - I go back to Free Range and work on sliding step, burst step (lead with the elbow), then I’ll do IPSC - two outer boxes and hit one popper each time (skip the middle). Chasing Alpha / Chasing Alpha Mini are two drills that help with shooting on the move.
I’ll pick stages based on what I want to work on, or if I have a match coming up, I’ll shoot for those. How many drills depends on how much time I have. Monday is my day to push (that’s the day the leader boards get reset in Ace). I try to knock out my PRs on everything on Mondays.
I’ll pick a series - I’ll treat them like a match - trying to get consistent performance, not necessarily PRs.
Q: What advice would you share for new shooters, or new Ace members?
A: For newer Ace members, who are shooters (not video gamers) - don’t treat it like a video game. Treat it like training. Have a plan, take it seriously, and have focused time and deliberate practice going into it. Know what you want to work on. Collect data, get your benchmarks, and track your improvement. Be disciplined about it.
For the Ace shooting platform itself: there’s a bit of a learning curve for navigating when you first pick it up. The first couple weeks - allow that learning curve to happen before you start taking it seriously - navigate the app, setting up the guns, get comfortable, then dive into the work of training.
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