Camo Cowboy's performance analysis journal

[Glock26Toter]

I was able to shoot 1 match this weekend. It was at Aurora Gun Club and man did we get lucky with weather. It started to get windy on the last stage and due to family matters I had to take off as soon as I was done shooting, but I believe everyone missed the major wind. Heather went with me and she got to experience her first DQ. It was a bit boring for her to hang around afterwards but shes a trooper and helped tape and brass the entire time. She's just not quite 100% comfortable with all the steps involved in everything and after having some major problems on the classifier she got mixed up and dropped the hammer before she showed clear. Her perspective was that she knew she screwed the pooch as she watched the hammer fall. I think I have her convinced to work with me more for dry fire.. the whole confusion thing was caused by having to rack the slide several times trying to clear a malfunction caused by her in the first place.

With respect to her joining me, we talked about the fact that I may get a bit distracted when she comes with me. I believe this is true and have yet to even come close to my top performance when she's with me. Rather than discourage her, or avoid the issue I now have a new "side goal" to work on. I should be able to reach the same performance levels whether she's with me or not. This is just something I need to work on, and I used to have goals like this back when I first started making video's of myself. It seemed that I only got complete screw-ups on video and in an attempt to not let it bother me I just ran the camera every stage rather than shy away from it. I think this "Heather distraction" will end as well as long as I take it head on.

For the match, I didn't have my best performance and wound up with 3 mikes and some costly mistakes that put me in 3rd place. While not TOO shabby, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to get within a few percentage points of Bob Krogh these days and about 17% behind him is not a performance that's up to par.

In true Lanny Bassham style I'll mostly review what went well here and only touch on the areas for improvement.

Looking at Stage 5 there were moments of thinking that running back and THEN turning and shooting the left side was a good plan, but time and again we are shown that shooting on the move is faster in these situations. Looking at my movement I'm very happy with how I executed this. I moved back far enough before starting the engagement so that I didn't stretch that engagement out. Nor did I shorten enough to have to stop. This saved a bunch of time. On the 2nd array they key here was to engage it way sooner than you might think. I watched shooter after shooter run across that big-ass space only to have to stop completely before finishing that array and heading around that hairpin turn. While I had to slow down more than I had hoped it was exactly enough to get the job done. Where the obvious improvement note comes in is during the last position. I miked the partial target in the right corner. I obviously lost sight of my dot and failed to call the shot. I'm just lucky it wasn't in the white... it could have been anywhere since I failed to do my job on that. There's more evidence of losing visual patience by the number of makeup shots as well.

Stage 1 was my design. I've been trying to design a stage with no fault lines for quite some time now and finally did it. It was nice to finally have a good run yesterday and that shooting was the best I have right now. In a stage with more no-shoots than shoots there was plenty of rope to hang yourself everywhere you looked. The stage was designed to be virtually risk free if you wanted to run, and most shooters carefully chose a balance between the "ass haul mode" and the "aim game mode." I knew that a lot of time would be lost in the standing up aspect and moved out of the chair with everything I had. Then, it was all about calling the shots and I concentrated on making sure to watch the dot like I know I can. The thing I notice about this stage compared to the others is not a single extra shot (except for the hammer follow) was fired and the splits aren't exactly lightning fast. That's exactly what was required to win this stage and I did win it for open and scored .75% shy of Bob Krogh. This was my high point and I like to wrap up these diary entries with a high point.

So, while I clearly have work to do I still had a great time and look forward to more work on my goal list in two weeks. I'm moving this Friday and will miss next weekend's fun.

So things to work on:

Both guns at the gunsmith while I'm moving... Shiny gets a new safety, and Hulk gets the hammer follow issue fixed.

I'll need to make time to test them and check zero BEFORE the next match!

I'm going to simplify my goal list to try to prioritize what I feel are the ones I really need to work on.

The A-Zone is the Only Zone. (Seriously... stop getting deltas!)

Arms extended, strong grip. (keep training)

[Glock26Toter]

I'm finally moved and had to miss TWO weeks of shooting to get the move done and start the major tear out portion of the remodel. We moved into a house that will become my wife's art studio over the next few months. When we are done with a serious cash outflow we'll be rewarded with a new kitchen and a studio in the house that will allow her to stop paying rent for her current commercial studio space so the net gain will be.... More money for ammo!

For anyone interested here's a link to HeatherArenas.com so you can see why we are building her a studio.

So the shooting I got done this weekend was actually Tuesday's Manny Bragg class. I took the advanced class and learned right away that my focusing on trying to get faster splits is not only futile but not necessary. The top shooters aren't shooting any faster than I am. They are doing everything else faster than I am.

Without getting too detailed I learned a lot about transitions and other aspects of movement that are costing me tenths of a second per target and when you add all that up I'm giving up just a second or two worth of time per stage.

With a new take on transitions and some fine tuning in my draw/reload I believe this will prove to be the boost I needed to get me to the next level. Maybe that next level will be GM and maybe not, but one more step is one more step.

I'm excited to get back on the range for this weekend's Colorado State match and at least attempt to employ some of the things I learned!

[CHA-LEE]

For the CO state match, go with what you already know and have confidence in doing. Save the deployment of the "New" stuff for practice after the state match. You don't want to be distracted by trying to deploy something new at a major match. This is no different than shooting a major match with an untested gun or ammo. Do you really want to risk issues by using unknown stuff?

[Glock26Toter]

I shot the Colorado State Championship this weekend. I had a heck of a good time, got on a great squad and performed pretty darn close to my expectations.

I had recently taken the Manny Bragg class and while I appreciate Cha-Lee's warning not to try anything new the analogy to new equipment vs learning some new movement or mindset isn't something that I think can be put on hold. You can't un-learn something and there was none of that during this match.

I was aggressive with my transitions and in some cases was able to make my splits and transitions relative to one another causing a smoothing out of some engagements that really helped me.

I did trash a stage and racked up 4-5 mikes and very fortunately for me, the stage was thrown out. It was a considerable bonus and re-affirmed how important it is to change your cadence when dealing with mega-aiming stages. I would have gladly put another 3 seconds on the stage to keep those hits on paper by properly calling them.... and should have. Obviously we don't get that lucky more than once or twice in an entire shooting career. This was my mulligan.

So anyways, back to the positive aspects. Comparing my times on some of the stages against the GM's I was very happy to be among those times. I believe that at this stage in my game the overall times are not what I need to worry about. The real "reach-GM-killer" for me is the fact that I'm actually still a bit hectic in movement and need to give up a bit of time while shooting and ease into the movement with more grace. In effect, I need to shoot with more patience and do the non-shooting stuff a tad faster by doing it more gracefully.

In looking at some of the mistakes I made this match they were all related to coming into a position a bit clunky and shooting before I was ready, or just not exploding out of a position like I know I can.

Stage 1, was a pretty good one for major transitions. I was very happy with my initial engagement and was very deliberate about my footwork. This is reflected in the fact that I shot the instant my foot left the ground coming into the shooting area. Several 180 transitions gave me the opportunity to go as aggressive as possible on them and I wound up with a pretty good run. The place I see some improvement needed is still getting those arms extended out 100%. Watching in slo-mo I can see my elbows at 90% extension causing extra gun movement.

Stage 7 has a decent example of my draw and first shot. I still have a slight hesitation that Manny and I worked at getting rid of, but it's very minimal and that first shot is broken without too much movement from my body. The rest went well with some transitions and footwork that I'm happy with.

Stage 9 was a hell of a thing to navigate. There will be a time when kids in a cave recite "the tell of Captain Price's memory stage." I've often said there's no such thing as a memory stage.. and this one was no different when finding a way to shoot it. What made it unique was that there was in fact many ways to shoot it and they were difficult to nail down because of the targets all looking exactly the same at first glance. You can see from the run that I some serious doubts about the plan, but just "stayed the course" and came out of it unscathed. I was one of 26 shooters out of about 139 to shoot it clean. I'm not too worried about some sluggish movement I see in the vid. It's hard to be aggressive leaving a shooting position when you are pretty sure you forgot something. It's also not a good idea to allow yourself to get things out of order and that's why I'm glad that I reset my position in #2 before I started shooting.

So the match was a success from the results standpoint in that I took HOA Open and 1st Place Master Class. There's still work to do before I'll be moving up in class.

New goals for moving forward are:

The A Zone is the ONLY zone.

Wait for the A's and forget about how fast the splits are.

Transition aggressively and keep your grip unless moving a lot.

Strong grip, arms EXTENDED... all the time.

[DocMedic]

Looking over your vids, except that one stage issue you were solid! maybe one day I'll come back to open

[Glock26Toter]

I went to the range today. Had to sight in The Hulk since the scope was broken. I sent the scope to C-More for repair and thanks to my spare I'm still in business.

I sighted both guns in, and the green gun is dead nuts on at 15' and closer. About 2" high at 30' and I can really get some tight groups. Shiny, not so much. Dead nuts at 15' and closer, but out at 30' I just can't get as tight of a group and it's about 8" high.

I also ran my new rounds through the chrono. They shot a 163pf with both guns so I know I need to bump up a notch. I also ran my old rounds and strangely enough, they only made 166 pf in the green gun and 164 in shiny. I don't know what happened since I haven't changed anything since the last major match and I made 170pf. I'm VERY worried now, but since it was 5:00pm and the sun was super low I'm actually thinking that the chrono may have been whacked because of that.

I'm going to chrono again this weekend and make sure. If I'm worried it's not too late to load up new ammo for Nationals and ship that down there instead. The price of shipping would be well worth the assurance.

So after I got all sighted in a chrono'd I ran a few draw drills to see how my updated draw is sinking in. I watched an old vid of my draw and the gun is exactly in the same spot it was with the same cant. Apparently at some point my cant had moved and I didn't notice. Manny Bragg mentioned that the way I draw I should run my finger up my holster as I grip... I was like "I used to do that, but not sure why I'm not now."

So anyways, it sure felt good and at about 20' I was able to get a .90 draw with a .17 split and get 2 A's mostly. Pushing a bit harder I was able to get .88 with a .12-.14 split but accuracy started to suffer with mostly AC or CC. A few times I got a .81 with a .12 split and even as low as .79 with a .11, but I was just plain lucky to hit paper as I really didn't effectively watch both hits. I saw some wood fly from a few deltas during those runs so that's not something to train for.

Bottom line is, the draw felt super smooth and I could easily make a sub-second draw without getting tense so I think I've made some headway recently in that area. I also found that I think my splits could be optimized at about .15 or so as any slower than .17 feels slow, but any faster is just too rushed at aiming distance.

So, I'll get the chrono running again this weekend to make myself feel better about the ammo I just shipped to Nationals and dial in the latest keg of powder. I'm NOT going to shoot the green gun anymore since I need both the accuracy and the assurance that it made major with my chrono.

[Glock26Toter]

I shot a match on Sunday at Weld County. This was a section qualifier so I was surprised by some low attendance, but I'm glad I went.

I heard several comments about the stages being "major match" quality and I agree. They seemed particularly interesting, challenging and fun to everyone.

The first stage was a long course with a truck, two steel arrays, and lots of running. The start position was on one side of the truck, and your gun

was on the other side. I gave it my all with an explosive start. I remember thinking just how hard I had all my weight on my trailing leg just before

the buzzer. It was a concious effort and felt like I was overdoing it, but I really took off and owe it to my aggressive starting stance. Into and out of

the remaining positions was the same level of effort and I was rewarded with a stage win that was about 5 seconds faster than 2nd place.

The main point about that stage from a positive perspective was the steel engagements and movement were all very deliberate. My aiming was not rushed and I only missed once for 12 steel hits. That coupled with my aggressive acceleration was a very positive outcome and a good start to the match.

For the entire match I felt that same level of confidence in most of my stage plans and movement. I felt like I was finding the best way through the stage and deciding on the most efficient movements without too much effort. There was only 1 time where I had obviously picked a poor plan and since I was first up, I didn't get much time to review it and discover a better plan. Well, I found them in the execution and it was a good lesson in when one should just move into a position and do some hosing as opposed to stay back and do the hokey pokey trying to see everything through a port. Still, it wasn't a disaster and I still had a win on that stage. So although I'm making a lot of headway in my stage planning it can still take me a while to get there and I have a plenty of work to do in that area.

The classifier was a tough one and I didn't do very well on it. I'm not sure if I was on my way to GM territory or not,

but I pulled a mike on one of the targets and wasted about a second trying to decide if I should make it up. Once that moment was gone I just had to finish and did NOT give it a 100% performance from that point on. This gave me a 68% on the stage and reminded me that if I'm going to perform well on these types of stages I need to be doing way more practice with one hand. Since I'm aware that a GM performance must be flawless any obvious mistake sends "I'm boned!" throughout my head and I'm finding it very difficult to keep going at 100% pace after that.

So overall I really feel good about my progress. Although small steps, I'm gaining a bit of ground with each match. I guess I can say that for the last 10 or so years, but saying it is helping. Especially the positive aspect of reviewing what I LIKED about my performance before identifying problems. Sometimes, I just give myself a break and only mention positive stuff and leave it at that. If I had a good time and did well for myself then yay for me and screw anything negative. I still recommend that to anyone trying to use a journal for performance analysis.

So, I had a goal a while back that was "think like a GM" and I really feel like I'm getting there. Even though it hasn't

manifested in full blown GM performance yet, I feel like I'm getting closer than ever before. For a guy that's never put "make GM" specifically on a goal l list I sure am talking about it a lot. haha! I guess I'm having one of those "how do you eat an elephant" moments where I'm looking back realizing I've eaten a hell of a lot of elephant meat.

Goals for next time:

The Alpha zone is the ONLY zone. Wait for the A and the splits will be fast enough.

Aggressive transitions.

Strong grip and keep extending the arms.

Keep thinking like a GM.

[Glock26Toter]

I shot a match on Saturday at Aurora Gun Club. This was my only match for the weekend since the remodel is still in demo-phase.

The weather was great, and I was on a squad with some people I don't usually shoot with so it was a good time. Last week my GoPro was dead and the fix of course, was to NOT plug it in so this week it was even deader. For the record, I plugged it in this time.

There were two stages requiring quite a bit of running and and another stage that had some major 180 transitions allowing me to really test my aggressiveness with respect to getting out of positions and the, "attacking transition" that I recently learned in Manny's class. I felt myself pushing very hard out of these positions and reached my maximum running speed within 2-3 steps. This showed in my overall time as I had the fastest time on both stages. With respect to my transitions I saw the same results. The one stage that had major 180 transitions I also had the fastest time.

So, although there may be reasons I didn't see anyone with faster times, I know I saw MY fastest time. I felt like I made progress on all my goals this week and that's about all I can ask for.

There will be one more shooting opportunity before Nationals next Sunday and afterwards I think I'll do a bit of strong hand only at a 75' plate to warm up. That's the only stage that worries me for Nationals.

Goals:

The Alpha zone is the ONLY zone. Wait for the A and the splits will be fast enough. (only 2 deltas this match)

Aggressive transitions. (yes! not one that felt sluggish)

Strong grip and keep extending the arms. (becoming much more automatic... need more vids to confirm)

Keep thinking like a GM. (for all but 1 stage.)

Edited September 28, 2015 by Glock26Toter

[Glock26Toter]

I was able to shoot another match at Aurora Gun Club this weekend.

The weather tuned out to be very nice and we were darn lucky since it was forecast to be quite a bit colder than it was. I think I may have taken my recent aggressiveness a bit too far into movement and I lost visual patience in several instances. This lapse in patience led to several deltas and 2-3 mikes costing me the win.

I can remember each one and it was a "good enough" attitude on several engagements that I have worked hard to overcome. So I guess that means I need to get back to some basic visual patience goals.

While this match exposed some pretty major areas for improvement there were some things that I feel like I did well. There were several reloads that I couldn't even remember doing afterwards. This tells me a couple of things that are positive. First would be that if I didn't remember anything about the reload it must have been exactly as planned.. and the second is that part of making it a non-memory event is that I did it exactly as rehearsed in my walk through. I really felt good about my stage plans and how automatically I executed them and have been doing that quite a bit lately. Some good improvement considering how insecure I was about my stage planning last year.

So now its off to Nationals as part of a crazy busy schedule for my wife. I haven't had time to even think about Nationals other than from a scheduling perspective. I've been out of town for the previous two weeks and I'm currently in Phoenix. I packed everything I need for Nat's this weekend. I fly home tomorrow night arriving at 10:00pm, swap out a few clothes, grab my gear and head out to Florida a few hours later for a 5:30AM flight. I pull the same routine on Sunday night after nationals and head back to Phoenix. To add to that my wife leaves on Oct 17th (the following day after I get back from Phoenix) for a week long trip. At least I'll be back just in time for the contractors to start construction on our house on the 17th. Yeesh. Things have got to calm down soon. On a positive note this project is the biggest and coolest I've ever done.

Anyways, aside from that my goals moving forward are this:

Nationals is just another match. Shoot like you shoot.

the Alpha zone is SERIOUSLY the only zone.

You've shown yourself how to move aggressively... it's "normal" movement now, so just worry about the Alpha Zone.

Keep thinking like a GM by making stage plans with optimization in mind.

[Glock26Toter]

Well, another nationals is in the books. I've never been down to the Universal Shooting range and it is a very cool place. The weather could not have been better. The temps stayed around the high 80's and although pretty high, the humidity was tolerable. The only rain we got was at the end with maybe 10 shooters to go, and my squad had finished so our shooting was unaffected.

So the match was a very difficult one from a shooting perspective. The wide open targets were few and far between and the match had "far and partial" as an overwhelming theme throughout. Unfortunately, this created some low morale for most of us. Racking up 3 and 4 mikes per day does not lead to someone having a boat load of fun, or confidence in where they might finish.

I too found myself in a pity party and I sort of started to complain to Ron Avery at dinner after the second day. This is something that I normally don't do, complain about the stages at a match I mean... well, or go to dinner with Ron. Anyways, his response can be summed up as "Quit your bitchin and shoot the damn match how you need to shoot it." His "shoot the match no matter what they present" attitude was just the kick in the ass I needed to have a lot more fun on my last day. I still racked up 2 mikes and a no-shoot that final day, but they affected my mental game less and I posted some pretty decent scores. In one case I was able to finish 6th overall for the stage. (Here's the link)

So I learned a bit about mental management, from Ron and from just having run such a tough match. Some of the things I saw were good and some were obvious areas for improvement.

Looking at the positive first there are a couple of things to note. First is that I did NOT miss on all the hard shots. I railed 1 for 1 on steel that was in another zip code and popped A-Holes in partials without hesitation. I scored alphas and charlies on ALL swingers with maybe 1 make up shot. YAY ME! The second was that I was very happy with my stage planning. In a couple instances I had a different less conservative plan than my squadmates and in those cases my plan was verified by someone saying they should have run it my way. That's quite a boost to my confidence moving forward.

On to areas for improvement. My squad was a lot of fun to shoot with and I would shoot with them again in a heartbeat. However, in the future I'll try to stay more positive and not get affected by their performance mentally. I honestly get upset when I see someone trash a stage and I think this can affect my attitude and therefor, performance. I once read in a book that you should actively avoid watching other competitors for this reason. If you watch the guy in front of you plug a hole in no-shoot, that can cause you to do the same... I get it now. I'm going to have to work on the balance between being a dick by not watching my squadmates shoot, and watching but not allowing their performance to affect me. As an example I shot with the guy that won TOP MASTER. I had no idea until his name was called. How did I miss it? I know who ran crappy and who got DQ'd because I was focusing on the negative. I missed him because he was he was not getting wrapped up in negative talk. He was keeping his mouth shut and doing what he had to do. He was still personable and a great guy. But in retrospect I never heard him complain or even get too involved in simpathizing with someone who had just bombed. Now that I'm reflecting on it... I learned the most from the guy I spoke to the least.

The other area for improvement is shooting related. I'm looking at the fact that my mikes were on bullshit targets. I gave up my points in the spots where there was no reason to. Wide open "bridge" targets, or partials that were 10' away were responsible for every single mike. Why? Because I lost focus and didn't perform all the steps necessary to ensure my hits on every target. I showed myself that I'm capable of doing everything I need to get through a stage at a GM level, but at the same time showed myself why I'm not there yet. I'm not sure I can put this performance into another goal other than "the A zone is the only zone" but I now have a new understanding of what that means and hopefully will move forward on that one with what I learned.

One final note is gun maintenance. I had 2 severe malfunctions that cost me bigtime, and after the first malfunction I didn't do a damn thing. I threw some oil on it and went "huh, that was unusual." I tiny guy in my head told me to break it down and check the extractor and everything else but I ignored that guy. After the 2nd malfunction I checked the gun out and found a broken Aftec cap. OOOOPS. Check your gun thoroughly after each malfunction. They are caused by something. Especially when you've reached a point where it's super reliable as I have with my guns this year. I think this is the only major match malfunction I've had and maybe 1 or 2 all year. These guns run well.

Goals moving forward.

The A-Zone is the only zone. I must call that A hit on EVERY target.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time.

[Glock26Toter]

I got home for the weekend from my mega-installation in Phoenix and was able to shoot a match on Saturday at AGC.

I designed a stage that was a major aim-fest. 22 yard head shots and partials straight out of Nationals. I got a lot of flack for it, but I stand behind the design. Everyone who gave me crap was just joking but I think most were relieved when I racked up 3 mikes on the stage myself. I'll might dial it back a notch next time, but will keep adding some good aiming challenges moving forward.

Something I had forgotten was the fact that it was the last Qualifier for the year. I wound up edging out my closest competition by 3% for an HOA win and got to post another 100% for the qualifier. This makes a perfect score of 5 100% Qualifier scores for next year's Nationals spot. hehehehehehe!

Anyways, looking at my performance I was very happy with my stage plans on all counts. My confidence in my plans has increased to where in many cases I look at the plan and perceive that I don't really have a choice on how I shoot it. "This is just the fastest way" I'll say to myself. "You have to shoot it that way... it's how the GM's are shooting it."

There was one stage in particular where you entered into a shooting area and there was a low port. Then a few feet over was a tall port with an open target. Most shooters focused on the fact that they didn't want to spend time getting back up and chose to retrace 1-2 steps in order to finish in the port. What seemed obvious to me, was that I could couple my "crouch time" with entering the shooting area and turn the final port into a transition while still squatting from having engaged the low port. So it was... Enter/Squat - Engage - Transition - Engage, rather than... Enter - 2 steps - Engage - 2 more steps/squat - engage. The only problem was that while I posted the fastest time I failed to properly call my shots and wound up with 2 deltas ruining my

finish.

When it comes to actually shooting there were many moments of some pretty sweet shot calling, but I still had some other moments of breaking shots when the dot was nowhere to be found. It was completely checked out in two instances and I actually saw the hits a couple feet away from the target while I was reining it back into the glass. Once I got things under control it went well, but this makes it clear to me how much I need to work on this area.

So, I think this translates into making a much more aggressive practice plan. I.e., I need to actually practice. Life has gotten in the way and I'm finding my range time pretty limited. I'm hoping that with my work schedule maturing I can carve out at least a monthly morning visit to the range. The opportunities for either comp time, or makeup time on other days of the week are numerous now, so this should be something I can accomplish.

Goals...

Create a realistic practice schedule and make it happen.

The A-Zone is the only zone. I must call that A hit on EVERY target.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time.

[d_striker]

I don't think people were joking about that stage.

[CHA-LEE]

Be careful with setting up stages with shooting challenges that the "Average" competitor can't get their hits. As much as we may want to incorporate difficult shooting challenges seen at the Nationals, the customer base that attends local matches are usually not the same "Customers" that are attending the nationals.

20+ yard head shots or A zone only hard cover targets is not a shooting challenge that most "Average" competitors can succeed at. You could put a shooting area closer that allows the less skilled shooters to get closer and get their hits but take a stage time hit and it would result in the same differentiation in stage performances between good, average, and bad shooters. But everyone would at least have an opportunity to get their hits. Shooters don't mind running more to get their hits. If they rack up a crap ton of misses on a stage due to being forced to shoot something they know they can't get their hits on, makes for unhappy customers.

Regardless of your "Wants" in stage design or shooting challenges, you still need to make a product that the majority of the local customers want to "buy". Hosting local matches is nothing more than selling a product that customers want to buy. If you sour the product by continually creating unreasonable shooting challenges that will turn customers away.

Edited October 27, 2015 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

If you want to challenge yourself in creating difficult shooting challenges, then save that for your own practice.

[Glock26Toter]

Yeah, thanks. That's what I meant by take it down a notch. That stage was definitely over the line and tolerance wain if I do it again.

I thought about what I said (stand by the design) and I did like the design from a perspective of going for a certain "memory stage" perspective, but do wish I had put an easier option in. All I meant by "adding some good aiming challenges" is that I feel like leaning toward the aiming end of the stage type rather than hoser/movement stages seems to be a bit more fun for me and I think I learn more about design when making them. For sure it will be dialed back a notch in the future.

I'm finding out that just designing stages is a whole sport unto itself. For anyone reading if you haven't designed stages before you should start doing do. It's quite an eye opener and mighty humbling at times. It will for SURE improve your breakdown and any contributions will be welcomed by those of us that have to do it a lot.

[Glock26Toter]

I shot a match on Sunday at AGC again this past Sunday. We really lucked out on the weather and it was a great day for shooting. I didn't anticipate doing a stage, but Josh and I created one on the fly that think definitely incorporated some aiming elements to it, but didn't go over the deep end. This made me feel a bit better from last week.

It was just too bad that I ran a bad plan and wound up botching it. I didn't analyze the options well, and failed to see the potential for error and performed poorly. As a matter of fact, I shot pretty poorly for the entire match. Afterwards, I was watching vids with my wife and she pointed out that my arms were bent again. I've had troubles with losing the dot the last couple of matches and was not able to put my finger on it until now. This has been responsible for some pretty hectic tracking lately and I'm glad that I was able to get some video this match to point it out. During a conversation with Cha-Lee about that, I found myself describing my dot tracking as "wiggly" and it didn't occur to me until later that with straighter arms and a more firm grip the dot has a much more consistent track and I had just lost that recently. I'm also thinking about moving back to a 8MOA dot so I can watch it better. I'll give it one more match with the 6 and think a lot about arms and grip and decide after that.

For a positive note, I had 1 stage in which I really concentrated on getting my ass moving as fast as I could and despite some rough landings, I was able to pull off a good run. In that instance I exercised some good visual patience in waiting for the dot to get into the A Zone after having landed hard as mentioned. This resulted in good hits and an overall satisfying run. It was really the only one I was happy with.

I really think that this mega-project has caused me to concentrate less on shooting/practicing and more on work and that's what has allowed my old bent-arm habit to creep back in. Luckily this week things are wrapping up and it's back to the office for a while. At lest the trips will be cut down to 1-2 days instead of solid 5 days/week. Also, I've also got some comp days coming up from this overtime so a few days at the practice range are in my future.

The goal list:

Arms straight, firm grip.

Create a realistic practice schedule and make it happen.

The A-Zone is the only zone. I must call that A hit on EVERY target.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time.

[Glock26Toter]

I got to shoot a match at Boulder Rifle Club this past Sunday. The weather turned out really nice, and it was fun shooting with some people I don't usually shoot with. I normally head down to Pueblo, but with so much to do at home I decided to save the drive time.

I felt like I was able to stabilize the dot much better this time with a firm grip and arms fully extended. I don't recall consciously thinking about it but some dry fire the night before and a few practice draws in the safety area usually help to reinforce that extra "push" that means full extension on the draw. I find, that usually, when I draw into the full arm extension I'll remain that way throughout the stage.

I can see in one video here, that I'm fully extended and shot the stage fairly well. I did start a bit hot, and missed my first two shots. Hard to see from the vid, but the start position was a but funky and when I cam out of it let the shots fly before I had settled properly. The stage went pretty well after that, but I think I missed an opportunity to really push hard off that first position. There was a bit of hesitation as I thought, for an instant that the first port was my destination.

So a quick note on how I think each goal is moving along.

Arms straight, firm grip. -- I feel like I've done well at getting this back again. More time will make this the norm.

Create a realistic practice schedule and make it happen. -- ugh... have done nothing to make this happen. Oh, not true, paid my dues for 2016 at AGC.

The A-Zone is the only zone. I must call that A hit on EVERY target. -- the more stable I make my dot from #1, the more this becomes a reality.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute. -- happy with my plans this week. Had some conversations with people about why I was making certain choices and it all sounded good.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time. -- I had a great time. Even after a mike on stage 1, and a blown reload on the classifier. Actually, forgot all about them until I was reviewing results.

[Glock26Toter]

On Sunday I went up to WCFW and shot a local match. The weather was nice and sunny. A perfect day for shooting. I just never felt like getting the gopro out so no vids. I found that I just wanted to have fun and run the gun.

It was one of those matches where I made a few mistakes but didn't let them bother me and feel like I performed well all day long. I shot with Paul Clark Jr, who never shoots anymore, along with some others I don't normally shoot with so we a heck of a good time joking and giving each other a bunch of crap.

On one stage, I left a piece of steel standing and wound up chalking it up to "had to be done for everyone else's entertainment."

In the spirit of an actual performance analysis, that was the only real major mistake I made. The rest of the time I felt good about my stage plans and felt especially good about the lack of delta's and mikes. I can't actually remember getting even a single delta and called almost every shot. On one stage I got a little wayward and had a head shot Alpha hit, but did call it. It was a long shot, on a partial and for sure a moment of reassurance that as long as you call every shot you can make other mistakes in movement and still be OK.

The classifier went pretty darn well and I scored a 96.7% on it. I learned a little something about just how quickly I can get a controlled shot off from the draw. I was, what felt like 1/2 way through the draw and fired my first shot. Dead on the alpha zone I was clearly not ready but had fired the shot the INSTANT I saw that dot hit the alpha zone. It startled me so much that there was a pause before I executed the remaining shots. Had I just went with it, I would have scored even better. It felt really good to have a reload that I don't even remember and a nice clean hit-count. Whew! Maybe I can make it to GM one day.

Areas for improvement:

I still feel like I'm slipping a bit with my arm position. Even though I was able to keep an eye on the dot, I was still letting my arms buckle a bit and could see times when the dot tracked consistently, and other times it didn't.

So I'm happy with my additional goal progress, including the positive mental management. I just flat had a good time at this match and it reflects in my positive performance analysis and my memory of the shooting experience. I think this type of attitude helps a lot and wish that other shooters would reflect it more often as well.

GOALS:

Arms straight, firm grip.

Create a realistic practice schedule and make it happen. I did get some dry fire in a couple times. At least keep that up.

Call every Alpha.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time. HAVE FUN.

[Glock26Toter]

With cancelled matches last weekend and this weekend plus the holiday I was only able to get one dry fire session in just now. I just did mostly draw and some movements.

I've noticed that occasionally I have this pause in my draw and have really started to work on keeping it smooth. It's a "scoop" draw and therefore prone to a pause to be sure you have your hand on the grip before starting to lift. With proper and confident execution there's absolutely no need for that pause. I just need to work on convincing myself of that 100% of the time so more dry fire is in order.

I did a bunch of moving reloads as well. Whether from the draw of after a reload a good push out to fully extend my arms will always lead to the dot landing exactly on the spot I'm looking at.

It's almost amazing how it works. Do the movement correctly and get the results you want. HAHA!

Can't wait for the Centennial Gun Club match tomorrow night so I can get some shooting in!

[Glock26Toter]

I went to Centennial Gun Cub Sunday night and shot a match. It's been a long time since I shot an indoor match so it was fun being back there.

I've always been happy with the stage designs that these guys do and last night was no exception.

My first stage I found myself really calling shots well and felt pretty smooth through the stage. I wound up with 28 alphas and 2 charlies and a decent time to boot. That sure boosted my confidence and I was excited to move onto the next stage.

After that I didn't quite keep up the shot calling and managed to get some charlies and deltas where I had absolutely no business getting them. A bit like Nationals where I managed to take the "easy" targets for granted and seemed to hit the difficult ones without issue. If I can just keep that level of shot calling up throughout the stage I can rack up some good points and not have to give up time to do it. More work on the goals for me.

I was going to get back into the video groove, but my Gopro has finally check out for good. I went through all the tricks and it's just not going to work anymore. Time to think about a new one, but I have to get the new open gun paid for first. I'm pretty sure that I'll be selling my backup gun once I get the new one broken in and will buy a new GoPro when that time comes.

Overall I felt good about my performance and other than the usual goals I don't see anything new to work on.

GOALS:

Arms straight, firm grip.

Call every Alpha.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time. HAVE FUN.

[Richc2048]

You're gonna sell your other one so you'll only have one open gun?

[Glock26Toter]

I have two now. The new gun is #3 and has a steel grip so it's a Big Panda style, angry blaster.

If all goes as planned, down the road a tad I'll sell the original backup. That will put me back to two guns and raise the money to put a steel grip on the Hulk smasher. (the green gun) Then I'll have two steel grip monsters to smash my way to GMVille!

The only question now is, what color do I paint the new one????

[CHA-LEE]

Have Heather pick the color for you. I am sure she has some insight on colors

[Glock26Toter]

With the weather turning against me, I was only able to shoot an indoor match at Boulder Rifle Club. There are two "mini matches" and I shot both matches for a total of 6 stages. I've never shot both matches before and it was interesting being able to shoot the stages twice.

On stage 1, I shot a slightly different plan each time. Here are links to the 1st Run, and the 2nd Run. It was a best 4 per paper for a total of 16 rounds and I scored 15A/1C on run 1, and 14A/2C on the 2nd run. I'm pretty darn happy with the shooting, and the difference between the two runs was pretty negligible with the exception of the big slip getting out of that position. This points out the difference in picking a smoother plan and avoiding having to shove off so hard from that position in the first place. This is a lesson in analyzing the movements and picking the most optimized, smooth flow. The real difference in the runs is clearly the shooting. I pushed out hard on the 2nd run, and the dot was stable the entire time. I just let the gun fire as quickly as it would while maintaining the sight picture. Looking at the draw I see a much better draw the first time. I hope this is only due to the much more pronounced movement off the draw in the 2nd run. I've been working hard at smoothing out the draw and can see I still have some work to do in that area.

The rest of the shooting went fine and I only racked up a few mikes when I lost focus on the important things a few times. Overall, I had a great time and can't complain at all about how I finished and what I learned at this match.

Progress on the main goal set?

Arms straight, firm grip. (I can now really tell when I don't do this.)

Call every Alpha. (there were some successful engagements in this department for sure)

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute. (missed a few minor details. I'm doing well, but not quite there yet.)

Work on POSITIVE mental management all the time. HAVE FUN. (check! Just read above. Lot's of talk about what I did right, and how much fun I had. Not too much on what I jacked up.)

[Glock26Toter]

Well, I've been pretty bad at updating my journal and need to get back on it. With the remodel of my house in wrap up mode and winter running in full swing it's been tough to make the matches or get any practice in.

I did make a match on Saturday at Aurora Gun Club and shot my brand new blaster for the second time. The first time was an indoor match so Saturday was my chance to really check it out.

It's basically the same gun as my others. A 4.5" gun but this one has a Phoenix Trinity steel grip, an SV trigger and the C-More mount is quite a bit farther back than what I'm used to. Also, there's an 8MOA dot in that C-More and I haven't changed it yet. I might keep it in there and especially because I listed my gun for sale with the 6MOA in it, so I don't have a 6MOA to spare right now.

So, the gun shoots with way less dot "static" and has a very consistent track. This is the reason I got the gun and it was very nice to shoot. I felt like I was able to keep an eye on the dot and call my shots very well. I didn't notice any difference in transitions but was fully aware of the extra weight in the gun along with a bigger grip. A bit like moving up from a small truck to a full sized. You can still drive it, and park it no problem, but no denying the fact that it's quite bit more truck to handle.

I had some mikes and deltas and just chocked them up to moving too fast or not being used to the gun.

On the classifier. For some reason, I was a bit distracted by the weight and it never felt heavier than at that moment. I missed the first two steel shots so not a very good showing.

AFTER the match I decided I better sight the gun in. As it turned out the gun was 6" high and 4" right at 10 yards, and about 10" high (unknown right) at 25 yards. That was plenty to explain my mikes and deltas for the day and makes me excited about the future with this gun.

I've got a new PT Insert on order so I can get the holster working properly for next match and we will soon find out if this major equipment change will pay off. I've basically done nothing to my open guns in the past 4 years of shooting and have basically felt, until now that all the performance necessary to get where I am now is up to me rather than my equipment. Maybe I'm being naive, but I just haven't identified any equipment issues that I feel are holding me back. (but easily identify personal performance issues)

I'm lucky enough to have a great gunsmith in my own back yard and I've thought about trying other guns, but have come to the conclusion there's no reason Rick can't help me get exactly where I want to go.

Goals. Same as before, but in order of importance.

Stage plan like a GM. Flow through the stage. Analyze, optimize, execute.

Call every Alpha. Having a gun that shoot straight will do wonders for this goal! hehehehe.

Arms straight, firm grip.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Glock26Toter