My second "big" match...

[Ron Ankeny]

Long post so leave now if you are easily bored.

This is my fourth season shooting IPSC. I just returned from my second "big match". The match was the Mile High Showdown. While not big by any stretch of the imagination, it's as good as it gets around here.

After spending a couple of years splashing around as a big frog in a little pond, I decided to test the waters. I shot the Colorado State Championship over Memorial Day weekend and the Mile High over Labor Day.

I have learned a lot from just two matches. First, if you don't wanna suck at a big match, get off your butt and shoot big matches. Put the ego aside, and shoot your first big match with learning as the primary goal. Yeah, shoot to win, but be there to learn.

So, I went to the first big match in June and I had gun troubles, then I fell apart mentally, followed by getting mad, then more gun trouble. I sucked. I cringed when the results were posted. Yeppers, my name with the letter M next to it, right along with the D class shooters.

Got the gun fixed and went back for another kick at the pup. Mistake number one happened before a shot was fired. I was squadded with the "super squad". Don Bednorz (spelling?), Ara Maljian, Paul Clark Jr., some GM guys with cool shorts and spiffy STI shirts, and our very own eerw (Stuart). Flash back to crashing at my first match...changed squads to shoot with my friends. I was too chicken to get out of my comfort zone. One of the local guys hinted around about me missing an opportunity, but he was too polite to come right out and call me stupid. Never skip the chance to shoot with the best, even if you fall on your ass. I won't repeat that mistake.

First stage. A 32 round field course, shoot them as you see them. I have a plan. On deck, I changed the plan. Get to the back end of the stage where the new plan takes effect and vapor lock. I don't mean just get confused, I mean lock up and have no idea what the hell just happened. I turned an easy 18-20 second run into 23.32 with 17 Alpha, 11 Charlie, 2 Delta, and 2 Mikes. I am screwed. I'll always cherish that experience, I learned so much in those 23 seconds.

Next stage. A 30 round field course. A little gratitous running, mostly shooting on the move. Four steel, a couple of movers, piece of cake. I get a plan and stick with it. I am behind and I try to catch up. You guessed it, I sacrificed my vision for speed. Didn't call squat and tried to go fast. Ended up with 18 Alpha, 8 Charlie and four D hits. Worst of all, I was so tense and fought myself so hard that I felt like I was fast, but the timer didn't lie, 19.02 seconds. OK, another learning experience. I just failed myself. This is a mental management issue. I'll work on it.

Third stage. Another 32 round course. Start kneeling in a foxhole, hands on sandbags. Awkward start, another position requires a very low squat. This one is not a friend to the older shooters. I did OK, but still too many C hits.

Fourth Stage. This is gonna rock. Nine paper, two of them swingers, 2 pepper poppers, 2 little poppers, four round plates, scattered all over the place at various heights. Tons of gun movement up and down and side to side. Most of the targets can be taken from just two positions by stepping back and to the sides from the start position. Got a plan. New RO. He RO's the two shooters ahead of me with LAMR, Shooter Indicates Ready, Stand-By, Buzz. I jokingly ask him where shooter indicates ready came from? Dude gets right in my face (he's 6'4" and 250) and tries to intimidate me, "Does that offend you?". Uh, oh, he's pissed. I get mad. Long story short, a different RO starts me, I shoot the stage so freaking mad I can't stand it. Make up shots galore, 18 Alpha, 5 Charlie, 3 Delta, the hour glass almost runs out. Good news, the other guy and I are now pretty good friends.

Fifth Stage. This one looks fun. Lots of movement, no shoots in just the right place, a little sprint, and a squat through a low port that will make your knees creek. One of my friends is 6'4" and I am 6'3". He notices we can eliminate the squat part and the last port by shooting over a no-shoot. Amazed the heck out of the rest of the squad. The shots were tight and four of them long so there was nothing to gain in terms of time, but the stage would be less physically demanding and we wouldn't risk falling out of the low squat to a knee. I shot 16 Alpha, 1 Bravo (on purpose) and 11 Charlie. Still not being visual enough. I am killing myself by sacrificing my vision in the quest for speed. Why can't I stop this self destructive behavior? The day is over.

That night I go over my performance determine the problem is in large one of mental management and lack of field course experience. At home I can tank a field course and still win. I have a long way to go. I think of the forum, and what Brian once told me, "It's all right there in front of you if you will just let yourself see." Brian wasn't just talking about sight picture. Restless night, discouraged and disappointed but I won't let it show and I will not be a baby about it. I got up tired.

First stage Day 2. Another 32 round field course. I have a plan. The plan entails eliminating a position by taking some horribly long shots and doing a full stop to take two more through a port. I lack the experience to know if the long shots and stop are worth saving 3-4 steps on the back end. I do the math. By the time I figure out my plan is weak, it's too late. Dare I change now? Crap, once again self doubt and indecision creep into the picture. I end up with 16 Alpha and 11 Charlie. Almost all of the Charlies came on close yardage targets. The time was not good, but most of that was from the 20 yard dash as I fumbled the reload.

Last two stages are speed shoots. Stand in Box A, spit and get it done. As we gather up our gear one of the guys on my squad remarks out of sympathy, and he wasn't being a dick, "Makes you wonder how you ever got that M card." I reply, you are about to find out. He looks puzzled. I tell him, "Classifiers. The M card has little to do with shooting a 32 round field course".

Second Stage Day 2. This is one tough cookie. I have never seen this prop before. When activated two targets go up and down, side to side like a bat out of hell. The targets are partly visible and you can get one as it begins to move but it activates almost immediately. Looks like a rush. Two boxes just a few inches apart. Shoot two little poppers (one is the activator) from one box, shoot the two spastic targets as they bob behind cover and behind no-shoots, then finish on 2 static targets, all from the other box. A person has less than one second from the time the activator is hit to get a foot from one box to the other, lift the trailing foot and crank off two rounds on the first mover. I shot the steel very slow and conservatively, moved as I went into warp drive. Five Alpha, 4 Charlie, and one Delta. I had one uncalled shot on the last target so I took two make up shots. Total time was 5.40 seconds with half of that in the draw and first two targets. Wish I hadn't shot the two make up shots, but a Mike would have sucked. I think I was 4th on that stage. The rest of my entire squad suffered horribly. Who came up with this anyway???

Last Stage:

CM99-28 Hillbillton Drill with a twist. The no-shoots are at ground level behind the poppers instead of at 5 feet. This is the classifier with three paper to the left, mandatory reload, then six poppers, four poppers 2 feet edge to edge, with one five feet behind each of the end poppers. The popper on the right end was borrowed from a neigboring club. When hit, the popper would go back, then come forward from the shock, the holding bolt would drop, then the popper would fall backwards. Rather than shoot the popper first then make a wide transition, I decided to hammer it down hard. I shot the paper, reloaded, started in on the poppers, then nailed the problematic popper 3 times and immediately picked up the popper behind it when it became visible. Ended up with 9 Alpha, 3 Charlie, in 6.54 seconds. Hmmm...that's 80% nationally on that classifier with half a Bill Drill on one of the poppers tossed in for good measure.

Go figure. Flounder through six long field courses spanning two days, then kick butt on the speedshoots. Gotta be a lesson in there.

[Nik Habicht]

Hey Ron,

Did you have fun?

It sounds like you did, and it sounds like you learned a lot at your second big match. Here's where that M card and the drive will come in handy: You're picking up on the areas you need to work on much faster than the C shooter going to his second big match. I shot my first big match in February 2001. I shot my sixteenth big match since starting IDPA in December 99 and USPSA in May 04, last weekend. The list includes sectionals, area championships, state matches and last year's FGN. For the first time I shot a mentally clean match ---- while screwing up two stages by not looking at the front sight enough and while figuring out how to shave another four or five seconds off two others after I shot them. Keep shooting the big matches ---the calm will come.

[John Dunn]

Sounds like a fun match.

The whole changing plans at the last minute wreaks havoc on me. At Colorado state I thought Sam was going to shoot the landmine stage one way, then he shoots it completely differently, and racks up a really good time. So what do I do? Some abortion of a plan half the way I was going to do it, and half how Sam shot it. Bad idea. My new thing is to have a plan and stick to it.

[Ron Ankeny]

Fun? Oh yes, what a blast. Those guys along the front range know how to have a good time on the range. I have shot at Pueblo, Weld, and now Aurora. Great bunch of people.

[markm]

Ron congrats on your second big match.

Great post, this encompases all of the fustration that a lot of us feel at not only big matches but weekly as well.

I really think that the mental part of shooting is the toughest of all things to fight thru. From personall experience when I feel that I'm behind, my mind kicks into the "GO FOR IT!" mode, which has exactly the opposite effect that we are looking for. I think that SA, Flex, BE and others are on the money when they say trust your shooting, and the time will be there. Just wish that I would do more of that also.

BTW: The M card is not given out. you earned it.

Good luck at the next "Big Frog" event.

Mark

[Kingman]

Ron, I do alot of the same sort of things.

My first big match the tristate I had jams on 7 out of 10 stages and to of those were killers at 5 seconds plus to clear. Still one C class.

Second big match the midatlantic have 2 jams. Change in new extractor and try to make up the time. Thats a mistake. Shot alot of the stages really quick but with really poor points though I only had one mike for the whole match. I could have given myself a couple extra hundreths to pick up the points and dones alot better. Though had a better match shot it at 67.8% I did not win C class. Though they will happily move me up since I was second and way over the 60%.

So same thing learned. Slow down make the hits count. My problem is I get target focus more than A zone focus. When I focus on the target I hit the target. When I focus on the A zone I hit the A zone. I am not really sure how to force myslef to focus on the A zone.

Any ideas on that one.

[Jake Di Vita]

Do exactly what you just said. FOCUS on the A zone.

It takes a lot of visual patience, but next time you go and practice, make sure you are always snapping your eyes to the A zone.

From what I remember, what really screws you is trying to go way too fast. Just remember you can't sacrifice accuracy for speed.

[Dead Buff]

So same thing learned. Slow down make the hits count. My problem is I get target focus more than A zone focus. When I focus on the target I hit the target. When I focus on the A zone I hit the A zone. I am not really sure how to force myslef to focus on the A zone.

Any ideas on that one.

After I let this forum screw with my head for a while....that is the one thing I still can not do, no matter what I try...

My shooting has become more steady (speed will come back with time - I hope), accuracy is more acceptable, but I still shoot what I see...the complete target...

Ron, great post...been there, seen it, done it and still like (got most T-shirts as well )...now to control the frustration.....

[kdj]

Ron,

thanks for posting this. Many of us will benefit from your (description of your) mistakes in this match! I can see so many of the things I am easily tempted into doing in your report.

"sacrificing vision for speed" is a phrase that I need to do a lot of thinking about.

I'm sure you'll have a better match next time. Hopefully, I'll have a better big match next time too and part of it will be because you didn't this time, and told us about it!

Thanks and aren't these forums a wonderful thing ...

Kevin

[dv8]

Ron,

That was a really great post. This kind of posting is the reason I stick around this forum. And there is quite a bit of great reading here - thoughtful, educational, and just pleasant to read.

Thanks again to Ron and all other contributors.

Vlad D

[short_round]

Wow. Thanks for sharing. Three quarters of the way through the post I had to slow down reading and take a breath. I was having flashbacks and my heart rate started going up. I'm right there with you.

---the calm will come.

I sure hope so.

Peaceful shooting to us all.

[MoNsTeR]

Crazy field course overload is what I love about Aurora (though Pueblo's are even better). A lot of my performance at CO State came from having gobs of practice on nutty field courses. If you need field course practice, it might be worth your while to drive down to Aurora more often.

[Ron Ankeny]

Noah:

Come spring, count on it. See you at the CO State and Mile High in 2006.

[Ken Kwiat]

Ron,

I'll pass along your comments to Steve Knoll, Steve Moore, Dean Williams, Roger Briden, Dennis Kramer and the other organizers. Hopefully we can get more participation from the E. CO section on this wonderful forum so they can read it for themselves.

Whine Caution:

It's good to hear that you enjoyed the match because, I'll tell you, it was a pain to set up! We had a core of about 10 folks to set up all of those long field courses that you described so aptly. No whining allowed but it gets incredibly hot in Saudi Aurora in the middle of a Summer afternoon. Had eerw and Gene R. not shown up to spell us, we would have had a couple of heatstroke casualties on our hands. I sat in my truck with the A/C running for about 30 mins. before I was willing to staple another target. BritInUSA & SteveM were totally wiped to where it blew their match -- very unfortunate.

Still, the end-result was worth it.

We're working on a new concept for next year's MileHi that might be pretty unique. Not to add unnecessary anxiety but we need to iron a few wrinkles out and then I'll post the concept for public review. Trust me, if it works out it will be a gas. Maybe good enough to get Noah back to elevation for a match.

All of your "lessons learned" seemed spot on to me.

BTW: why all those field courses? We think it gives us high altitude types an advantage -- just like the Broncos. What's the elevation in your part of WY? It may not apply to you...

K2

[eerw]

Hi Ron...

It will be good to have you around down here next year....

The course designers here are great at setting stages with multiple solutions...and challenge the skills of you as a shooter...definitely one of the challenges is to get a plan, set the plan in your mind and execute..all the while when your buddies are shooting different plans, changing their plans and on and on..

Ken..you guys did a great job on the match..and the setup day was a killer...

at the State match..we took two days to set up the 10 or so stages...to not try and kill each other in the heat...