Analyzing Performance after big Match

[ES13Raven]

I just shot the Area 2 Championship. This was my first big USPSA match.

This match had a lot of Classic targets and tight shots (No-shoots, Hard-cover, Distance etc.) There were Movers (Swingers, Maxtraps) on most of the stages. Very few open targets/arrays to hose.

I've watched my videos, and several videos from other shooters. I compared scores with other shooters in my Division. Here is what I noticed:

• Some stages I shot well for my current ability, others I made mistakes.
• I know about the obvious mistakes (Mikes & No-shoots) - I want to improve the not-so obvious ones.
• I felt I had good stage planning for the most part. I saw videos from Master class shooters, and they ran it mostly the same.
• I didn't try and "burn down" any stages. I concentrated on trying to get 2 Alphas on every target I shot at, and doing that as quick as possible.
• I shot more Alphas than several shooters who placed ahead of me, which tells me I need to speed up.
• I need a lot more practice on Swingers and Max-traps.
• I shot small poppers and the plate racks well, but I had several make-ups on large poppers and didn't give them the proper respect.
• I had several targets with 3 Alphas, because I thought I didn't call my second shot - this costs me time.
• I took a little more time on Classic targets than Metric targets. I had good hits on most of them.

After looking at the scores, I think I shot too conservative. Several shooters that placed ahead of me had less Alphas, a lot more Mikes & No-shoots, but less time.

Any ideas on what to concentrate on?

[Hi-Power Jack]

• Some stages I shot well for my current ability, others I made mistakes.

After looking at the scores, I think I shot too conservative.

Sounds like you did as well as your current ability.

That is probably extraordinary for a first large match.

Shooting "too conservative" on your first large match sounds just about right to me.

My first Nat'ls - a M shooter DQ'd on my squad in the first COF - that made me shoot too conservative the rest of the match.

[Nimitz]

Mike's and N/S are always really bad. The fact that they finished ahead of you but had a lot more Mike's & N/S is a red herring. Say they had 10 Mike's & you had 7. Where would you have placed if you had no Mike's? You don't say what division you shot but if it's Production you're still going to need mostly alphas to do well. If you're in a major PF did then yes you can accept a few more Charlie's to get your speed up but not deltas & certainly not Mike's & N/SS ....

Look at the top shooters in your division, not guys who finished a little bit ahead of you for a speed vs accuracy comparison. If you eliminate the Mike's & penalties you'll blow by the guys who finished somewhat ahead of you very quickly

[motosapiens]

agree with nimitz. I don't see much value in comparing yourself with other shooters around you as far as penalties. Your goal should be zero penalties, but I personally don't freak out if I have one every 5-10 stages. It's when you have a mike on every other stage that you are really screwing yourself.

of the mikes and no-shoots you had, how many of them did you call when you shot them? (the answer to this question will suggest whether you need to concentrate more on shot-calling)

did you get 90% or more of the available points after penalties? (this question will tell us whether you need to shoot more accurately, esp on partials)

It doesn't matter how fast you went, everyone needs to work on speed all the time, so there you go. concentrate on speed, and if necessary on shot calling and accuracy.

[ES13Raven]

of the mikes and no-shoots you had, how many of them did you call when you shot them? (the answer to this question will suggest whether you need to concentrate more on shot-calling)

did you get 90% or more of the available points after penalties? (this question will tell us whether you need to shoot more accurately, esp on partials)

Yes, I shot Production - so minor power factor.

I had 3 Mikes and 3 No-shoots for the Match. 2 of the No-shoots were on the Maxtraps. One of them was just damn fast, and I got a A-M-NS. The other I should have easily made, but I had trigger freeze. I quickly made-up an Alpha on it with only 2" of the head showing.

The other NS was a head-only target with a NS on it. It was a close shot, and I should have easily made it - but I shot it just a little too fast and hit slightly low.

The other 2 Mikes - one of them was on a Swinger. The other was a close hit in the hard-cover of a tuxedo target. I thought I called the shot on that one, but definitely not on the Swinger.

I calculated my points and ended up with 87%

[motosapiens]

of the mikes and no-shoots you had, how many of them did you call when you shot them? (the answer to this question will suggest whether you need to concentrate more on shot-calling)

did you get 90% or more of the available points after penalties? (this question will tell us whether you need to shoot more accurately, esp on partials)

Yes, I shot Production - so minor power factor.

I had 3 Mikes and 3 No-shoots for the Match. 2 of the No-shoots were on the Maxtraps. One of them was just damn fast, and I got a A-M-NS. The other I should have easily made, but I had trigger freeze. I quickly made-up an Alpha on it with only 2" of the head showing.

The other NS was a head-only target with a NS on it. It was a close shot, and I should have easily made it - but I shot it just a little too fast and hit slightly low.

The other 2 Mikes - one of them was on a Swinger. The other was a close hit in the hard-cover of a tuxedo target. I thought I called the shot on that one, but definitely not on the Swinger.

I calculated my points and ended up with 87%

that doesn't seem very unreasonable for what sounds like was probably a difficult match. I guess I wouldn't freak too much about accuracy then.

As i've posted before, I treat *every* drill as a shot-calling drill, in dry fire and live fire, and I try to score the targets from the sights before I look at them. Since I committed to that back in the fall I have improved alot in that area, and that has helped me get more out of the rest of my training.

If I were you, I would probably work on shot-calling and speed drills. By speed, I mean going as fast as you can see the sights and know where the shots are going. C's and D's are no big deal in speed mode as long as you see them. After each speed drill I like to run the same drill in match mode several times, ignoring the time, and just letting my sights dictate when to pull the trigger on A's and close C's.

You don't say much about your movement, but most people need to work on that too. Good luck with your training.

[tha1000]

Educate me on mathing the misses out of the score to see where you would have finished without a penalty. Is it simply add the points back in, divide by time, then take as a percentage of the division winner or is it more complicated? "How are "match points" calculated?" is basically my question.

Edited March 10, 2016 by tha1000

[CHA-LEE]

Points lost in shooting penalties can usually be applied at face value to figure out your hit factor without the issue. For example, if you have a no shoot on your run you can simply not subtract that 10 points from the total points you shot and divide it by your time. For misses you can do the same thing but add the 5 points back in that you missed out on shooting. I listed some math examples below for a stage worth 100 points and shooting it in 10 seconds....

No Shoot Run = 100 points - 10 (No Shoot Penalty) = 90 points / 10 seconds = 9 HF

Miss Run = 100 points - 15 (Miss + loss of A zone hit) = 85 points / 10 sections = 8.5 HF

Clean Run = 100 points / 10 second = 10 HF

[motosapiens]

Educate me on mathing the misses out of the score to see where you would have finished without a penalty. Is it simply add the points back in, divide by time, then take as a percentage of the division winner or is it more complicated? "How are "match points" calculated?" is basically my question.

i don't bother to do it because if I shot without penalties, so would other people.

Match points are what you get for each stage, based on your percentage of the winner and the total stage points (stage winner gets 100%).

as a rule of thumb, if you are shooting 75% of the match winner in your division, then your penalties are costing 75% of their face value in match points. Hitting a no-shoot costs you about 7.5 match pts.

[CHA-LEE]

ES13Raven> Have you created a list of skills you currently need to improve? If not I would suggest starting with that. Then prioritize the list by the skill failures that are costing you the most HF during stage runs and fix those issues first. For example, If you are losing half a second on your draw verses wasting half a second every time you enter or exit a shooting position, fixing your position entering/exiting skills would be a higher return on investment verses fixing your draw.

[CHA-LEE]

Educate me on mathing the misses out of the score to see where you would have finished without a penalty. Is it simply add the points back in, divide by time, then take as a percentage of the division winner or is it more complicated? "How are "match points" calculated?" is basically my question.

i don't bother to do it because if I shot without penalties, so would other people.

Match points are what you get for each stage, based on your percentage of the winner and the total stage points (stage winner gets 100%).

as a rule of thumb, if you are shooting 75% of the match winner in your division, then your penalties are costing 75% of their face value in match points. Hitting a no-shoot costs you about 7.5 match pts.

I am not sure I understand that type of math. If you are already losing 25% of the stage points because of your skill level, wouldn't that make the value of the shooting penalties worth 25% more technically?

The way I see it points are points. If I shoot 10 C's in major PF that is the same penalty as hitting a no shoot. To me the shooting penalties or non-A zone hits are always a full value deduction of points from your score.

[motosapiens]

Educate me on mathing the misses out of the score to see where you would have finished without a penalty. Is it simply add the points back in, divide by time, then take as a percentage of the division winner or is it more complicated? "How are "match points" calculated?" is basically my question.

i don't bother to do it because if I shot without penalties, so would other people.

Match points are what you get for each stage, based on your percentage of the winner and the total stage points (stage winner gets 100%).

as a rule of thumb, if you are shooting 75% of the match winner in your division, then your penalties are costing 75% of their face value in match points. Hitting a no-shoot costs you about 7.5 match pts.

I am not sure I understand that type of math. If you are already losing 25% of the stage points because of your skill level, wouldn't that make the value of the shooting penalties worth 25% more technically?

The way I see it points are points. If I shoot 10 C's in major PF that is the same penalty as hitting a no shoot. To me the shooting penalties or non-A zone hits are always a full value deduction of points from your score.

Figure it out. Take a nationals stage from a few years ago. I shot 55.6% of matt mink and got 83.4 stage points. if you keep everything the same, but subtract 10 pts for a no-shoot, then I get 51.35%, which gives me 77 stage points. only a 6.5 pt difference.

What is the use of knowing this? it just helps keep you from overestimating how well you would have done with fewer penalties. The closer you are to the winner's scores, the more match points those penalties cost you.

Not that there is all that much value to pretending how you would have done if you hadn't shot penalties anyway....

Edited March 10, 2016 by motosapiens

[ES13Raven]

ES13Raven> Have you created a list of skills you currently need to improve? If not I would suggest starting with that. Then prioritize the list by the skill failures that are costing you the most HF during stage runs and fix those issues first. For example, If you are losing half a second on your draw verses wasting half a second every time you enter or exit a shooting position, fixing your position entering/exiting skills would be a higher return on investment verses fixing your draw.

Watching videos of myself and trying to be critical, here is what I think I need to improve the most on:

• Reload speed - I wonder what takes me so long.
• Moving from position to position - I know I can move faster.
• First shot - my gun is out quickly, but taking too long to get a good first sight picture.
• Transitions - I need to get the gun to the next target quicker after I have called the shot.
• Shooting quicker when entering a position - I never shoot on the last steps into a position, I wait until my feet are planted. I can shoot as I'm leaving a position with no problem.
• Not rushing steel - this caused me a standing reload a stage plan fail because I rushed several shots on steel.

[CHA-LEE]

Looks like a good list............. Now get to work on fixing those things

[BeerBaron]

it is probably worth running your stage vids through shot coach (it's an app - max michel shot coach). This will give you how long you are taking on your reloads, how long you take on transitions, how much time make up shots are costing you etc.

That can help you decide what is the important things to work on. I'm guessing transitions is probably the #1 time killer for you. There is always lots of them and plenty of guys shoot 20 splits or lower but have really slow transitions. it burns lots of stage time. it's also one of the harder things to really improve on. but very rewarding.

[Glock26Toter]

You've done a great job at objectively analyzing yourself and identifying areas for improvement. Nice work.

I've found that it helps to have a short list of goals and try to group them by type. So I might take that "master list" you created and maybe put #2, Moving from position to position with #5 Shooting Quicker and just spend some time working on your basic Exit/Entry technique without trying to fit the other 4 goals into your though process.

Then roll through that main goal list of 2-3 goals as you make progress in practice and matches. So basically, as you feel like you are pretty good at one, let it drop off the list and add another one.

That's the kind of thing I've been doing for a while now and has worked well.

[benos]

Watching videos of myself and trying to be critical, here is what I think I need to improve the most on:

• Reload speed - I wonder what takes me so long.
• Moving from position to position - I know I can move faster.
• First shot - my gun is out quickly, but taking too long to get a good first sight picture.
• Transitions - I need to get the gun to the next target quicker after I have called the shot.
• Shooting quicker when entering a position - I never shoot on the last steps into a position, I wait until my feet are planted. I can shoot as I'm leaving a position with no problem.
• Not rushing steel - this caused me a standing reload a stage plan fail because I rushed several shots on steel.

Reload speed: Improve it (and most everything in your list) by learning to see more quickly. For example, learn to see the (ejecting) mag as it is leaving the mag well, then lock your eyes on the inside of the magwell, which will guide in the next mag.

Moving to the next position more quickly: Be sure of a precise call on the last shot before you leave, so you will leave decisively.

First shot: Get your eyes back on the front sight as the pistol is coming into your shooting position.

Transitions: Precise calls on all shots is key, so again, you move decisively.

Entering a position: Forget about your body and shoot as soon as you can see the sights are on target.

Rushing steel: Stop rushing.