Knowing And Undstanding Your Limitations

[Flyin40]

I was wondering how long it took everyone to know what your limitations while shooting. I mean physical limitations with the gun. How far your able to see around corners and be comfortable and still see the dot. I know you can never know your limitations completely and you will constantly surprise yourself with what you can do.

I'll give you an example that happened to me today. Actually its was Nicks stage on MR&P. Pretty easy stage to figure out for open. While doing the walk through I found I could shoot all the targets from the left side except for the last 3 on the right side. From my perspective it looked pretty clear but I knew it would be tight, once the buzzer went off I found I couldn't really see the last 2 I was shooting at that well from the left side. I wasn't in a stable shooting platform for the last two targets but I stuck with my gameplan anyways. I went to the right side and finished on the last 3 targets. The end result was 2 mikes.

I constantly push myself even in matches and practice to try those shots. Most won't try those in matches but I do it so I can learn my limits. It will be an ever evolving thing. I have never been worried about winning so It doesn't bother me to try those things in matches.

I learned something very vaulable today, if its a little tight on the left side, unless thats the only spot to shoot it from or I can afford extra time move to the next spot to shoot it. Of course it can all change with practice.

So how long before you got a good understanding of your what you can do with your gun???

Flyin40

[Flexmoney]

Flyin40,

I am a bit surprised that, being a lefty, you made those three targets on the right side your "last three".

By shooting your left side first...with all those targest from that position...you woud be putting yourself more and more into a tough position. Not only are you getting less and less stable as you have to lean more around the wall (IMO, less stable means you aren't returning the gun as well after recoil, which can slow your shooting)...you are also getting into a position that will make it harder to move out of.

[Flexmoney]

BTW, good job paying attention and opening up your awareness. I think that is the true key to learning faster.

Instead of telling yourselves that we did a bad thing (or a good thing), if we can observe what we are doing we can learn faster, I think.

[Flyin40]

Flex,

Figuring out a stage is by far still my weakest point. All you have to do is look at my scores shooting large stages compared to those stages you stand in the same place. I'm working on it but I think this topic relates directly to how I shoot large stages. I'm still learning some basic things about my shooting and what I can actually do as compared to what I think I can do. I thought I could see around that corner well enough to shoot those couple of targets but actually I couldn't. I think this is one of those things that the more exposure I have to the larger stages the better I will get. Being that its so hard to set up a large stage in practice only allows me seeing and trying to figure them out at matches. So I have try different things to figure out what works for me and try to understand my limitations.

On Nicks stage I shot it starting at the left and shot all the targets except the last then shot the last 3 on the move in the middle going towards them. Yes, I know I shot on the move with no shoots on the targets. Didn't have any problems with them. I like how I finished the stage. Looking back now I could of went to the right first because I should have not shot all the targets from the left side. I should of shot the 5 on the right and finished with the rest on the left.

My misses were about 1/8 of an inch below the A in the hardcover. I ened up makin them up with more in the hardcover but being out of position shooting led me to believe I got the hits. It looked good but being unstable I didn't a good sight picture. It wasn't worth trying it.

I shot with Dave and Kathy. I like watching Dave shoot larger stages. He is able to figure them out quite well. Same with you guys, watching you guys figure out stages is very helpful.

Flyin40