Slumdog Grandmaster 2.0

[DonovanM]

Well my last range diary sucked so I am making a new one. I was also trying to keep this concise but failed miserably.

I've been shooting for three years and going to matches for 2.5 of that. I've put around 12,000 rounds downrange in that time, with about 2,000 of them in live fire practice. I have been in school for the majority of the time I've been shooting so resources have been tight, otherwise, getting so little live fire practice sucks and I could use a hell of a lot more. I also used to dry fire a whole lot, but that is down to once or twice a week now in recent memory unfortunately.

I hope with some better time management I'll be able to squeak in a bit more practice time moving forward, especially building up to my first big major (A1) in only a few weeks. Also I need to get back on the wagon with regards to grip training. My goal is still a certification-style close with the Captains of Crush #3 for both hands and I haven't made much progress on that over the past year. I am trying to balance my strength gains out as I've had a bit of a muscle imbalance issue (I think) in my left arm. It's not tennis elbow or tendinitis I don't think. So I've been flipping the grippers upside down (highly recommended) and making sure to hit the extensor training more. I wrote some stuffs on grip strength here: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=168601&page=1

For the first year and a half of my shooting, I shot with a speed focus, with some progress but very little positive results. I go into this more in one of the threads I linked below. For the past year I've been operating more on a points focus, and I've made significant amounts of progress in terms of overall match placement. Moving forward I am going to start shaving down and pushing for efficiency, as with the points focus I've lost a bit of aggressiveness. It's not that it's come full circle, but I do feel like a bit of an idiot for focusing on one over the other for the simple reason that this game isn't about one or the other. I need to keep shooting the same kinds of points percentages I have been, but do it more efficiently. I'm talking about honey badger freight train mode.

Here is my most recent match video and it is a very good representation of my current skill level. I shot solid and consistently all day and operated at a relatively low effort threshold. I shot awesome points (94%) even with a delta and a mike (the delta was on a swinger - eh, ok - but the mike was on literally the easiest target of the entire match... sigh.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnXMWm-z528

Areas to Improve: I need to be a little more aggressive and efficient with things like footwork around fault lines and shooting speed on easier targets. I am forcing myself a little too hard to get alphas and I think I can get away with a little more for the sake of better speed. For position entries, I want to start working on precise foot placement when training. This has too long been something I haven't put enough effort into, and it shows as I seem to step over fault lines and have to step back in on a regular basis. Also I seem to be hating myself recently on plate racks, no idea why. Just overconfident I guess. Stupid.

Overall, I also want to double again the effort and care I put into stage preparation, and continue looking for ways to improve and streamline that process by telling my brain exactly what to do during the stage run to execute it perfectly. Significantly increasing my stage preparation time and effort was the biggest thing I have ever done for my performance with regards to consistency and good execution, and I hope to keep improving that process.

Here are some other threads I've started with regards to my progression that I hope you will all find helpful. They are in descending chronological order.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=154526&hl=

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=169004&hl=

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=173493&hl=

Stay tuned!

[DonovanM]

The last couple weeks I've been shooting from a more efficiency-focused standpoint, instead of solely going for points.

Results have been mixed.

Last weekend I goofed off with my friends and hosed crap and didn't really get much done except to see how far I could push it until the wheels fell off... and fell off they did. I guess it's not a trivial point, that's an important consideration. My performance was not good... I got trigger freeze a bunch and shot pretty awful points overall. I was surprised at the cadence I could shoot while still calling my shots though, that was a learning point.

Today I shot nice and consistently except just tried to shave things down just a tad. I ended up with a mike just left into A/C border hard cover on two stages in a row. I can't feel too badly about that given I was pushing a little bit. Just gotta work on owning each and every shot I send downrange. I sure had some nice moments of just watching my sights bounce and settle back into A-zones and on steel. Wee!

I am shooting Area 1 in two weeks. First real major ever. I am debating whether I should carry this attitude into it with me. I do not want to screw with where my bullets are going. I want to shoot alphas and know I'm shooting alphas. Hmm...

Video from today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP8TMnzgDVk

Edited May 5, 2013 by DonovanM

[DonovanM]

I am about to go all in with my shooting. Might as well make it public here to give myself accountability with the world.

Crap.

I am going to have to approach everything - especially practicing - altogether differently now. No more f*#king around, which I do... quite a bit...

Double crap.

I am going to have to lose some more weight.

Triple crap!

I actually wonder if my gun is good enough for what I envision.

Shit!

To the best of my knowledge Eric is the only shooter today to explore the real art of stage execution. I will have to do it with a paltry fraction of the resources.

Are you excited? I'm excited.

[38SuperDub]

Do you have a specific weight loss regime that you plan to implement? I'm anxious to watch your progress. You are such a big name in the North West - I'm sure you will represent well at your first big match ever!!

[dfwmiket]

Very nice. Keep up the good work !

[DonovanM]

What do you mean by "art of stage execution?" I'm curious. And why do you think Eric is the only one to explore it?

Eric shoots full time, he is in a league of his own and is virtually unbeatable. Everyone knows that and I don't really care - except in the how and why this is so. Watching him shoot, he "gets it" better than anyone else I've seen. You can talk all day about consistency, speed, and accuracy by themselves, as if that is what separates him. Sure he can put together a good match, almost never misses steel and his splits can be extremely fast, that's certainly a part of it.

But the real essence of shooting this sport comes when you put it all together. He does that in a smoother and more refined fashion than anyone else. You can execute all of the fundamentals on a high level and have great success in this sport, while your stage execution still appears coarse in comparison, as it does with many top shooters. It's like a chef who makes incredible tasting food for every course of a meal, but doesn't know how string them together in the best order for the flavors to complement each other and the meal to flow correctly. Or maybe it's like the difference between just having sex and making love. You can do everything technically correctly, but still not really "get" the bigger picture, and that is where the real art of execution begins.

[DonovanM]

Do you have a specific weight loss regime that you plan to implement? I'm anxious to watch your progress. You are such a big name in the North West - I'm sure you will represent well at your first big match ever!!

Oh good god.

[38SuperDub]

It was a valid question - I'm hopeful for your future progress and curious as to what methods you will use to get there. Without a plan in place you will fail - I just want to know the plan.

What C.O.C are you on now? .5? 1? Do you have a training regime for that as well?

My hope is to one day be at the same proven level as you are with your vast history of success I can only hope that your plans will help me take my shooting to the next level!

[CHA-LEE]

Where you are at in your shooting performance right now is what I call "Death by a 1000 small cuts". Your shooting, gun handling and movement skill are pretty solid but there are many very small inefficiencies which add up to a second or two lost per stage.

If you want to get really good at this game, at your level, you really need a coach that can shoot with you (Both in Practice and Matches) on a regular basis. An ongoing coach scenario will greatly reduce the time it will take to fix the "Death by a 1000 small cuts" situation you are currently in. I have given a couple of examples below of a single "Cut" that is killing time and consistency.

When you enter a shooting position you stand up before you start shooting. I call this "Standing Tall". When you do this you are wasting time by delaying the start of shooting until you finish standing tall, then when you exit the shooting position you have to drop back down before you can launch out of the shooting position. Work on coming into the shooting position in a lower crouched stance and stay low. This will allow you to start shooting sooner and will also allow you to exit the shooting position sooner because you don't have to get in and out of the "Standing Tall" situation.

There are many times where you are using a circumvented stance with the majority of your weight on one foot and the other foot barely touching the ground or just the tip of your toes is touching the ground. When you create a single foot biased shooting stance it completely eliminates your ability to transition between targets with your legs and knees. This forces you to transition between targets with your waist or arms, which greatly circumvents the recoil management and tracking of the sights. You should always strive to create a two planted foot stance in every shooting position if possible. Obviously some stages may force you to shoot from a one foot stance, but you don't want to artificially create a situation like that when you could shoot from a two planted foot stance instead. The number one cause for the one footed stance is usually due to setting up in the shooting position with a stance that is not wide enough. You try to compensate for this shallow stance by biasing to one foot in order to get access to the targets you want to engage. Any time you feel like you have to transition most of your weight to one foot is a bad situation to be in from a couple of reasons. First, as described already it keeps you from transitioning with your legs/knees. Secondly, it greatly reduces your ability to aggressively exit the shooting position. Both of these bad things usually translate to very small amounts of wasted time so its not very obvious to see that you are doing something wrong. But all of the tenths and quarters of a second add up.

[beltjones]

Do me next.

[38SuperDub]

What about me? Or is there a character limit on Enos?

[DonovanM]

...

Thanks man, that's good stuff. I'll work on staying low into shooting positions in practice... and keep an eye out for unnecessary awkward positioning in stage breakdown.

I appreciate it!

[DonovanM]

Video from this last weekend. I was running around ROing and stuff so didn't get much stage prep time in. Could have done better. Oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX3ygkug0nQ

[DonovanM]

So... Area 1.

First real major.

My performance was somewhere between half decent and a well-managed disaster, depending on how I look at it.

It did remind me of how much I love shooting. It demands something more of me, both a kind of regimented, deliberate consistency and complete trust in my own ability to shoot stuff.

It was half decent because I went to my first huge match ever and didn't have any major screwups. Even my worst stages didn’t end up too bad, I didn’t have any equipment problems, my ammo made 139PF. I won my class. Not too bad. I dunno, I shot “OK”.

It was almost a disaster in that I really only had 3 or so solid stage runs, on all of the most straightforward stages there. This does not speak well to my ability to perform well on more complex stages, and was a very eye opening experience. This was what I predicted would be my biggest hurdle to overcome. I made far more mistakes in execution than I expected.

The strange thing is, I am pretty confident that it was not due to being outcome-oriented, as I have been in the past - and buckling under the pressure of expecting to win or something. I think I remained pretty consistently process-oriented across the entire match. I think I was just pushing myself beyond my own ability to perform. I did want to perform well on stages. I wanted to have some really good stage runs and perhaps I tried too hard to get that.

My shooting goal is to have every single stage I shoot be a masterpiece. Normally that wouldn't make for a good goal, but I know exactly how that feels for me. Since I'm after such an unprecedented level of intensity (elsewhere in life, too) it makes sense that things are a bit harder for me than necessary.

I feel like I was put through a meat grinder. Every one of my skills was stressed to the limit and were found lacking.

Some training scars that I need to work on - mostly noticed under the direction of CHA-LEE (who I met there, and is a very cool guy).

- The whole standy-upy thing when I enter a position before I start shooting. Saw it multiple times. Need to stay low and more aggressive, could learn from Sevigny, or the Area 1 Champion in Production from this match, Yong Lee.

- Standing on one foot. Unnecessary and careless.

- Standing on fault lines. Why the hell? Just seems to add more clumsiness. Extraneous.

Stage 11 - First stage shot - I was feeling the "major match pressure" here, but it didn't really effect my shooting. I was dead slow in the first position, a little better in the others, then I missed a mini popper that I had to make up. This was an OK stage. Very good points. Good reloads and I like how I got the close no shoot partial on the move. Very nice.

Stage 12 - Good first load off the barrel, but fumbled my first reload then had a makeup shot on steel right afterwards. Also dropped a couple charlies on paper due to a little hosing at the end.

Stage 13 - One of, maybe my best stage in the entire match, I also got my only stage win here. I executed well, which makes sense because it was the most straightforward of all the long courses. I shot this about as well as I could have shot it. Good on steel, no makeup shots. Good hits on paper. Only a little hesitation on the last reload at the end, which you can't see on the video. Excellent shot calling on the last steel out of the first position, and I like how I handled the target way off to the right. Good first couple reloads too.

Stage 1 - The guys on my squad were laughing cause I hucked the bag like a medicine ball and apparently it sailed like 15ft high in the air. Almost got it in the hole. This is the first of my badder stages. Took a makeup shot on a partial that I didn't need which burned up my one makeup shot for the entire stage without screwing up my reloads (30 round stage, with ideal array setup for 3 mags). Then, sure enough I chuck another makeup shot I didn't need at the left swinger, forcing myself to make a couple stupid, unnecessary reloads. Points weren’t great, too many charlies, and had a mike on the first low partial on the right - full diameter bullet just inside the wood of the port. Oh well. At least I did well on steel after the stupid reload cost me a good position entry on the port. Could have handled this better, but could have handled it a lot worse too.

Stage 2 - You know, even though I did poorly in the results for this stage, I don't feel too badly about it. Awesome unloaded start. Could have handled the array through the port right after the steel better. Biggest error was hosing too many charlies on paper. I also missed my planned second shot on the activator. Turns out I didn't need it anyway, I would have perfectly timed them if my next biggest error wasn't forgetting the order to engage the two disappearing clamshells. As strange as this sounds, I heard the beep of the timer without being sure of which stage plan to shoot. Sometimes it feels like I lost about 40 IQ points at this match. Last stage of the first day.

Stage 3 - Agh. I was planning on a nice, safe, conservative run on this stage after boning the last two so bad... but I didn't make it happen. Had to make a bad makeup shot on steel, and screwed up my last reload into the high port. Excellent points at least, only 2 charlies down. I like the position entry and exit when I ran around the left side of the stage, even though I did the standing on one foot thing.

Stage 4 - This was OK, not sure I could have shot it better. Lost some time on the tough position entries. Shot my only delta of the match here... on the left position entry, heh. Not sure why I insist on standing on fault lines. Doesn’t seem right in retrospect.

Stage 5 - Oh brother. Listen to the last split at the first position. I just hosed at that last target and got a charlie mike. Makeup shot on the steel, oh well. Then my last position was not handled well - dead slow. Awesome points other than the mike, and shot well prone. Oh well, not terrible.

Stage 6 - Again, I wanted to have a nice, clean, and safe run on a stage after boning the last few. I ended up getting it this time, at the cost of some time. Good draw and reload and good hits on paper, had a near-double on one of the targets. Just a little too slow and safe though. Last stage of day two.

Stage 7 - Overall good stage. Was too slow into the first position, actually got my gun up TOO early. I need to work on the kind of thing where I moved to engage the partial on the left after crouching down in the middle of the stage. Then I set up on the wrong targets at the end, but that didn’t really cost much. Had good points on paper, I think I had a good stage plan and I like how I got the steel.

Stage 8 - Great run on the classifier. Great reload, great points, fast enough shooting. Very solid, couldn’t have done any better. Yay!

Stage 9 - 18 round standards stage with 19 yard strong and weak hand action. Was one shot short of annihilating it. 15 A, 2 C, 1 M, 1 NS. Snatched my trigger too hard strong hand right when I had a good sight picture. Bad Donovan... Marksmanship 101.

Stage 10 - Very last stage. A pretty good run, I’m proud of it. Had good reloads, good overall movement (aside from one stumble into the last position, hard to see on the video) and good shooting on paper, hosed too fast on steel though. Stumbled on the prop management of the first port. Check out the tracking of my gun in my shots on the very last targets... wish I had that good of recoil control all the time! Should get lower more.

It was a great experience. A truly well run and executed match, Ken and crew did an awesome job.. I wish I could shoot it again, and probably a third time after that. I had a great time with the rest of my team and met a couple people I had only interacted with online up to this point (Charlie and Carrie J. in particular).

Nothing like getting your ass handed to you as motivation to improve, and improve I will.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiEXHozMjrQ

Edited May 22, 2013 by DonovanM

[beltjones]

Wasn't Bob Krogh the winner?

[DonovanM]

Yes, but he's not from Area 1.

Just like Eric won Nationals, but he wasn't the National Champion.

[beltjones]

Did they give Yong Lee a special trophy? I'm just curious.

[DonovanM]

Indeed they did.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/943126_10200231711092574_82471042_n.jpg

[beltjones]

I've only been to one Area match and I didn't win anything, so I don't know how this typically works. What did Bob Krogh win?

I have to say, this calls into doubt Max's claim of winning 8 area matches in a calendar year. In theory he would only be eligible to win A4.

[beltjones]

Congrats to Yong Lee btw. He's a very nice guy. Ok, sorry for the thread drift. I'm out!

[DonovanM]

This is what the High Overall trophy looked like, a pretty cool curved glass thing.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/945216_515242115209071_1194890826_n.jpg

Edited May 22, 2013 by DonovanM

[Esther]

What percentage of the Production winner did you shoot?

[DonovanM]

90.something

Results are here... they are having trouble with the upload apparently. https://www.practiscore.com/match-results/uuid?uuid=F7C6631C-5EEC-47C7-9A91-4E15CCE67E90

Edited May 23, 2013 by DonovanM

[DonovanM]

In watching

, some differences became immediately apparent, which are going to cause me to approach stages a little differently. Also, it was nice to see that his plans were pretty similar, especially in how they were similar to what I advised people with bigger magazines to do.

I have adhered too strictly to a couple axioms - 1, It is always best to get as close as you can to the targets, and 2, it is always best to set your feet once for a position whenever possible.

Now, these aren't bad things, and are good as "general rules", but as I said, I adhered too strictly to them and it was a detriment to my ability to drive the gun between targets faster and cost me a little time. Nils wasn't afraid to engage targets a little further away, and take a little shuffle step here and there - it looked like his only loyalty was to driving between the targets as quickly as possible.

This is the truth... seems so obvious in retrospect. Oh well.

Still taking apart my dogma one step at a time.

[DonovanM]

Shot the 2013 Oregon State Championship this weekend. Another great match with awesome stages and professional staff. I had fun!

In terms of my shooting, about 3 or 4 stages into the day it became IMMEDIATELY obvious how distinct my performance was from Area 1 the week prior. Night and day difference. Visualizing and executing the stages (even well) almost felt effortless in comparison. I don't know, something fogged my mind at A1. I don't think I was too intent on winning, but I guess I could be wrong. I still don't think I am at the point where I could have potentially won the match... just no experience, and my skills are lacking anyway. The stages were way too complex for me.

All I know is, I want to shoot more majors. And more shootoffs, cause I failed miserably at the one after the Oregon match. Just completely choked and fell apart about halfway through, wasn't seeing my sights at all, cost me my first matchup and it was single elimination. Oh well, I will pay $10 to be humiliated and offered a learning experience any day.

Points - Excellent, if it weren't for one mike. Decent, otherwise.

Pct Points shot (ignoring penalties): 93.00

Pct points shot (counting penalties): 91.89

Stages in the order shot/in the video -

Stage 3 - No complaints other than the last target. Did great on the steel, they were mini poppers at 15-18 yards or so with no-shoots behind them. Could have handled the last target better, took me a little too long.

Stage 4 - Also no complaints other than one target. Had a mike on the target all the way to the right in the second camera angle. Just pushed too hard out of the position I guess. 21 A, 1 C, 1 M on that stage, so I had perfect points everywhere else even despite all the hard cover. This stage felt really good and I'm still proud of it in retrospect.

Stage 5 - Great stage run. The RO caught me with a delayed beep, I flinched. I'm glad he did, not enough ROs do that for it not to be a surprise for me. Destroyed the steel - finally a good run on a plate rack, I've been hating myself on those recently. Also only 3 charlies down on the whole thing. Pretty awesome considering there were hard shots with targets behind barrels, two swingers and a bit of hard cover. Don't think I could have run this better at all minus a subpar position entry at the end.

Stage 6 - Fumbled the unloaded start, as you can see. Also dropped something like 9 charlies. Scared of the no-shoots I guess. Oh well. Good run, but not that great. Good on the steel at least.

Stage 7 - Mixed feelings here. Bad gun pickup, makeup shot on steel. Should have immediately engaged the swinger upon moving over to the left side, then the static target. Good performance on the 25y no-shoot partials though, 3 A and 1 C on those. Don't remember the total points though as this stage was thrown out due to apparently being able to see the whole thing from one position (not the position I shot from, you had to poke out or something I guess).

Stage 8 - 99.5% run on the classifier even with 3 charlies. Wish I shot better points. Great run though.

Stage 1 - Good run. I was surprisingly confident in engaging no-shoot partials on the move, but I dropped 2 deltas. Plan was OK. I have not been all that great at complex stages like this involving a lot of movement and tight positioning, so it was nice to have a good run on one for a change. Felt good.

Stage 2 - Ehh... mixed feelings again. I was great on the first array - which was the most timing-critical target array I have ever shot. It consisted of two drop turners, one with one presentation the other with two. I drew, engaged a static target on the right, activated the DTs, engaged the DT on the right first (one presentation), moved across the double partial and just caught the one on the left at the end of it's second presentation. Timed it perfectly, and only dropped 2 charlies all the way across the array even though I was shooting at light speed (for me). Awesome, that felt great. However, I concentrated so hard on the timing of the first array I neglected the rest of the stage. Hesitant and not great points after that. Oh well. Decent run overall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3AKypFWEY0

Edited May 28, 2013 by DonovanM