Screwing up your own stage

[bbbean]

Our last match, we set up 4 classifiers and 1 field course. I designed the field course a couple of weeks ahead of the match, posted it here, got comments, made changes, and walked around obsessed with the stage for days. I spent hours working out how I was going to shoot it in Single Stack, and then how I might shoot it in Limited 10.

Match day arrives and I win 3 out of 4 classifiers by a wide margin and manage to acquit myself nicely on the 4th. I'm having a great day at the range.

Then on the stage I personally designed, set up, had days to consider, and visualized so much I was dreaming about it? 60 seconds, 3 mikes, a flubbed reload, and spent a mag and a half to run the star (most shooters ran the stage clean in 30-45 seconds). I did a little better on the reshoot in L-10 (registered in Open just to get a classification), but nowhere near the clean, fast run I had visualized.

Arrrggh.

So - how do others do when they shoot stages they personally designed?

Edited July 6, 2011 by bbbean

[Mark R]

Hard to match direct and concentrate on shooting. I design most, if not all, the stages for our local matches and I crash some of mine all the time. Hard to switch gears from running the match to getting your head in the game and shooting the match. I've learned to just shoot the best I can and get by the stages I can. Funy how you look at a stage so long and you only see one way to shoot it, then a shooter comes up with another way and 'thar she blows'.

[spanky]

Been there, done that.

I theorize that the problem, a lot of times, is that you're so intimately familiar with the stage that you designed and how you think it should be shot that you have a hard time looking at it with an open mind with all available options. Your mind is so set on how it "should" be that you can't look at how it "could" be.

[GrumpyOne]

You thought about it too much. Stop thinking and just shoot. You were probably seeing your hits before you pulled the trigger, thinking "I designed this sucker, I should shoot it the best."

[Mark R]

Well Barry...you missed a good crash today on one of my own stages. I had a stage, 6 targets abreast with 3 no-shoots between each 2. Virginia Count...String 1: shoot 1 round on each, perform mandatory reload, and engage again with 1 round each strong hand only. String 2 went to weak hand after the reload.

String 1: I had a really fast time...reloaded fast, and had another really fast time (oh crap, forgot to go strong hand after reload) 6 procedurals ...yep 6....BUT IT WAS FAST.

You can screw up your own stages...but no one gave me a tee shirt. Maybe cause I have too many.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Mark R

[bbbean]

6 procedurals ...yep 6....BUT IT WAS FAST.

I bet you looked damned cool, too!

[Seth]

I screw up my own match month after month. Hard to do both with any level of proficiency...

[Graham Smith]

So - how do others do when they shoot stages they personally designed?

I'm finding it very difficult to concentrate on shooting after spending several days getting read and also knowing that I've got to get everything taken down and all the scoring done, etc, afterward. I'm not that great a shot to to start but this year I suck.

[Reshoot]

You thought about it too much. Stop thinking and just shoot. You were probably seeing your hits before you pulled the trigger, thinking "I designed this sucker, I should shoot it the best."

Yeah, over thinking a stage will bite you every time. When I help set a stage up, it nearly always turns out to be my worst one of the match. So now I try to simply do the grunt work and keep a clear mind.