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Glock26Toter

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  1. I shot a match this weekend at Hansen range. No videos. It was another hoser match. It seems that's all they do at Hansen now with the exit of a certain individual that put on all the "hard" matches. I basically shot so carefully, and slowly that I was way down on the results on some stages. I really only had one stage that was good, and that one was a 30 point stage where I was able to do the slap-load saving a second or two over my competition. So the shooting is NOT where I won that stage. So I went to lunch with a buddy afterwards and we talked for quite a while. The gist of the conversation was something I've only heard about a billion times. How much are you willing to work for improvement? Now that I'm on an upswing with motivation it's really time to decide. I've been mulling this over since Sunday. The question for myself is: Are in a place where you just want to have fun and not worry about improvement? If that's the case, keep doing what your doing, but stop giving a crap about performance. Are you ready to look at the "work" as part of the fun and make some adjustments to your life to fit that work into your schedule? Let's see. I've spent 10's of 1000's of dollars on equipment and training. I've moved across the country in part to go where there's more shooting. I've hired people to do the things that would normally fill a weekend so that I can shoot. I've changes my lifestyle to include daily physical fitness and tendinitis recovery, so I can shoot better. I currently "practice" 1-2 times a week, and/or shoot 1-2 matches a week. I dry fire maybe/sometimes twice a week. All that, and somehow I look at resolving my "strategical dumbness" as the work I'm NOT willing to do in order to get better? Well, the things I need to do for that are actually the simplest and cheapest to resolve. I'm going to do it and here's how. Get the gym by 7:15 every morning. Heather is certainly on board with this and so far, that's been easy. After the gym, dry fire (for real) for 30-45 minutes. I've done Steve Anderson's 12 drills over the last 3 days and already see a marked improvement in my basic skills. Take dry fire on the road. Can't let travel get in the way, and it's even more important due to the lack of live fire during the week. I'm going to take my backup gun with me and a basic dry fire kit. PUSH in practice. I often practice with no timer or don't really keep track of whether I'm improving. I'm going to setup specific drills and record my times. This is where the strategically dumb portion will end. How fast can I do a Bill Drill? I don't freaking know. How fast can I shoot a plate rack at 25 yards? No clue. Does that stuff matter in a match, well NO because all you can do it shoot it as well as you can. But, trying to beat your old time is the best way to push yourself. Without it, I'm finding that all I do is shoot the same thing over and over and while I may get better at it, that's just from repetition. Not from pushing the limits of human function and showing yourself that those limits can be extended. A good example of this is my draw. Just from the last 3 days of solid dry fire with par times I find that I can jerk the gun out of the holster as fast as I can possibly move my hand. I mean, I'm honestly amazed at just how consistently fast my draw has become. Both from hands relaxed and from surrender. It's like, the instant my hand touches the gun I can just jerk my hands out in front of me and boom. The sight lands on target. Easily obtaining a first aimed alpha hit of around .8 seconds. What if I really push to beat that? While I've been able to obtain that speed for a while now, the point is I can do it easily, smoothly, and comfortably EVERY TIME now. It's really starting to sink in as 2nd nature. OK, so this is all s#!t that we've all heard before. And at some point in my shooting career (around A class) I was like. This is worth the work to put into reaching GM. And all the work to get this far was fun and seemed natural. I guess I'm just at the next plateau and need to look at the "strategically dumb" thing as something that has to be brought into the "fun" realm of my shooting to get to the next level. Writing it down like this, sure makes me accountable for it. I guess I better get on it.
  2. I went to the range on Friday and practiced with a buddy. We setup some "hoser" targets and ran by them a bunch of times while maintaining an A hit. While not perfect I feel like I made some headway in practicing that scenario. We watched splits/transitions and while I was occasionally able to get them close, I'm still suffering from fast splits and slow transitions. I guess I just need more work on it. On Sunday, the match looked pretty much exactly like our practice range. There were several stages with 4 shot arrays down the side berm(s). There were also some of the situations where you lean out and have to engage several arrays pretty far apart for a very wide cone of fie. Since they were easy targets this fit right in with my weakness. I got two stages on video. The video, obviously doesn't show the hits, but I was very happy with my hits throughout the day. Yeah, I missed a couple of opportunities for making sure I was in the A Zone. But for the most part I felt like I maintained control, executed each position as well as I could. There were two out of control moments. The first one, I really came out hot. I shot 5 times at a very close target and was just looking for the dot. Without seeing the dot, I saw several holes in the target and moved onto #2. Since I was already in "hole watching mode" I saw two hits on that target and while moving to the third target of the array became pretty sure my dot had failed. The next one was a partial no-shoot. Although close, shooting that one without having any idea where the dot was, or whether there even was one was NOT an option. A brief pause and I found my dot and moved on. I was able to complete the stage without issue. The win, in this scenario was that I was able to finally get things under control, forget about the 3 target hiccup and continue the stage without thinking about that. Not the best run ever, but a disaster was avoided. The second one was a very similar scenario. I had just finished a partial no-shoot array and went into a pretty easy, shoot while moving barrel gap. I pulled two shots off while starting to really accelerate and failed to call them. Pretty sure that they had gone into a barrel, or at least the delta zone. I came to a stop, developed a good stance, shot the two targets (re-engaging that first one) and continued to execute the remaining positions smoothly, without stopping again, and while calling shots the entire time. I sacrificed maybe 1.5 seconds on that situation and also didn't pick the best plan so not such a great score on that one. But again, the win was that I recognized a train wreck, prevented it, and moved on without thinking about it. On a positive note, I think I made some good movement choices that didn't sacrifice accuracy. Keeping movement smooth and not adding "extra positions" into engagements has been something I've identified as part of the problem with my close shooting. Feet shuffling and knee movement between arrays is costing me big-time in my transitions and shots because the gun has to settle for each target. I also made it a point to visualize and consciously work on transition. Rather rehearse "bang-bang," "band-bang." My thought process has been more like "bang-bump-bang-bump." Attaching the targets together with a visualized instant transition. I could feel myself execute this just like that in several arrays. But overall, I felt good with many of the movement situations where I eliminated extra, inefficient movement and replaced it with smooth and minimized movement. I'm going to ditch a goal list for a while. This seems more like a time, where I have all the tools. I just need to figure when, and how to use them effectively. Analyze, execute, and just let myself shoot like I know I can shoot.
  3. This may be a good case to keep some of my checklist sheets if there is a particular thing I want to replicate. Maybe I'll use the back of the sheet to make the notes you are talking about. I don't keep my phone with me (for the same reason. I'll look at an email and instantly switch to "WORK MODE.") I like the idea of throwing it away, but I may gain more value, and the same mental picture by just shoving the thing into my bag knowing it's off my mind. In particular I can think of two positions. Both had a hard lean into a port on a wide open target and resulted in a mike on both. This means I need to replicate this and either practice shooting angled into a port, or find a better stance when dealing with this type of port. And, I think you are correct in that "double tap" scenario. I think I'm failing to understand what I'm not seeing on those targets. You can't argue with the absence of holes! For sure, that's my next practice session is to setup some fast shooting scenarios and see what's up. For some reason, I've never really setup that type of scenario and practiced it before. Maybe because of my reluctance to blow through the rounds on such a session. Maybe because I've failed to properly recognize it as a weakness until now. Either way, it's time to dedicate the lead, if I want to turn this weakness into a strength! Thanks buddy!
  4. I shot matches on both days this weekend. On Saturday was the Adam Jobbers Miller Legacy match. It was a charity match. Adam was a Fort Morgan Police Officer that was killed in the line of duty and although I didn't know him, a few of the shooters at Hansen Range did. Also, he was an officer of the law and I'm all about supporting the people that sacrifice everything to try to keep us safe. On a positive note, the match brought a whole lot of new shooters from the law enforcement community and maybe some will get hooked and get better training. Maybe we'll meet some new friends. The match it'self was setup for new shooters. Everything was wide open, with stage plans that didn't leave a lot to the imagination. Speed shooting? Wasn't this recently on my list of weaknesses? Like, ONE post ago? Well, I racked up 5 mikes on the first two stages. Stage 3 came around and I was an emotional wreck. Determined to shake it off and NOT get any mikes on the next 40 point stage I shot it the only 100% guaranteed no mike way. Sloooooooow. After that I did, in fact successfully shake it off and went on to finish the last 3 stages at the top of the stats, and win one of them. I spent the drive home wondering how I had managed to botch my first 2 runs so badly. As noted before, a large area for improvement is, just what this entire match was. Close, wide open targets with open positions you can breeze through. My new, untested trigger and failing to recognize just how challenging this scenario is for me, was a recipe for disaster. The fact that I let it happen once is not what got me thinking. It wasn't even the fact that that I let it happen again. What bothered me, was... well. How bad it bothered me. Why did I let it affect my mental game so badly? I haven't been this upset since I determined I needed a break a year ago. So I have identified that speed shooting is something I need to work on, and just haven't been able to really practice it. No biggie. More importantly, when I do have a disaster what can I do to "let it go?" This IS something I've been working on. Well, I also just read (listened to.) Freedom Flight by Lanny Bassham and Attainment by Troy Bassham. The Attainment one is really good and exactly what I needed to hear. The main thing I took from this book was that I needed to come with a plan for what I would think before, during, and after my performance. For me, it's the after that I have a problem with. I dwell, and this causes those thoughts to spill into the before of the next stage. So the plan, after reflecting on my old archery competition days is this. Allow myself to process, and to think about my performance. Just let it happen. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to beat myself up, identify my areas of improvement, find my positive outcome, and then feel better. This is what I do every time I write this journal, and every time I compete. It's what I used to do for every arrow in archery. The thing is, in archery it was ONE shot, and like 3 minutes to think about it before moving on. I just don't have time for that at a match. I have too many data points to think about, and too much to do during the match for that. How can I review all those data points quickly? So, I made a checklist with all the data points I think about after a stage. Draw, grip, arms, stance, planning elements. All that s#!t. Troy Bassham style, I setup a table with Great, OK, Needs Work. After the stage, I just check off what I felt about each item. I left a space at the bottom where I can write a couple sentences about the stage and reflect on what went well. Then I throw it away in a physical act of "letting it go." Next day was the Mini Monster Match. 200+ rounds in a 4 stage match. A good chance for me to get back on the horse and try this reload paper thing out. After every stage, I filled out my checklist, wrote a note, and then threw it in the trash. It felt great. Yes, I had a couple of mikes. This really helped me identify what had gone wrong and more importantly what the actual skill was that I had forgotten to employ when the mike flew. More importantly it was a constant reminder of the skills I was remembering and allowed me to adjust my though process to the skills important for each challenge. I went on to win that match by 8.5% After reviewing the video and thinking about how that technique works it was really laid out to me what it looks like to treat each stage as a new match. It also helped me to take that step further and really look at each array, position and target as a separate performance. Some targets require an extra emphasis on a particular skill set for that challenge. Nothing new. But executing it like it's unrelated to the rest of the stage? Not something that comes so easily to me. Laying it out in front of me after each stage shows that to me in a way that I can truly get my head around. So, I'm going to do this for upcoming matches and see if it helps me develop a good plan for what my mindset will be before, during, and after each performance. Now that I'm done blabbing on about the mental aspect. I do see some items that I can work on with movement. There are several times, when I shuffle my feet to address remaining targets in a position that I didn't need to do that for. I could have either, stayed planted or flowed into the exit movement. One such event is the first stage, at 0:18. I shot 3 different positions there. NOT one flowing in and out. This means my transitions are slow as it's really a different setup for each target. If those targets were wide open begging for that position to be driven through at a ridiculous pace they would have been shaky hits indeed. That's how you can mike a hoser target. I do see some good things too. Like stable platforms and remembering to index properly and maintain my grip and arms while engaging risky arrays that for sure can't be blown through on the move. Stage 2 at 0:53 was one such array. These are things that were reinforced by my checklist. So, overall I went from a crash an burn, to a new plan for what to think before, during, and after a stage run. Hmmm. "Only positive outcomes."
  5. I'm going to check that out for sure. Along those same lines. I also just finished listening to Lanny Bassham's "Freedom Flight" and Troy Bassham's "Attainment." Both VERY good. (also non-solicited)
  6. It's been a bit since my last entry. I've had some practice sessions, and some matches. Overall, I feel like I'm making some headway. I practiced with a buddy of mine, who is really fun to hang around. The guy is awesome to shoot with because he's having a really good time, and is an inspiration rather than a detriment to my attitude. This guy is like "let's go!." Anyways, I'm embarrassed to write this next part. I shot his gun and was like "what the hell is up with that trigger!?" It had a fraction of my travel. Like by a huge margin. I realized that mine was WAY out of whack. I compared it to my other gun (that I haven't been shooting because it doesn't have a shielded safety yet) and that gun was a LOT closer to his. I had let my over travel screw(s) get way out of alignment. I fixed the over travel screw while there and was able to shoot a lot better. But even still over the last 2 matches was unable to work the trigger as well I'd like on most attack targets. After checking my trigger weight just a little while ago. I've found that I also let my middle spring on my sear spring get very light. I finished adjusting the sear spring to get my trigger back to about 1.25 lb where the return is nice and firm. This one, was by a much smaller margin, but still. I've had these "trigger troubles" before and found out that it was in fact, the trigger as opposed to anything I'm doing. I'm a tad disappointed that I can't see these things clearer and sooner. I just allow myself to think I'm doing something wrong in my shooting rather than in my gun maintenance. I'll need to be more diligent about actually checking the trigger weight and travel when cleaning the guns. So, now that I have my gun back in shape I'm excited to see what I can do and how I can improve without bumping up against poor equipment condition. In future practice sessions I'm going to make sure to add in some of the fast shooting drills. I think that my strength is medium stages. When I say medium, I mean targets at an average difficulty and arrays that require small amounts of movement. I've clearly won any stages that are like, 10-15 yard shots with low risk (some no-shoots, but not super tight) and can be done with a flow-through method. So targets I can move on, but not have to stop. This means I still need to practice hard shots and bring my accuracy up as well as be able to really nail the hoser/attack targets. Without getting deltas on them. My splits are painfully slow on them when avoiding deltas. Hopefully I can bring that down with some actual TRIGGER MAINTENANCE. Also, for about two to three weeks now I've shot Wednesday night, and Thursday night matches and practiced on Saturday. While rounds downrange is nice, I think I'm going to ditch the Thursday night matches and see about getting in a Thursday morning practice session instead. We'll see how that goes. I'm being warned of some upcoming projects for work that will put me on a "work in Michigan, live in Florida" schedule so I may have to give up all the weekday s#!t soon. We shall see. For now, I shoot! Goals: Make GM in steel challenge. (a 54 last practice match, while shooting through a migraine (luckily I had "rescue ginger") so hopefully a slight increase from 117 next real match.) Practice speed shooting. Practice even more accuracy. Dry fire, then dry fire some more.
  7. I shot a practice steel match last night again. I had a pretty poor performance and wound up adding 2 full seconds to my time from last time. This is only 4 stages so a 68 was logged. Not the score I was hoping for. I found myself not seeing the sights land on target very often and had a difficult time maintaining a good, positive attitude. Mostly lighting conditions and mental game problems. I just haven't done anything that would have netted a measurable improvement. But for some reason, expected it. I tried too hard. I saw myself doing it, but just couldn't stop. So what's positive for this entry? The past about 5-6 days I've entered into a COMPLETELY pain free time with my arms. When I had declared pain free before, it meant that the pain was gone, but feeling fatigue or a dull ache in my left arm was still there after working out or after a match. It was an arm on the edge. But now, I feel nothing. Like it's a 20 year old arm on a 48 year old body. Something I chose to leave out of my journal was the recent Right arm injury. I had done something deep in the joint at work 3 weeks ago. I was opening a bag, tied in a knot and it was like "sproing!" For about a week it hurt to do anything that was like a pressing motion with my arm extended. Like opening a heavy door with my arm too straight or rubbing sunscreen onto my leg. My workout didn't bother it too bad, but talk about another arm on the edge! I was pretty bummed, but that pain went away in a week or so. So the positive is both arms feel great. Time to expand the workout! Some nice lat-pulls after the usual rehab routine was in order on Tuesday morning. Well, I overdid that. My triceps are so damn sore I can barely lift my arms over my head. HAHA. I think hat physical fitness is going to be key in my progress so I'm super happy to start expanding from "rehab" to real live "working out." Soreness and all. Another positive was my draws. I didn't have a single bad draw last night. All of them felt good and I can't blame any of my poor performance on draw or grip. So another steel match under my belt and I'm also listening to some Lanny Bassham stuff. "Freedom Flight" was a quick listen, and "Attainment" I just started today. (Attainment is by his son Troy Bassham). These are inspirational, positive books that can change the way you think about your motivation and performance. What does my goal list look like? Make GM in Steel Challenge. Continue a practice routine of at least once a week. Increase dry fire routine 4 times a week.
  8. My recoil control game was greatly improved when I consciously, and aggressively worked on increasing my grip strength. I also worked on trying to get my left and right hands equally strong. I'm at that point now and really feel like I can see what's going on with my dot track, and can most obviously see the effect of my grip on my ability to control the track. In other words, I could not see such a connection between sight movement, and grip as I can now. I feel it's due to equal and strong grip. Having said that, I did deal with shooter's elbow (have in both elbows over the years) and BOTH elbows are on the edge all the time. I can insure them rolling over too fast in bed! But I feel that strength is the key to recovery and doing it correctly without injuring yourself further is, of course a must. I don't know much about carpel tunnel, but I know that getting over tendinitis can be done through proper strength training. (I.e., aggressive rehab routine) If your issue can be handled that way get on it. If all else fails... well, as others have said. PCC shooters don't have elbow problems. I think I'm headed that way one day, but I want to at least get a couple more years of pistol shooting done as long as nothing comes along to screw up these elbows. And one more thing. My guns recoil LEAST at 170-172 PF (using Autocomp) That's enough gas to get the comp working well. You should find your optimal gas/movement ratio with your powder.
  9. Well, I chose not to shoot any matches this weekend. Due to family obligations my first chance to either shoot a match, or practice was on Sunday. I had dry fired a couple of times during the week, but no live fire. Since the match was a super classifier I decided to skip it and just practice. I wanted to incorporate some movement into my training this time. I've been concentrating so much on accuracy I figured it was time. I setup 4 double barrels heading toward a plate rack that started out at about 25 yards from the rack and ended just about 15 yards. Starting in surrender position the goal was to do a flamingo on one plate per side of the barrels as I moved slalom style through them. The drill proved to be very difficult and I only completed it once "successfully" with no extra shots) in 10.63 seconds. Some runs took 1-2 makeup shots, and others were downright frustrating as I reached the end without hitting them all no matter how many extra shots. Granted, the choice whether to makeup, stop and hit, or just keep moving with one shot per plate was not solidly planned. So I did it a variety of ways. Next time I'll make a solid decision whether it's a "one shot each movement" drill, or a "must get all plates" drill. That will allow some better overall performance measurement. The important thing was how I was aiming. I found that if the dot started out well, off of the plate I could hit almost every time when the dot reached the plate. This was usually right in my "tipping point" so the next movement was the step out of the position. This made a decent rhythm. If the dot started out on the plate, it was "too early" for said decent rhythm and I would either stay aimed until the tipping point (causing a miss as I tensed up waiting for it) OR try to shoot early and whether I hit or not was a crap shoot. Probably due to tension trying to "capture the moment" as I saw dot on steel without having to wait for it. I think this is a valid drill and I'll do it some more, or something similar and try to figure out how I can better control the aiming process. Either I should ride the wave of an early aim, or maybe just work on camping out on the plate until the movement hits the proper rhythm. I'm actually not sure which. I suspect the answer is in making sure the trigger is prepped early getting into position. I was not aware during the activity, but now thinking back. I suspect when the dot came up on the plate right away, I was not prepped and just slammed through the take-up and broke the shot. If I can get prepped before I even have a chance to see the proper sight picture, I can be ready that much sooner. hmmm. I'm liking that as an explanation. I also did some wide transition drills where I shot a plate, then steel plate, then back for another plate, and so on. These targets were at about a 45 degree angle from each other. I think I'm starting to get more used to seeing that angled dot entry and shot break routine. I found I was pretty successful at this and rarely missed. So, this drill was a bit contrary to the other one. With such a wide transition I think I was always prepped by the time I was starting to see the next target. Finally, I went back to 38 yards (farthest possible in the bay) and shot about 60 rounds at the plate rack. Of course, surrender draw. I was definitely most successful when I actually didn't concentrate on any trigger work, and just "let it happen." This wraps up all the though process with the fact that on a plate rack you stay prepped the entire time. I think I don't really need actual, conscious trigger work. What I do need, is to get 90% of the travel over with in my trigger out of way the instant I break the shot. Concentrating on what to do afterwards is not something I need a lot of help with. So, I guess it's "get the travel over with and let your natural ability take it from there." If I linger in the take up I throw myself off. If I think too hard about the prep I throw myself off. I really didn't see the correlation between all these drills until now. This is why journaling is so important.
  10. I was bummed to miss out on the Colorado State match that I had cancelled a few weeks ago, but it was worth it. I paid my down payment on a new open gun from Axiom Custom Guns this weekend. I'm super excited to join Team Axiom! I shot a steel match and a local match at Hansen range this weekend. At the steel match, I wound up with a 117 score. I beat my goal of better than 120. Just barely! I found the most difficult part was inconsistency of the draw. I just haven't practiced that surrender draw enough and most runs that didn't go well were the result of a poor grip off that draw. Meantime, on the positive side, anytime that I did get a good firm grip and spicy draw I hammered the stage pretty well. I was able to see the proper dot track from a bump transition and especially on a couple of really nice runs I remembered seeing it with each and every shot. I still have a lot to learn but having learned a lot, I feel like I'm making progress. I had a single malfunction from holding the slide open with my thumb. On Sunday, I picked up my other gun from Axiom with a new shielded safety. Unfortunately, I still had a malfunction at that match with a high primer failure. (I think. I never found the offending round.) But, I was super happy with the safety. I felt like I could crush the grip and only gain from it. I got too rushed on a speed shoot with some long shots and suffered several deltas. On another stage, I rushed the hell out of some noshoot arrays and plugged one. It was made up, but the damage was done. I'm definitely still working on my ability to switch from Attack, to Control mode when needed. Other than those moments of "oops" there was some really good movement and some accurate stages. Overall, I made goal progress and feel better than ever about my performance.
  11. It's been a little while since my last entry. I made it through my lame work trip and it was, well, it was work. I took some extra time off and enjoyed a full 6 days off in a row. It was cool. I shot a match and hit live fire practice twice. I also shot my first steel match last night. It was a practice match with only 4 stages. What an eye opener. My performance was mediocre. I don't think a single person there thought, for even a second that I was a GM. In speaking with Manny a few weeks ago, his advice was "if you can into the 80's on steel challenge you'll find USPSA easy." Well, the world record is 74.84 in Open. I can't compete with Max Michel, Jr., but it's at least solid number to watch. My initial score, for 4 stages was a 66. This means that in a real match I was on course for around a 120. (guessing really) I clearly have a lot to learn, but this is a good baseline on which to improve. Another steel match this Saturday. This one will be a real live, full sized match so it will give me a real live baseline. So, back to the analysis. What did I see? I was transitioning pretty decent, but not great. This was emphasized by the fact that almost every miss was a trip back onto the target since I had bumped off and was 1/3 to 1/2 way into the next target before realizing I needed to go back. Of course this means poor shot calling, but for the most part I was transitioning aggressively. However; Several were not a bump transition, and a few times it seemed like forever watching empty scenery through my glass trying to get on target. But at least I recognized it. My best run was like a 3.xx second run on 5 To Go. Not blistering fast, but I nailed it 1-for-1 had a firm grip and saw the dot make the bump transition track with each shot. A success in showing myself what was possible with visual patience and trigger work. With that, I'll get to doing some surrender position dry fire and visualization to prepare for Saturday.
  12. I'll add to the visualization advice here by saying this. If you video yourself performing the walk through, and then shooting the same stage. You really should not be able to tell the difference. Of course you will, but the point being that you should rehearse moving, holding the gun, and engaging targets(and arrays) as realistically as possible.
  13. I shot the ProAm championship this last weekend. It was fun shooting an entirely different match format. It was even more fun shooting a different gun. I shot an Axiom Custom gun and will be buying one soon. I also worked the match. It's got an interesting history, and will hopefully grow under it's new ownership. So the match is all par time, all steel. Basically as many targets as you can knock down over a 8 stage format. There's a 9th tie breaker stage that's timed. Manny Bragg set the par times and it's basically, as fast as he can get them down minus about 3-5 seconds. So not exactly designed to to stack up a whole bunch of ties in the top 10%. This also makes for an interesting mental game as you have to be OK with leaving a lot of steel out there. You have to decide whether to stay and play trying to get an entire array, or move on to the next array leaving some standing. This strategy is varied widely by the different stages, array sizes, and the fact that there is a 10 round limit for ALL MAGS. Well, except for PCC... they get full mags. Here's my first stage. Seated was a requirement for the first array. Only a handful of people stayed for a seated reload on that first array, as it was obviously faster to reload while moving and leave the remainder of that array. After I took off, the RO picked up my mag and found ammo still in it. I had shot 11 rounds, planning on racking during that long run. I'm not sure at what point I got distracted and loaded too many rounds in that mag, but it happened and I zeroed that stage. This was a 23 plate hit, costing me 22 places in the finish. I would have been 11th place in Amateur Open, but wound up 33rd due to that screw up! It was a good lesson in blowing off the past. All I could do from there was have fun. I was happy with how smooth some of my movement was and feel like I, for the most part gave each array it's due respect. However, I did miss a lot. Afterwards I went to the practice bay and analyzed what was going on. I was putting a hard downward track on the dot and basically muscling it a lot, causing flinching. The trigger was quite a bit heavier also adding to the problem. After a few drills, I determined that, with this gun there was so little movement that I over muscled the gun and need to just calm down and watch the sight. I easily removed the flinching and extra movement with just some extra careful trigger manipulation and concentrating on a firm, consistent grip. I'm sure, that after I get one of my own I'll learn quickly and hopefully take my shooting to the next level. In response to advice from Manny, I'm going to move onto shooting a lot more steel. Steel's emphasis on accuracy and transitions is just what I need to work on. There are no charlies in steel, and you get to watch for every shot, what a well executed transition looks like. Without distracting yourself with a bunch of movement. I think it will really help me with my goals. This is fairly obvious I guess, but nothing like committing to some actual steel matches to make real progress. Something I've not done in the past. Currently I'm on a crappy work schedule and have to stay here in California for the next 7 days straight. This means no shooting until the first week of Sept. The good news is, with the last Mexico trip the only one on the horizon for a while I'll have some time off, and time at home to get practice in.
  14. I've managed to dry fire a couple of times this week and make a live practice. In preparation for the ProAm match next week I've been working on lots of reloads out of all pouches. The reason I'm shooting that match is really to help a new friend out who is involved in running the match and it's very cheap to go to. (I'm working it as well) So I thought, what the hell. It's an all steel, all par time match and honestly I don't think I'll do very good at all. It will do me some good to gain a new experience. No expectations, just fun. I have never been happy with my reloads out of pouch #3, but have always blown it off as a "when will I ever use that" low priority skill. The problem is, in matches like that ProAM, the Monster Match, or Rocky Mountain 300 I use it like crazy. Also there is the rare occasion when something goes wrong and I need it. Missing that #3 reload only makes things worse. You should never have a skill that throws you off. Practice everything. Well, I decided to do something about it and analyzed the troubles I've had. The main problem is that with my natural reach is downward as I go back. So I need each mag to be slightly lower than the previous one. This also prevents pulling two mags and I can get them closer together. The problem is, that mag pouches are not very well designed for varying drops. I wound up taking an old DAA Racemaster hanger and attaching a DAA mag pouch to it so that I can drop the thing low enough to reach it consistently. This was possible because the adjusting balls are the same size on both components. The shafts however are not the same size. So it took a bit of drilling and coaxing but I got it to swap over. I also cut the drop shaft off so it doesn't dig into my leg. It worked great and I'm very happy with my reloads all the way to #3 now. I've dry fired this for about 25-30 reps and didn't miss a single load with this configuration. With that out of the way I'm looking forward to working on some drills with lots of reloads tomorrow in practice. I'm considering making Sunday's local match a 10 round capacity match. That would certainly drive home the planning and reloads. hmmmmm. Regarding the practice I did on Thursday morning. I was disappointed at the results of trying to break the trigger work down into the steps I identified in the previous journal entry. I found myself adding stress, and flinching quite a bit. In my attempt to become conscious of the prep and time the two events of calling the shot and breaking the shot I added some hand movement in. I could feel a flex just as I attempted to break the shot and would miss. I took a break and just "forgot about the training" and was able to pick up my speed and accuracy by a LOT. I've never had any troubles with my trigger and I think putting too much thought into it, and trying to break it down into too many steps has introduced a lot of error in my current system. I'm going to shorten my process and not worry so much about that particular part. Once I just worked the prep as usual and really concentrated on watching the dot for the proper track to clear steel and get into the transition I was much more accurate and relaxed. I took this lesson to one handed shooting for about 60 rounds and was surprised how accurate I was with either hand. So dropping the extra detail I'm going to modify my goals. Shooting: Look it off. Watch the track for the right one. Should be either the next shot, or next target track. Keep the trigger ready. Fast return path during recoil. Moving: Analyze the spaces. (spaces between shots on a single array, or spaces between positions) Make sure the movement is the optimal, and only movement executed. Time: One practice per week. 4 Dry fire sessions per week.
  15. Last week I attended a JJ Racaza training course. This class was amazing and I would highly recommend it. I was surprised how much I got out of it. I'm not going to go on an on about it, but JJ has had quite a career and has developed a very enjoyable and concise way of sharing that with people. It was an absolute pleasure learning from him. Also, he's a very cool dude. Overall, it did the job I was hoping and inspired me to get things moving in my own shooting. I'll begin setting some goals with dry fire training and a more aggressive practice schedule. I'm having a lot of fun these days and really want to polish my technique and move on from this year long "slump" I've been in. Regarding my arm, I'm going to quit talking about it. It's not an issue anymore and I've gone on to include all the normal weight training exercises that a guy without tendinitis would do. This should help increase my total upper body strength, and put the problems farther an farther behind me. I'm able to control the sight now and any issues with said control are not due to my inability to grip firmly with my left hand. so, after a 1000 round training class with JJ, I went out the following day to see what I could do. I sent another 500 rounds down range with accuracy in mind on a dueling tree and 2 paper targets. The 2 paper targets took about 150-200 of those rounds and I only had a single delta and a handful of charlies. Overall I met my accuracy goal for training. The following day I headed up to Ruskin for a match. I was pretty happy with how my newfound skills played out, but there's obviously a long way to go. There were two stages that were very well designed. They had some arrays that were just far enough apart to prevent a smooth transition, but close enough that you couldn't justify an exploding, exit. They required some extreme visual patience as you were forced to very awkwardly try to smooth them out. I feel like I was generally successful at finding the most efficient way through them. The match did point out to me that I need to commit more time to practice. I'm going to get 1 practice day in per week. If I've been unsuccessful at it, say on a Friday or Saturday, I'll skip the match that Sunday and practice instead. Prioritizing practice over local matches is something that I think every trainer has recommended and I've never taken that advice before. I'm also going to get dry fire in my schedule. JJ said he only dry fires for about 5-10 minutes per day, but does it EVERY DAY. Yeah, same here back when I used to do it. So what are my goals after training and a few shooting sessions to think about how it has affected my shooting? Looking at my "work on accuracy" goal I now have a clear understanding of what steps go into having visual patience. It's more than just waiting for the sight to get on target. It's how you are manipulating the trigger and how you feel (tactile, not emotional) the relationship of trigger and sights that really make up that patience. My new goal is going to be to work on that confirmation of trigger prep/prime while maintaining the dot on target. How can we give ourselves this "extra time" to allow this confirmation? Get on target sooner. This is the additional realization that movement is not about your feet. It's anything that's not shooting. During the class I was given the proper information and drill to allow me to really see the difference between shooting, then transitioning, and shooting into the transition. (i.e., flat lining after the shot, VS bumping the gun to the next target.) I've setup drills and practiced this before and sometimes I was successful. But what I learned from JJ is a new level of understanding what it looks and feels like to do it right. Movement? Well, besides working on micro-movement aspects like transitions, I'm going to work on my smoothness. This is going to require a lot of work. Although I'm not exactly a "plant and shoot" guy, there are a lot of things that I do with my feet that I think are fast, but are actually slowing me down. Avoiding the drop step for instance. I'm a big drop-stepper. I'll need to work on looking at the situation and making a better decision on exactly what type of movement to incorporate into it. Drop stepping is actually a "last resort" movement and there are usually better ways to handle getting through an engagement. One area I got to test this was Sunday's match. There was a particular stage where there were several arrays across a long area. There were 3 places you could shoot everything from. Or there were about 5 places you could work your way across without ever lowering your gun or taking more than one or two steps. No time for drop-step or aggressive explosions with the 5 "position" plan. I was the only one that "shot on the move" across those 5 positions on my squad. I was about 1 and 3 seconds faster than the next 2 guys closest to me in ability. Plus I had better hits, and didn't actually shoot anything on the move. I was shooting when I felt stable and was properly prepped and had my sights confirmed but was already moving out of the position the instant the shot broke. I was transitioning into the next target and moving into the next position simultaneously. Therefore, I spent the most time on target possible, allowing the trigger prep and sight alignment to converge without doubt. I make it sound all like any GM out there didn't stand a chance against me. I'm fully aware that it was probably 2 seconds slower than any "gown up" GM but for me it was passing a little quiz based on what I had learned 3 days earlier from JJ. I'm putting this "smoothing out of each position" on my goal list. OK, so this was certainly a windy entry. Time to get to the goal setting. Shooting: 1. Prime the trigger. Feel the wall, push into it. 2. Watch the aim. Maintain the dot on target while confirming the prime. 3. Look it off. Watch the track for the right one. Should be either the next shot, or next target track. 4. Keep the trigger ready. Feel the return path and prep. This will mean more time on target. Moving: Analyze the spaces. (spaces between shots on a single array, or spaces between positions) Make sure the movement is the optimal, and only movement executed. Time: One practice per week. 4 Dry fire sessions per week.
  16. Everyone has some good advice here. I'll add that taking your stage planning very seriously will help to sink it in. Dry fire the targets in the speed you think you can achieve. Hold your hands in your exact grip. Rehearse each position in the exact stance you intend to shoot in. Video yourself in the walkthrough, and the stage run. compare the two to see how close you are practicing vs shooting. You will rarely get a full dry run, (i.e., people are usually in the way) but at least rehearsing each position and target engagement speed with realistic actions will help to reinforce what happens after the timer goes off.
  17. I was able to make a match on Sunday at the WAC, in Clearwater FL. It's hilariously humid in SWFL right now so it was a relief to shoot a match in the shade. I didn't get any vids, but overall I had a good match. It started off with a headshot only classifier, (It's not brain surgery). This was an excellent reminder that my primary goal was accuracy. I managed to snag a 98% on that classifier. I didn't worry about anything. Just aimed and went through the motions. Moving on, I had a couple of rough stages where I forgot my primary goal. On the 4th stage of the day I shot more charlies than alphas. This was a stern reminder to get back on track. The 5th stage was particularly notable for goal progress. There were some upside down targets, a couple of long shots and some shoot on the move ones to round out a very good shooting challenge. (It was called "10 minute build" but seemed more like something from a major match with a lot of planning.) I was very happy with how I was able to not even think about my movement and just aimed and waited for the sight picture I wanted on each shot. When I arrived on the upside down targets I recognized the orientation and didn't break the shot until I had consciously got into that low alpha zone. There were some partials too, and I did the same conscious aiming that put the hit where I wanted rather than just between the white and the edge. There was a port to go through and although I had intended to move into it from the previous position by a couple of steps before engaging I got on that first target what felt like way too early. However, I shortly realized that it allowed me to aim deliberately on the first wide open target while getting into the position that allowed the completion of the position. This really meant that, while it felt too early it allowed me to enter the port with one target already hit. I don't know if my score was anything to get excited about compared to another GM, but for that match it was average hit quality, and a full 2 seconds over the next fastest time. While only on a couple stages, this match reinforces two things to me. First, is that I can put much more thought and care into aiming no matter the difficulty of the shot. Secondly, I can trust that while putting my efforts into aiming the movement will generally take care of it'self. In other words: I showed myself what it is like to get interested in the shooting, and trust that I'll be fast enough. I'm really starting to get some of that old excitement back now. For the first time in a while I think that there may be some hope for improvement in my game. To give an update on the arm. I worry less and less about it, and have even started hitting the grip strength training and adding in some standard arm workouts at the gym. Goals are still the same: Keep having fun. More physical training. Continue to work on accuracy as my top priority.
  18. Here's another good set of exercises. These are recovery minded, but I suppose if you did them from the start you would avoid shooters elbow.
  19. In my attempt to continue having fun, I have been slacking on the journal. But have made some progress in shooting and equipment. With the continued recovery of my arm, I'm getting very satisfied with my ability to track the dot. I would say it's no longer "out of control" during shooting. I'm calling almost every single shot. Even the deltas. Now, I just need to get control over those moments of allowing deltas to be good enough. With that in mind I went to the practice range and sighted both guns in. The backup was dead nuts on. But the main gun was about 3" high and right. (at 15 yds) After a slight adjustment I took some closeup vids of my shooting a plate rack. I did this so that I could watch my thumb, and weak hand in action to determine where I would position a thumb rest. After all was said and done, I could see that when I was most successful on the rack, I was gripping very hard with my weak hand and my thumb was basically flat against the C-More mount. Here's a vid. What that told me is that I don't need a thumb rest. So I just stuck some grip tape on the mount where my thumb lands to hopefully increase the effect of my thumb on the gun, even if my grip loosens up. This has proven pretty sweet in the last two matches. Then, my guide rod broke. I don't know if this was related to the latest malfunctions or not, but since it's been to, and back from a gunsmith with a new guide rod and other tuning work, I'm really hoping the malfunctions with this gun are behind me. I also FINALLY purchased a grip scale after being motivated by Cha-Lee's video on grip strength. I was surprised that after all my arm crap I've been through I was sitting at 140lbs grip on my weak hand, and 150lbs on my strong hand. It should only be a matter of a few weeks before I can get them even. While many will argue this is a project in futility, I personally believe that the closer the two hands are, the easier it will be to maintain a neutral yet very firm grip. That's my goal. Once I reach it, I'll be more qualified to comment on it's value. So, progress on all fronts. I'm having just as much fun as I was before I moved. The decision of "should I be doing this with my arm" is starting to fade at the thought of every movement, especially shooting. And the accuracy, well I'm finding that with more consistent dot tracking, there is progress.
  20. I was able to get to a match on Sunday. Due to a crappy work schedule coupled with laziness this is like, the 4th or 5th match without having sighted in either gun. Also, the GoPro took another s#!t. No vids. Too bad because one of my stages was actually pretty sweet. Aside from that, some of the aiming was OK throughout the match but I still racked up a couple of mikes and too many deltas. I'm leery of whether I'm the one that miked a few, or if I should have called a C/D hit and wound up with a mike. Either way, I'm still not reining in my aiming like I need to. Without practice, what can I expect? I'm still babying the arm and it hurt during the match on Sunday. I was pretty bummed but by today it's not hurting anymore. I'm really just still trying to take it easy and not get to hung up on whether I should be shooting better, or what I should be doing to fix it. Hell, I'm not even sure why I'm still journaling. I guess I'm just making sure that I don't beat myself up for not getting any better when the only thing I do all week is write about how I didn't do anything to get any better. So, I have the JJ Racaza class coming up and this has provided some motivation to get something done. I think within the next couple of weeks I'll get some practice in and hopefully the arm will be stronger than ever. A few minutes ago I just knocked off of work until next Monday so several days of range time. I'll at least get my guns sighted in and get some slow-fire all alpha practice going! Goals are still the same: Keep having fun. More physical training. Continue to work on accuracy as my top priority.
  21. One of my first majors was Nationals. What a blast! It was super easy to find my name in the results too. I was 2 notches up from the DQ's! No regrets!
  22. Don't say dumb. Your idea wasn't dumb. Posting the idea led to some guidance and a pretty decent discussion. Keep 'em coming!
  23. I shot a match this weekend. Forgot my memory card, so no videos. Some of the shooting was good. On two stages everything was great resulting in stage wins. I was gripping hard, dot was tracking. I was liking it. On the other stages, not so much. I just didn't concentrate enough on making sure to call every shot. My primary gun malfunctioned really bad again and caused me to drop an extra mag. I needed it, so I picked it up and wound up shooting some arrays strong hand only. It was a bad scene but I just laughed it off. Something I couldn't do 6 months ago. I couldn't switch guns because my backup has a loose comp and missing grip screw. So I'm not doing too well in the equipment department. Hopefully I'll have them worked out soon. The gun did run fine the rest of the match though. Some good news is that I shot another match without any arm pain. Now I just need to continue getting my body, and gun running again. I've been slacking on any physical training with a pretty bad work schedule. Hopefully I can get back on track with that soon. For training, I contacted JJ Racaza and I'm working on getting signed up for a class. I don't expect a miracle, but at least need to have some outside help on identifying new goals to work on.
  24. I used to do the hand warmer thing and when I was on deck, I would close and open my hands constantly... like until they were almost tired. Finally, I got sick of all that s#!t and moved to Florida. Problem solved!
  25. I personally would never practice it, or purposely point shoot without looking for the dot. However, I often do shoot very close targets and have no recollection of seeing the dot. So, yeah. I just felt right. My personal interpretation of that is that we can see way faster than we give ourselves credit for. So although I didn't consciously aim with the dot, I certainly feel I subconsciously did.
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