Programming A Stage In A Short Amount Of Time.

[Jake Di Vita]

hahaha you crack me up man.

[short_round]

... use the force.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dark side or light?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Definitely Dark if you're shooting open.

[short_round]

Tear the stage description out and eat it. Learn by imbibition.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You want fries with that?

[TDean]

The first thing I do is read the round count, qty of paper targets and qty of steel. I'll then look around the perimeter of the stage and verify the # of targets and round count.

I'll then break it down to steel, movers, paper, left, right.

This is where it hepls to be on the outside of complex stages. If the stage is 29rds with 5 poppers, the first thing I'll do is locate the steel and decide if there's anything "special" about them. Are they all visible from one port, or do I need to hunt-around for them? I'll then look for paper and break it down to left side and right side (if possible). Remembering all this, I'll enter the shooting area.

I know there's 7 paper on the right, 5 paper on the left and 5 poppers at the end.

Once you're confident of where ALL the targets are your own creativity and skill level come into play as far as engaging them.

Remember, read the round count on the stage description, then go out verify the round count.

[short_round]

Seriously though, I've been giving this a lot of thought and trying to work on this during the last couple of months. Since I have officially joined the stats team, I have had the "opportunity" to work on it directly.

When I'm on stats duty I don't have the time to work out the stage with a squad. I don't really have that much time to do a walk through on my own in the morning since I'm registering shooters into the EZwin Score program.

What happens basically is that I have to shoot through the match. I get to walk up look at the description, walk through during two other people's on deck time and then use my own on deck time.

The process I follow:

1) Look at the write up:

1.1) How many rounds is the stage.

1.2) what do the arrays look like on the paper

2) Find all the shots:

2.1) find the obvious spot to start and take the most obvious route

2.2) walk the stage couting shots until I get to the end and have the right count

3) Create a simple plan:

3.1) for engaging each array

3.2) for transitioning from/to each array

4) Determine the reload points

4.1) simply by round count

5) Optimize

5.0) the start position

5.1) each shot in each array

5.2) each transition to each array (optimizes the route I take)

5.3) reload points (based on where I may or may not need more rounds)

I always have to do steps 1 through 4. Step 5 is a luxury. During step 5 though, I try to optimize each piece sequentially rather than the whole thing together. So maybe I get to optimize only 3 out of 5 arrays. That's okay ... that's all there was time for, but I'm not stressed about the other 2 arrays because I have basic plans for them already.

The good news is that I have some experience. I already have a good idea of how I can/need to shoot an array when I see it - I try to trust this. Optimizing .5 seconds here and .2 seconds there is great when you add it all up. However, 3 optimized arrays and two arrays of not knowing what I'm going to do will add many more seconds over the arrays I am lost on compared to the time savings on 3 optimized arrays. I hope that makes sense.

I think it was Patton who said:

"I would rather have a good plan today than a perfect plan two weeks from now."

Sometimes that is all there is time for ...

Finally when on deck, program the plan I have no matter how poor or perfect it is and prepare to execute it.

[short_round]

... oops one last thing

5.4) listen to other shooters.

When I am really pressed for time I only rely on myself. Listening to other people makes me think too much and leads to disaster when I don't have the time for it. Which really sucks because I can't learn anything new from other people and takes away an aspect of USPSA shooting that I really enjoy. Then again we're already starting out with a less than ideal situation and all we can do is our best ...

[infinity]

why don't we just bring a handycam and see how handy it is...hehehe

[diehli]

Tear the stage description out and eat it. Learn by imbibition.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You want fries with that?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

F@#$ no! You do it eighteen f@#$ing times!!! </RobinWilliams>

[sturmruger]

I usually walk by all of the targets and then walk through the stage and look through all the ports. I really like to look at the course description to get a god idea how many targets are out there.

[Flyin40]

I used Steve Anderson's stage analysis for the first time today and it helped quite a bit. Putting it on paper helps out alot. Our squad probably took no more than 2 minutes, 1 time through each after the stage decription was read. I didn't mind because bigger stages I usually don't do that well because of poor planning. It made me really focus on the stage. Basically I didn't have any time to think too much about the stage. I looked at it, found the best way to shoot it, put it on paper and executed. I was the 2nd shooter on the stage and had not seen the stage prior to walking up to it. It was probably one of the better larger stages I have shot.

Flyin40