Richard C.

[Richc2048]

I've had a slow start to the season. Many things have been coming up at home and along with crappy weather are making shooting matches very difficult.

Area 2 came and went. It took me a while to make this write up because it was difficult to even watch and assess myself.I was very excited to shoot this and was very disappointed by my performance. I had a great first day, worst second day, and an average third day. Unfortunately the long second day was too bad to recover from. I tried to shake it off after each stage and keep a positive attitude but after three stages of disasters, it got to me. I learned that I have not been focusing on my front sight and found myself sometimes looking through them and watching the targets. I noticed that my shot calling on steel was horrible. I noticed that I need to work on getting into position smoother. I can feel myself getting the gun up faster and breaking shots when needed but I am not settling to position as smooth as I need to be. The only positive thing I learned is I'll try to never shoot an entire major match in one day. There would not be a break to stop the bleeding like these two or three day matches allow. I did worse than last year and I left demoralized.

The extra kick in the teeth for the start of this shooting season is making A class after all this. After evaluating coming off some of my most disappointing shooting in the last month a few crappy classifiers were removed and bumped my percentage up. I'm trying to take this as a wake up call to practice and dry-fire as much as possible. I was barely treading water as a B class so I need to really step it up.

I am going to order the Stoeger dry fire book. I'm also going to pass us some of the matches to either practice or break from it to see if pushing it every week is keeping my improvements from increasing as fast as it could. I'm going to also try to get steel matches in the line up every once in a while. I think that is a great practice on transitions and shot calling that I very much could improve on. I'm hoping that by doing the dry fire and steel challenge, I will be able to work on improving myself instead of testing at matches every weekend and not really improving.

[Glock26Toter]

Don't forget to have fun. Sometimes, we just have ups and downs and if "practice" will turn into a job and you'll sacrifice going to the weekend matches to hang with friends is it worth it?

Not that there's anything wrong with setting some new training goals, but I read this post and I'm like... ease up on yourself. You did just make A class and deservedly so. Don't forget to look at the positive and to keep one bad match in perspective.

[Richc2048]

Thanks Glock26Toter. I think I put too much emphasis going into Area 2 on myself. I've been hyping it up to myself since I received confirmation in December. I know we all have our ups and downs. I've only been doing this for almost two years so those plateau and dips in performance still get to me.

You're right about having fun. I honestly get the most joy out of hanging out with y'all more than when I have a good match. I need to keep that in perspective. I'm having fun and learning a lot at the same time thanks to the shooting community we have herein our neck of the woods.

I'm still doing steel challenge because I treated myself to a little 22 pistol for making A. haha! Now to make a mini "open gun" with my Ruger Mark III 22/45. I've gotta compensate that beast. It has a threaded barrel so...

[Richc2048]

It has been a while since posting on here. Between family life and cancelled matches due to weather, there has been only a few matches I have attended in the last few months. I have been getting in a lot of dry fire practice during this time. I think this has paid off a little. I have started to see a few things in match videos that I am very please with. My reloads are getting more fluid and less mistakes. It now looks smooth even during movement. I think I am getting them done sooner. Movement - I think I have finally made progression in this. This has been a struggle since day 1 for me. Something clicked inside me and I think I can now really start to work on this.

I have attached a link to my most recent match. It was the weld match yesterday. It was stages recycled from a major shotgun match the previous day so the props and stages were insane!

I really need to keep up the dry fire and make it more of a routine. I am doing it a few times a week and I have seen the gains. If I can incorporate it to an almost daily regiment I think the results will be exponential. I am very excited about training right now so I need to make the best of it.