Shooting revolvers.
Congratulations on your new Python. I’m biding my time but plan to get one in the not too distant future.
I’ve had six, some with 4” barrels, some with 6”. For grips, I put Colt Elite on one. Pretty, but did nothing for me. I also had a set of Colt wood grips that, for lack of any other term, were “combat”, meaning sculpted for fingers and not so wide at the bottom. If you want wood, I would suggest those.
Really, however, if you want to shoot full-house loads, get a rubber set. Your hands will thank you.
Others in this discussion have given the best and most common advice. Practice was chief among them. I would point out that it must be correct practice. Practice errors and you’ll shoot with errors.
I like what Rob Leatham says about gripping a gun, and I would suggest starting with him. It brings up an important question: What do you want to do with your Python. Shooting for self-defense has a manual of arms significantly different from the type of competition shooting Rob does. Slow-fire precision requires another. All require a secure grip on the gun.
I see some contributors recommending starting by firing single-action. If plinking and slow-fire precision are your goals, that would be OK. For defensive shooting or competition such as IDPA you will need to be proficient in double-action firing, and you will need to practice it a lot, and correctly.
I suggest that no matter what your goal is, practice DA first and the most. An important goal is to be able to dry-fire DA without the muzzle wiggling at all. It requires a lot of concentration in the beginning, discipline, and an exercise program to strengthen the muscles you use. I like a device I made with a short axle and four feet of rope with a knot in the end. I put weights of from one-half- to five-pounds on the rope and roll it up and down. There are squeezer-types that can be good as well.
I also agree with starting with something less than full-power 357-Magnum loads. Rather than standard .38-Special or, worse yet, target loads, I’d suggest +P. Fire slowly, mastering the skill of allowing only the tiniest movement of the muzzle. Expect to shoot several hundred rounds, and that’s ONLY if you are shooting correctly. Some trainers will tell you that for every error you make you will need to shoot correctly from 100 to 500 times to overcome the error.
Have a knowledgeable shooter watch you shoot. S/he can inform you of errors or things you will want to work on.
Thereafter you could move up to low-end Magnum ammo. Look for rounds using the 158-grain bullet fired at ~1,000-fps up to 1,100 or so. Master that before shooting full-power ammo.
Finally, challenge yourself. Shoot two-hand both “strong” and “weak” hand. Then shoot one-hand.
Shooting with friends should be lots of fun. I suggest not treating the events as competition, but as demos for each other: “Watch THIS, Bubba!” Set fun goals, shoot for beers or donuts.
I have taught a couple hundred people to shoot, most of them for self-defense and most of them women. When it came time to choose the gun they would carry or keep close, not one picked a .38-Special. One picked a Colt Detective Special and fired only +P rounds. Another picked an S&W 686 and +P .38 loads. Yet another chose a Sig Sauer P229/.40S&W. The one that really got my attention was a lady in a high-profile profession who chose a Beretta 9000S/40S&W. It was a fire-breathing dragon that I did not like to shoot.
The point is that you can master your gun and have a lot of fun with it and depend upon it for self-defense, if you work at it.
Oh, smile a lot and use those rubber grips.