First off I would like to say what a great forum, this has become a wealth of knowledge to me personally as I am just starting out in IPSC competition and this forum has definately allowed me to avoid some of the common pitfalls that can be experienced.
In the great tradition that this forum represents I would like to recount an incident from last weekend where a group of unclassified shooters, myself included, were given a couple of stages to compete in. On this particular stage 1 target was visible from the starting box with 4 others hidden behind barrels, 2 shots at each target (total 10). After the walkthrough we were all standing around being very serious about how to complete this course when the seeds of a solution presented itself to me that was different from the way the group had discussed. As I was the second last shooter on this cof I thought that I had the one won as there was only one other shooter after me that would see my great solution.
My turn comes around and I tear through the course, heading out of the starting box towards the first target at 45 degree angle at a full run, firing as soon as a target became visible. By the time I reached the 7 yd line from the starting box I had fired on all targets finishing the course in a little over half the time the others had taken, problem was you can only imagine my surprise when the scorer called put a string of D's and misses. How was this possible when I had perfect sight pictures of all the targets. Perhaps it had something to do with my total lack of practice at firing at a running pace The wows of amiration from my fellow competitors at my amazing time turned to laughter when the scores were read out.... embarassing to say the least. To cut a long story short, the last competitor completed the stage by sprinting to the 7 yd line and engaging all targets from a spot where they were all visible from a stationary stance at point blank range, all things well within his ability. He ended up with 10 A's and only 2 seconds slower than me. Strange thing is he run the course exactly how I first 'felt' it should have been done, with my level of experience, before I started 'thinking' about it. Big lesson learned.
