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joshdub84

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About joshdub84

  • Birthday 10/01/1984

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Springfield, MO
  • Interests
    USPSA
  • Real Name
    Josh Wilson

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  1. I was just looking on Practiscore and debating on a last minute sign-up for this one. Stages seem like they're going to be technically challenging, or I would at least expect that to be the case. I shot Area 3 this year where 10/14 stages were 32 rounds and I also shot a small level 2 match in Iowa that had a great mix of short, medium, and long courses. 99% of the time I would recommend the small level 2 over Area 3 to anyone dumb enough to ask for my opinion. I understand wanting more rounds on paper if you're traveling for the match but round count can't be the only determining factor. The amount of staff on hand and the way they're planning stage resets alone would be worth the admission as far as I'm concerned - just to see if they can pull that part off.
  2. I much prefer shooting with people above my current skill level. Observing their approaches to stages, watching how they prep out for their run, and often annoying them with small questions seems to help me a lot. When I shoot with people of my skill level or lower, I tend to slow down to their pace and while I feel better about my runs - Practiscore tends to show me that I'm not performing as well as I'm able.
  3. Depends on your level of involvement with your given sport and your desire to improve - obviously dry fire is huge path to getting better but having the ability to test that live-fire outside of a match environment is key. For me personally, 1.5 is doable (thankfully I've only got about a half hour drive to my range) but I don't have a lot of the same responsibilities that others have. My job allows me a very flexible schedule and I've driven up to about four hours one way for a club match. If I was in your scenario, I think I would try to up my dry-fire (without knowing your current level) and plan for at least twice a month to make that drive for live-fire. That way, you're at least testing some of these skills out. Do you know what kind of membership levels the range has? I know you were concerned with the place being busy but if it's anything like my local range - it has a significant amount of members but it's only truly busy on match days. And one final thought - this is all coming from a guy that just got into USPSA about a year ago and is obsessed with it...come at me in another year and maybe I'll have burned myself out.
  4. Shot a match last Sunday that involved two positions on the same stage where a fairly heavy and awkward lean was required for some targets. I don't really have a problem shooting once I'm in the lean but I have a lot of hesitation getting into that position. What are some things I could practice, beyond just setting up heavy leans, that may help this process? Would you say there are general physical skills that could help this process? I'm currently working on keeping low throughout my shooting to allow better flow around a stage.
  5. I enjoy banter - I typically shoot with the same two or three guys and then it's a revolving door of other shooters that we all at least know somewhat. With my direct friends, we will obviously talk quite a bit more s#!t to each other and if anyone that's outside the direct group wants to participate, we will give them s#!t as well. With that said, I've never come across anyone that was maliciously trying to get into someone's head. I fee like, if I came across that scenario, I'd just plan to call them out in front of the whole squad. Or, wait until they make a bonehead move and then really call them out. I'm curious (and too lazy to go through the whole thread) if the parties involved know each other fairly well or if the other party thinks they're just having fun without realizing it's going too far.
  6. Not sure if this is the best place for this topic but I'm curious if anyone else has the same circumstances as me: In my day to day life, I'm fairly filled with anxiety from the moment I wake up. I've been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder - years ago it was bad enough to be medicated and I spent some time learning techniques to work through panic attacks. Thankfully, as I've gotten a bit older, the attacks have mainly subsided. I'll still occasionally have one pop-up but we're talking one every three months at most vs. several times a day previously. I hate being out in a crowd, I hate standing in lines if someone is behind me, I'm typically socially-awkward, and I generally over-think most situations. But - when it comes to competitive shooting, I don't have those issues. A lot of people talk about how they get nervous once they're in the "make ready" process or they get nervous thinking about people watching them shoot. I just don't have those issues - I'm excited to shoot a stage and I'll question if my stage plan will work but it's never to the point of messing up my day. I still have mental errors that pop up (missed a popper or something and suddenly the whole stage plan goes to s#!t) but I have a complete lack of anxiety on a stage. I also find it easy to communicate with people I've never met before (going to a brand new club or meeting shooters I've not squadded with before) - in real life, that is 100% not the case. In the end, I just think this is a bit interesting. I wish I could replicate my mindset during a competition and apply it to the rest of my time but so far, I haven't had any luck with that. Does anyone else have a similar experience? Or am I just that weird?
  7. I forget to actually post anything in these - dry-fire has still been going strong. Currently working on more smaller movement aspects (while also working on aggressively attacking targets). I continue to work through the Bar-Hop drill and I've also been doing slight variations of this where I'm cross-stepping into position during my draw. Trying to also work on smaller position entry/exit style drills, need to find some decent examples that I can set up. Shot my local match last Saturday, apparently I managed to bang my rear sight around during the weeks dryfire, I was hitting 2 to 3 inches right of point of aim. Resulted in throwing mikes for three stages. Fixed the rear sight and put in some drive time to shoot another club match on Sunday. Ended up squadded with Jared Fox, pretty interesting watching his shooting in person and even RO'd for him on a stage. There were a few things he mentioned that I'm really wanting to work on as well - one stage had two positions that required very heavy leans to get at some targets. While I feel fairly comfortable shooting from a lean (I'm left-handed but either side feels fine to me) but I'm struggling with getting into those positions at the start, I lose a lot of time as I don't approach those areas with any level of confidence. He mentioned just getting low with a wide base so I'm working on that. Also, I need to start trusting my stage planning a bit more - I often come up with something that makes sense but I spend too much time trying to "perfect" it when the original plan was the best approach. Once I get to about mid-May, I plan to start two dry fire sessions per day as I ramp up for Area 3 in July. Thankful to have the office space that will give me freedom to essentially set up whatever I need. With the range available, I'm planning to start some drills that include true distances with full-size targets.
  8. Shifted things around a bit and changed my schedule - I know have a bit more room to dryfire as the company I work for moved offices. So now, waking up earlier in the morning to get to the gym and then to the office before anyone else. I'm able to hang my dryfire targets and have a bit more space to work with. Yesterday, I worked on some micro breakdowns of movement: Establishing grip in holster - .4 par time, this time is probably a bit too fast for my current skill level. I could reach the time limit but at the cost of tensing every muscle and found myself gritting my teeth. Planning to change this to .5 or .6 for future reps. From grip to presentation - .6 par time, this felt fairly comfortable. As in most scenarios, my first few reps were not meeting the par but as I settled in, I started meeting the beep (definitely not exceeding it and definitely still close to feeling too tense but that feels right to me). Bar-Hop: I set up for dry-fire on the bar hop and upped my par time to 4.5 seconds. Doing so allowed me to pay attention to what my feet were doing, when I pressured myself to get moving I would try to shuffle across the bar but it would end up with my feet stacked on each other for the second target group engagement. It took some effort but I was really focusing on crossing over my steps in order to give myself a wider stance once the bar was crossed. Micro-movements like that are a bit tough for me to wrap my head around so I plan to look up some drills I can begin with to work on that. I purchased Kita Busse's movement book but have not really dug into it too much. Sounds like a project to start working on.
  9. Managed a small amount of live-fire on Sunday - went out with a little over 100 rounds and spent the time working on transitions. Multiple runs of the bar-hop drill from PSTG (at 8 yards) and then setup some wide transitions to work through. Bar-hop: I was hitting 4.15 as a fair average for total time, my transition from 4th to 5th shot was dragging quite a bit and it fluctuated from .45 all the way up to .85. I'm trying to be more aggressive in transitioning targets, especially at that range. Wide Transition: Gave myself a further distance to shoot from, around 15 yards from the targets and set it up as basically a 180 transition. I was able to stay pretty consistent at .70 but I'd like to drive that down just a little bit. The odd thing is that for some reps, the .70 felt close to the edge of control and on other reps, it felt super comfortable. I'm pretty sure that I was tensing my shoulders far too much during many of the reps and those were the runs that felt rough. I also am finding that as I transition my eyes to the next target, I'm picking a point that is center of the available space but as I move the gun my eyes tend to drift to the right side of the target. Which then is causing me to overswing the gun and have to correct it back a bit. I will plan to work on that in dry-fire but I'll likely need to set that up outdoors as my indoor spot has very limited space.
  10. I had a somewhat similar experience getting started (though I was still seeing the sight - the color, at least). When I started dry-firing, it really seemed to help. There's still scenarios where I don't feel like I'm seeing the sight as much as I should but I'm feeling more confident with my shots.
  11. Still seeing all the areas on the forums here - I'm really liking this idea for a journal, hopefully I can use this to hold myself a bit more accountable. I'm shooting Limited and currently at B class - The first chunk of my year hasn't involved a ton of dry-fire but I'm putting together a schedule as we finally get into Spring. 2021 Goals: Limited A Class - with consistent shooting, not just lucking my way into the paper classification. Stick to Practice Schedule - I'm putting together a calendar that will involve a minimum of 20 minutes of dry-fire each night during the week, one session of live-fire practice, and continuing with my efforts in the gym (starting slow but I've been getting there). Participate in 5 Majors - I've already shot one level 2 for the year and I'm registered for both Area 3 and Area 4. I plan to shoot the Missouri Fall Classic and I'm currently debating on shooting the Illinois Section match as well. Complete RO Certification - there aren't many classes available in my area, I was scheduled to go to one last year and my work schedule ended up preventing that. I'm also lessening the amount of club matches I'll be shooting this year, simply due to ammo/primer concerns but also to use some of that ammo towards actual practice beyond shooting a match. Also looking forward to reading on everyone else progress - good luck to all.
  12. I've been shooting USPSA for just over a year now, kind of stumbled into the sport and lucked into having a really great club that's local to me. Really found myself interested in firearms a lot later in life than most people which also lead me to competitive shooting much later than normal. Started shooting Production division, fell in love with the sport as a whole and I'm now committing myself to Limited division (started in December of last year) and just received my B classification. At this point, I'm kind of obsessing about USPSA so I'm here and also on Practical Shooting Training Group - kind of overloading myself with info but that seems better than doing nothing. Looking forward to diving into the forums and learning as much as possible. Thanks, Josh
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