Chic (Hwansik) Kim

[kernelofwisdom]

What a bummer. That match day was just not your day. But if that's a tough day for you you're going to have some great ones. You were moving and shooting very quick and smooth and overcoming a lot of unplanned obstacles.

Great range diary. Your approach is excellent and you are matching effort to your plan. Looks like you took the big match bummer in stride so it won't set you back. Just overall impressive and inspiring to those of us not at your level.

No advice from me since you're way better than I am; just stopping in to say you're doing outstanding and it's fun to watch you go.

[hwansikcjswo]

Thank you guys! I am learning a lot from you guys and be encouraged too.

I am shooting lots past 3 weeks.

I have shot so many different types of partials. My ratio of partial to open target in my practice was 9:1.

I feel more confident to shooting partials. However, It frustrated me whenever it goes beyond 25 yrds. I can not consistently shoot A's on them unless A zone is not covered.

I gotta practice shooting some Cs and not getting any penalty on them.

I am leaving home on Sat early in the morning to Oregon state Champ.

I am ready to shoot it. My goal is shooting as many As possible and no penalty.

[BeerBaron]

I just watched your video again. to be honest you were lucky at the 10 second mark to not be DQ'd when you had the jam. there is a point during the subsequent actions where it looks (hard to tell for certain on video) like you get your left hand in front of the muzzle. there's nothing wrong with using the front serrations for manipulating the slide, but it's a risky way to do it under match pressure. in a match on stage we lose a small amount of our fine motor skills and it doesn't take much when using the front cocking serrations in a hurry on a cz to get part of your left hand in front of the muzzle. with training it may be just as fast to use the rear serrations and certainly less change of covering your left hand with the muzzle. Fortunately for you at that point your body shielded your hands from the RO and the other camera angle but from the POV it looks like when you take your left hand off the slide your right hand is moving the gun inwards a little which means left finger gets in front of the muzzle.

just be careful with that during remedial action. I've seen so many guys get DQ'd clearing jams etc as it's something we don't tend to practice. On stage we suddenly get a strange failure that we are not used to and it can be easy to leave finger on trigger, or sweep part of our hand while clearing it. for me in open it's easy as I use a slide racker, but I shot production and yes I preferred the front serrations on my stock 2 and shadow but I really have to be mindful of where my left hand gets. My 1 and only DQ (up to now) was for sweeping my left hand.

[Smitty79]

I just saw your results at the Oregon state championship. Nice work!

[hwansikcjswo]

IT WAS MENTAL.

I came back from the match.

They had 3 swingers. two of them with two targets. I shot 4 mikes and deltas on them. How I shot them is not waiting them to come to a spot, but tracking my gun to the tartget. I think the target passed when i fired.

I never practiced swingers. I will kill those before the nats so I can be ready.

AND It was metal. I pressured myself too much. I focused way too much on winning, the first two stages, I was very tense and not disciplined. After shooting 5 mikes from the first 2 stages, my shoulder relaxed down be cause I thought I am far from winning. The pressure that I was putting on myself was gone. I started shooting, stopped trying to win. Then I put 3 stage wins in a row, then another swinger came out which I left another miss. The last stage I shot was all As.

The production winner and I had not much difference, He shot 177 secs the whole match, I shot it 171 sec. I shot 168 Alpha he shot 162. However the winner didn't have any mikes.

I was sad cuz like I said I put pressure on me to win. I spend a lot of money to travel and bullets and super difficult partials that hurt my ego. My friend told me finish last practice session to bring up your confidence not hurting my ego difficulty.

I am dissecting JJ's movements and tried to use it at the match. Some parts went good some parts like 180 transition I over swung a bit.

I learned important lesson for the match.

I am glad that I didn't do too well or too bad. This match humbled me and gave me some homework. 3rd over all was god given place for me right now. Hallelujah!!

[hwansikcjswo]

I just watched your video again. to be honest you were lucky at the 10 second mark to not be DQ'd when you had the jam. there is a point during the subsequent actions where it looks (hard to tell for certain on video) like you get your left hand in front of the muzzle. there's nothing wrong with using the front serrations for manipulating the slide, but it's a risky way to do it under match pressure. in a match on stage we lose a small amount of our fine motor skills and it doesn't take much when using the front cocking serrations in a hurry on a cz to get part of your left hand in front of the muzzle. with training it may be just as fast to use the rear serrations and certainly less change of covering your left hand with the muzzle. Fortunately for you at that point your body shielded your hands from the RO and the other camera angle but from the POV it looks like when you take your left hand off the slide your right hand is moving the gun inwards a little which means left finger gets in front of the muzzle.

just be careful with that during remedial action. I've seen so many guys get DQ'd clearing jams etc as it's something we don't tend to practice. On stage we suddenly get a strange failure that we are not used to and it can be easy to leave finger on trigger, or sweep part of our hand while clearing it. for me in open it's easy as I use a slide racker, but I shot production and yes I preferred the front serrations on my stock 2 and shadow but I really have to be mindful of where my left hand gets. My 1 and only DQ (up to now) was for sweeping my left hand.

That;s a nice catch on 10 second line on the vid!

Thank you for pointing out! I've not thought of sweeping fingers in front of the muzzle!

I'd definitely go to the rear of the slide next time.

I really learn a lot from you!!

[BeerBaron]

congratulations on 3rd overall in your state championships! That is amazing. You should be very proud of that result. You are still so early in your learning curve. it shows how good your other skills are that you could finish so high with 5 mikes.

It's all down to how hard you've been training. You definitely need to start broadening out your training. You're so good now with stand and shoot, movement etc. Need to practice swingers, drop turners, some prone. The stuff that you don't always get at a match, but when you do get those targets the top guys can all shoot them with confidence.

With the swingers there are 2 main methods. trap them or track them.

trap them obviously you find the 'dwell point' the point where they pause, wait there and get one shot as it goes into the dwell point and one as it comes out. if it's slow enough you can get both on one pass.

on some swingers you can't see the dwell point (obscured by hard cover). in those cases you can still trap trying to shoot them at the top of their arc, but most will switch to tracking them. the trick is as you track it you need to continue that movement as you break the shot or you end up shooting too late. A lot of guys track it well but then pause as they shoot. like all the other things it's a learned skill and I'm sure you'll learn it FAST!

Again, congrats on 3rd place. That's an awesome achievement.

[hwansikcjswo]

congratulations on 3rd overall in your state championships! That is amazing. You should be very proud of that result. You are still so early in your learning curve. it shows how good your other skills are that you could finish so high with 5 mikes.

It's all down to how hard you've been training. You definitely need to start broadening out your training. You're so good now with stand and shoot, movement etc. Need to practice swingers, drop turners, some prone. The stuff that you don't always get at a match, but when you do get those targets the top guys can all shoot them with confidence.

With the swingers there are 2 main methods. trap them or track them.

trap them obviously you find the 'dwell point' the point where they pause, wait there and get one shot as it goes into the dwell point and one as it comes out. if it's slow enough you can get both on one pass.

on some swingers you can't see the dwell point (obscured by hard cover). in those cases you can still trap trying to shoot them at the top of their arc, but most will switch to tracking them. the trick is as you track it you need to continue that movement as you break the shot or you end up shooting too late. A lot of guys track it well but then pause as they shoot. like all the other things it's a learned skill and I'm sure you'll learn it FAST!

Again, congrats on 3rd place. That's an awesome achievement.

Thank you so much! It encourages me

I tried the 2 methods and will upload a video of me trying it.

[hwansikcjswo]

I finally tried shooting swingers in practice.

The first couple runs I shot was either Ds or Ms. Last runs I shot was a few As and bunch of Cs. A little bit of improvement.

The swinger I used, I could not make 2 shots at the 'dwell'. I think I need to mess around to make it slower.

My first shot to the swinger is around A or C, the problem was my second shot. 'Tracking' is what I cannot perform well now. However, I felt I need to see my front sight in peripheral vision and more or less target focus or intermediate focus (both blurry). Then my second shot was in the target. When I focused on the sight, I shot misses.

The key might be shooting it target focus.

[BeerBaron]

swingers are one of the few targets that are much easier with an open gun as with the red dot you can easily follow the target with your eyes and release the shot when dot covers target.

With iron sights it's more difficult. I think the easiest was is the trap. find the point, get the sight picture and with your peripheral vision watch the target, as it comes into your trap zone release the shot. if it's 2 fast you need to wait for it to swing back again for the second shot.

as with all skills as you get better at it the speed at which the swinger is moving for you to take 1 shot or 2 shots per pass will change.

I think ultimately the track technique can be the faster skill BUT for a highly skilled shooter (or shooters using open guns!). Because in that technique you are not waiting for the swinger to advance to your chosen point, as soon as you transition to it you can start to engage (providing it's not behind hard cover obviously). But I do see heaps of newer shooters trying to track and they just get mesmerised so they end up taking a long time and they miss.

Overall I think in the beginning trap is the easier/faster technique to learn and will help build confidence as you can get your good A + C hits. the goal ultimately though is that you can shoot both methods and chose which is most suitable depending on is the swinger covered by hard cover/NS, and how fast it is.

[BeerBaron]

I'm not sure if you do this already but you should look at downloading Max Michel Shot Coach (I know it's on IOS, not sure about android). and run your videos through it.

it will make out all your shots then you fill in time with splits, transitions, make up shots, hesitation, movement, malfunction time etc. It gives you an overview at the end and you can see things like average split time, how much time you spend moving and not shooting, how much time spent on a malfunction etc. I find it fairly useful.

[hwansikcjswo]

Live fire today was very interesting. shot partials with 180 transitions. My cold run was not so good. I had an illegal target, classic target no shoot, with only 2,3 inches showing. and other difficult partials.

I will focus on improving cold runs of every practice.

I had a special encounter today at the range, Robin Taylor. We practiced a bit together, talked about JJ racaza and the USPSA presidential election. He is a living history book of USPSA, has lots of knowledge and Front sight Magazine editor.

I dissected, and am dissecting JJ Racaza's technique. As I am focusing on getting my shooting style close to Ben Stoeger's, I am focusing my movement style to be close to JJ Racaza's.

From my ACED, the ACD part mostly comes from studying Ben and the E comes from studying JJ. I think Eric G has both JJ and Ben in him.

I am getting married in less than 2 months. I am going to the Nats in about 2 months. I plan to attend 2016 IPSC nats and USPSA nats.

My super amazing and exceptionally understanding extremely supportive (future) wife and I will start saving money for 2017 IPSC World shoot in France. I hope there is an empty slot for me, either US team or indivisual.

After the nats, I will send e-mails to companies for sponsorships. I am, actually we are, going to be a broke married college student couple. I am praying hard to get some bullet sponsorship. We will see what happens.

I have my destination. I will train hard.

Edited June 5, 2015 by hwansikcjswo

[Glock26Toter]

I hope you can meet your goals.

Be careful not to model yourself after other shooters so much that you lose the Chic style. Try what you see from several shooters and find the most comfortable and fastest way YOU can do it.

Congratulations on the marriage. Florida Nationals sounds like a great place to honeymoon. You'll just be a bit busy during the day shooting.... she'll understand.

[Smitty79]

Does your fiance shoot?

[hwansikcjswo]

I hope you can meet your goals.

Be careful not to model yourself after other shooters so much that you lose the Chic style. Try what you see from several shooters and find the most comfortable and fastest way YOU can do it.

Congratulations on the marriage. Florida Nationals sounds like a great place to honeymoon. You'll just be a bit busy during the day shooting.... she'll understand.

Wow. I like what you said. I am on the journey of finding Chic style. Thank you

Since we are short on our budget, we decided to go to CA, which is really close from WA

[hwansikcjswo]

Does your fiance shoot?

Yes. but she hasn't shot any competition yet. She's planning to shoot one after wedding. She can't buy a hand gun yet because of her age. we have 8.5 years of age difference. Her family is shooting family

[Jetskidawg]

Chic,

There will be a swinger in Bay 3 for tomorrow's match.

Jason

[hwansikcjswo]

I have become more aggressive in movements and transitions that I cannot wear my camera earmuff. It will flip off from my ears

I need to practice standards with one hand shooitng. I am putting one hand shooting in my dryfire regime again.

unloaded start, pulling 5th mag on the mag pouch didn't work well. It did not come out flush

I shot Irish&polish rack for the first time. When I shot it, I decided to just have fun with it. I don't bother sucking it cuz I don't see it at big matches.

I will practice some of crouch reload and reloading while start running.

[Glock26Toter]

You are moving very quickly these days. Keep it up. The next thing you need to work on is removing accessory movements.

Your head-dip-lean thing while reloading seems to add some time and complexity to your reload.

Practice with no gun. you should be able to snag a magazine and bring it up in front of your face without moving your head. That way, gun and you stay in the game while weak hand just gets a new magazine ready. That will remove accessory movements and smooth things out. When the magazine is up and ready the gun hand will naturally meet it there, way up high for a faster engagement after the reload.

[hwansikcjswo]

You are moving very quickly these days. Keep it up. The next thing you need to work on is removing accessory movements.

Your head-dip-lean thing while reloading seems to add some time and complexity to your reload.

Practice with no gun. you should be able to snag a magazine and bring it up in front of your face without moving your head. That way, gun and you stay in the game while weak hand just gets a new magazine ready. That will remove accessory movements and smooth things out. When the magazine is up and ready the gun hand will naturally meet it there, way up high for a faster engagement after the reload.

Very nice catch on the dead dip thing sir!

I am now analyzing other shooter's reload, especially Eric and Ben.

I will come up with a better reload.

Thank you so much!!

Edited June 10, 2015 by hwansikcjswo

[hwansikcjswo]

I killed some crazy swingers today. Shot one handed as well. I realized that I can shoot faster than I thought. I started shooting faster on the swinger.

I got back to my DF again. I was lazy, my callus on my hand is softened out. Now I feel some sting on my hand.

My CZ shadow and Sp01 has totally different chamber length. my ammos are not accurate on my back-up SP01. It's very annoying not being able to get accuracy with my back-up gun.

I delayed visiting S.Korea to Sep. Now I registered Area 1 Yai!!!

I got USPSA membership Jun 30 2015. It's almost a year since I started shooting USPSA.

Area 1 will be a feast for me. Because my beautiful fiance is coming along and JJ Racaza is in my next squad. I will be able to meet him and see him shoot.

I am going to my local range probably 4 times a week. I am hitting my training pretty hard. But I want to train more.

I have made couple videos of world best shooters. IT IS LONG.... Probably a length of a movie.

I have so many things to work on. I need to polish more and more

[praetorian97]

I have made couple videos of world best shooters. IT IS LONG.... Probably a length of a movie.

Upload that beast and post a link! =)

[hwansikcjswo]

I have made couple videos of world best shooters. IT IS LONG.... Probably a length of a movie.

Upload that beast and post a link! =)

I am sorry. I can't do that.

I actually e-mailed one of the world-top shooter with the vid I made. He asked me to keep it for myself. I think he freaked out that weird nerdy guy made a long slo-mo vid on him. I'd freak out if anyone made a vid of me slo-mo that is over an hr long.

I don't want to get sued

Me no speak english, me no money.

Edited June 13, 2015 by hwansikcjswo

[Smitty79]

I hate to tell you, no one who's ever shot with you thinks you are nerdy.

Your English is better than many people who were born here and is way better than my Korean.

[jayjay1]

Well, just to throw my meaning in.

You should measure the longer chamber of those two pistols and then ream the other one to this longer length.

And anyhow, my German is much better than my English and waaaaaaaaaaay better than my Korean.