USPSA Nationals Shooting Challenge Difficulty Poll

[seadog_99]

I think the OP covered most of these butt hurt comments with "every shooter has to eat the same sh!t sandwich" but the thread keeps getting twisted into "it was so hard my vag aches" by one poster in particular.

Good discussion for the most part, and what I think the OP was asking was "is it fun?" as, even though I want to beat everyone there, I better have fun shooting the match or I probably will think strongly about not returning to the next match no matter my level of success.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CHA-LEE]

I figured it would make sense for the Nationals stages to test a wide range of shooters skills based on what stage design is like at most other major matches. But I guess the masses would rather spend a crap ton of money and time to attend a "Run-Stop-Shoot" repetitive grind with shooting challenges that are over the top for the average competitor. I was going to continue trying to explain my stance on this but I am evidently totally off base from what the USPSA customer base wants to see and experience at the Nationals.

[Trent1k1]

The thread that never ends.

 

[seadog_99]

I figured it would make sense for the Nationals stages to test a wide range of shooters skills based on what stage design is like at most other major matches. But I guess the masses would rather spend a crap ton of money and time to attend a "Run-Stop-Shoot" repetitive grind with shooting challenges that are over the top for the average competitor. I was going to continue trying to explain my stance on this but I am evidently totally off base from what the USPSA customer base wants to see and experience at the Nationals.

Uh, negative. Most of us agree with you, especially the more experienced ones.

One of the things we seem to fight repeatedly in my area (where often setup is by volunteers) is the '50 yard partials with no-shoots' stages because "I wanted to slow those fast guys down". Well guess what, the "fast guys" all still kicked your a$$ and you caused almost all of the new guys and C or lower shooters (including yourself) to zero a stage. Nice work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Trent1k1]

Cha-Lee stated that:

1. He wanted more run and gun and shooting on the move 

2.  No Stage had any options to shoot differently

3.  The entire match was decided on 1 stage.

Many disagree with those statements which is fine, and many agree.

I find it interesting that C Class shooters ( who subsidize the match for the top shooters by sheer volume of thier numbers)  seemed to walk away from stage 9 thinking that they had things to work and improve on.  

At least they have stated that on this thread.

 

 

 

[MikeRush]

24 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

I figured it would make sense for the Nationals stages to test a wide range of shooters skills based on what stage design is like at most other major matches. But I guess the masses would rather spend a crap ton of money and time to attend a "Run-Stop-Shoot" repetitive grind with shooting challenges that are over the top for the average competitor. I was going to continue trying to explain my stance on this but I am evidently totally off base from what the USPSA customer base wants to see and experience at the Nationals.

I, for one, voted no on the nationals should be harder than other majors question. Perhaps more difficult than the Master Blaster Hosefest, but comparable to say, A2 would be appropriate in my eyes. I agree that you can test the shooters skill without stomping and restomping the groin.

Where I think you are losing people (or maybe it's just me?) is by calling it unfair.

I can agree that stage was harder than it needs to be. I can even agree that I would rather not see virginia count SHO 25 yard partials at Nationals as I do not think it is a "practical" challenge. I can't agree with your suggestion that we need to redistribute the "real champ" title because a stage was hard.

In the fecal sandwich analogy- you can be against fecal sandwich consumption at matches AND awknowledge that the winner put in the work to choke down that sandwich better than others.

[Jake Di Vita]

Cha-Lee, it is surprising to me that someone that has put as much work into his game as you have would react to this stage by saying something like "bullshit you need luck to succeed here" rather than taking it as a challenge to address an area of your game that was exposed. This wasn't a problem of luck, this is something that people notoriously don't work on that bit them all in the ass.

There's nothing wrong with having 1 stage out of 20 at the national championship be really hard.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[CHA-LEE]

MikeRush> There is no question that Nils won the match. He is the National Champion and deserves to be crowned as such. I am not trying to take away Nils achievement as he in fact was able to eat a shit sandwich more effectively than everyone else. I am simply trying to understand why we even need to eat shit sandwich stages at the Nationals? But evidently people on this thread and in the poll results feel that having shit sandwich stages is a requirement to determine who the national champion will be. Even if it makes the match less enjoyable for the masses. I am yet to see a shooter finish any match with 15+ misses and say they had a "Good Performance" doing it. Especially when they spent thousands of dollars to attend. To each their own I guess.

[seadog_99]

and there in lies the solution, I have run several "hard" stages at local matches, and making a hard stage fixed time solves the penalty problem for all levels of shooter you get what you shot period, but you are not hammered for what you were unable to shoot. The best shooter still wins the stage but the regular shooters finish without being kicked in the groin.

^^^This


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CHA-LEE]

7 minutes ago, Jake Di Vita said:

Cha-Lee, it is surprising to me that someone that has put as much work into his game as you have would react to this stage by saying something like "bullshit you need luck to succeed here" rather than taking it as a challenge to address an area of your game that was exposed. This wasn't a problem of luck, this is something that people notoriously don't work on that bit them all in the ass.

There's nothing wrong with having 1 stage out of 20 at the national championship be really hard.

I an not denying that I have skills to work on. Truth be told, I setup that exact stage prior to going to the nationals and shot it 20+ times to try and prepare myself for it. I also shoot SHO/WHO regularly so its not like I am avoiding those skills. I can accept failing at that stage as an unacceptable hole in my skill set, that and I wish I had eyes that were 20 years younger. I am always striving to improve my skills and this is yet another that I have added to the list to fix.

But the match director part of me feels like that stage was an unacceptable shooting requirement for the masses attending the match. They could have used less hard cover on the targets so people could get their hits (Like what they did for the Open nationals). They could have used Fixed Time scoring so people wouldn't get brutalized by the miss penalties. They could have made the 25 yard position Freestyle - Reload - Freestyle and the 15 yard position Strong - Reload - Weak. They could have done a lot of things to make this stage more palatable for the masses but they didn't. Nope, here is a shit sandwich that everyone has to eat. Who cares if the vast majority of the shooters will fail to shoot it penalty free. As an MD I can't do that to my customers and it pisses me off when I see it happen elsewhere.  

[Jake Di Vita]

I agree that making the stage fixed time would have made it a better challenge. I just don't think doing it as it was is unfair or based on luck...just hard.

How did you do on the stage in practice the 20+ times you played with it?

[teros135]

Is anybody else thinking that repeating the phrase "sh*t sandwich" over and over isn't convincing anyone of anything?

[ChuckS]

1 hour ago, teros135 said:

Is anybody else thinking that repeating the phrase "sh*t sandwich" over and over isn't convincing anyone of anything?

I am not sure about the sandwich thing but I did notice that the guy who won stage 9 at the Limited Nationals has been known to harp on the need to master the fundamentals. He may have something. Tough stage, though...

 

ETA: I am sure that he had an opinion!

Edited October 28, 2016 by ChuckS

[CHA-LEE]

2 hours ago, Jake Di Vita said:

I agree that making the stage fixed time would have made it a better challenge. I just don't think doing it as it was is unfair or based on luck...just hard.

How did you do on the stage in practice the 20+ times you played with it?

I was only able to shoot it clean 3 times even when taking as long as I wanted to shoot it. I shot it the same pace in the match not putting any priority to speed and maximum effort to aiming hard and breaking clean shots. All my misses were an inch or less in the black just as what was happening when I practiced it. 

I don't want to speak for others but I know a top 10 finisher that also practiced this stage before the match and only faired marginally better than me in practice and in the match as well. 

I guess we are both poser GM's that don't know how to shoot.

[IronArcher]

We have heard a few time that Nationals is supposed to determine the "best" shooter.
What IS the "best" shooter?
Of course there are different shooting sports, and they all think their champion is the "best" shooter.
The bullseye champion may or may not suck at USPSA matches... or IDPA, or whatever game we can shoot.
Those games are significantly different to what he normally shoots.
Same for the IDPA guy (though there is more crossover). USPSA is significantly different that what he normally shoots,
So why do we need stages that are significantly different than "most" USPSA matches?
For the most part, USPSA stages are not crazy tough to shoot.
Are we finding the best USPSA shooter? Or the best Nationals shooter?

To me there is no wrong answer here. Believe it or not, and honest question.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Gary Stevens]

Can someone post this infamous Stage 9 for me?

Thanks

[Jake Di Vita]

55 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

I guess we are both poser GM's that don't know how to shoot.

C'mon man, you're taking it a bit far. That obviously isn't true. It does appear that your one handed game isn't quite up to the level of the rest of your game. That doesn't mean you don't know how to shoot. You've trained people, you know how common it is for one handed shooting to be significantly worse than freestyle. This stage just slapped that into a whole bunch of people's faces. Maybe next year the general level of one handed shooting will be better because of this. In my book, that's a good thing.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Jake Di Vita

[ChuckS]

28 minutes ago, Gary Stevens said:

Can someone post this infamous Stage 9 for me?

Thanks

Here is the stage from the match book:

stage_9.pdf

 

And here is the OP on it:

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by ChuckS

[WJM]

Wow, thread is full of immature people trying to insult others.

As a little background, I practice standards a TON. I work on SHO and WHO more than almost anyone I know except those Washington shooters (darn them).

When I saw Stage 9 from Nationals video, my first thought was it must be a typo that stage is just too difficult. I then proceeded to message a couple of my friends that placed very well in GM and overall, and they both agreed that stage was TOO tough. 

On a stage like that I feel as if the luck involved outweighs the individual test. Say for instance you want to test standards. GREAT! Put open IPSC targets at 15-20 yards. That still tests the GM's to their limits, as well as puts the B class shooters at a very tough challenge.

A shot that is 25 yards away, to a zebra, SHO, and 15 yards away on a zebra WHO is just insane. The fact that 10 people shot it clean shows that that stage was complete luck. 

To whoever was saying "well my B class friend shot it clean". True. And not to say he didn't work at it, but whats the saying? A blind squirrel finds an accorn every now and again. 

I know from my personal experience that I could clean that stage MAYBE 2/10 times while being on pace for what I think is acceptable. If thats the results that would happen, I think that stage is bogus. 

As to other nationals, I think they should be slightly more difficult than an Area match. Not insanely difficult, but from what I have seen at Area matches (1, 2) they could ramp up the difficult a tiny bit.

[bdpaz]

25 minutes ago, WJM said:

... The fact that 10 people shot it clean shows that that stage was complete luck...

...I know from my personal experience that I could clean that stage MAYBE 2/10 times while being on pace for what I think is acceptable. If thats the results that would happen, I think that stage is bogus...

How does the fact the a stage is cleaned by only a few make it bogus? As long as the best and worst shooters get a score I don't see where "cleanability" matters. But looking at the results for the stage in this thread I see a large number who zeroed the stage and that is what I see as the problem. Too many shooters of (probably) different skill levels all got the same score and that skews the results. 

Edited October 28, 2016 by bdpaz
Typos

[Jake Di Vita]

I don't see anyone insulting anyone?

I still don't think it's too hard and it sure as hell isn't luck. It demands a level of ability that most people haven't tried to get to begin with and then you have to execute that skill when it matters. I'm pretty decent at one handed shooting and I'd probably throw a couple penalties shooting open. The fact they put that in a nationals makes me want to get better at one handed shooting so that I can handle that if it happens again and capitalize on it.

When I fail horribly at some type of stage which has happened more times than I can count it is a golden opportunity to get better. If you're trying to tell me that it is impossible to shoot a stage that difficult well on demand then I think you're crazy.

You're talking about practicing one handed shooting more than almost anyone you know, then a few lines later you say: " A shot that is 25 yards away, to a zebra, SHO, and 15 yards away on a zebra WHO is just insane." That tells me you probably don't practice on targets like that. You're never going to develop ability beyond the difficulty at which you practice. It's "too hard" because most people don't even try to shoot zebras weak hand at 15 yards. People gotta stop looking at this like it's impossible and just try and up their game for next time. It isn't luck. It is a neglected area of a lot of people's game.

[bret]

25 yards strong hand only on a Zebra is not a lucky shot or too difficult, 15 yards weak hand only on a Zebra is not a lucky shot or too difficult.

[WJM]

4 minutes ago, Jake Di Vita said:

You're talking about practicing one handed shooting more than almost anyone you know, then a few lines later you say: " A shot that is 25 yards away, to a zebra, SHO, and 15 yards away on a zebra WHO is just insane." That tells me you probably don't practice on targets like that. You're never going to develop ability beyond the difficulty at which you practice. It's "too hard" because most people don't even try to shoot zebras weak hand at 15 yards. People gotta stop looking at this like it's impossible and just try and up their game for next time. It isn't luck. It is a neglected area of a lot of people's game.

Well, since I didn't specify how I practice SHO and WHO it doesn't really matter. 

Suffice it to say that I do practice it a lot, and anyone who doesn't think that a target like that involves some amount of luck has not tried it at that distance.

To those that don't think its luck, lets list the people in order of who cleaned it. 

If there is no luck involved, it should be based purely on a skill basis, and by definition we should get a large percentage of M's or GM's right?

(of people who cleaned it)

1-M

2-GM
3-M

4-B
5-B
6-A
7-U

8-C
9-B

10-M

So basically of the people who cleaned it, 5 of those would be considered the upper level of our sport. 

Ultimately this is an opinion thread, and my opinion was that this particular stage was too difficult and I didn't even shoot it. I know several people that placed high at the match that also agreed with me that it was too difficult and bullshit.

[WJM]

4 minutes ago, bret said:

25 yards strong hand only on a Zebra is not a lucky shot or too difficult, 15 yards weak hand only on a Zebra is not a lucky shot or too difficult.

Says who? You?

Thats your opinion, just like my opinion that the shot is too difficult and involves luck.

Just because you say something doesn't make it a fact.

[bret]

2 minutes ago, WJM said:

Says who? You?

Thats your opinion, just like my opinion that the shot is too difficult and involves luck.

Just because you say something doesn't make it a fact.

you seem butt hurt over a 25 yard shot, did you even shoot the stage?