4 best/4 worst. what can be learned?

[rowdyb]

These are my four worst and four best stages from '21 Prod nats. What do you see, good or bad, that I don't. I'd appreciate a fresh set of eyes on it.

Commonalities in the worst stages? What was stellar in the good stages? And? And?

 

[Crash-7]

Hey Rowdy,

 

34th overall is a solid showing! Nice work.

 

I looked through your video, and I'll give you what I noticed, and my opinion (whatever that's worth to you...)

 

Broad strokes:

Commonalities I noticed in your 4 worst stages: 

• Field courses requiring hitting precise spots to engage targets (ports, tight positions next to walls, etc).
• Wide(r) transitions (than in your 4 best stages). On those wider transitions I noticed, what looks like a lot of over-transitioning on those targets. Like you're either staring at your front site during the transition, or you're really muscling the gun trying to get it to the next target quickly (00:46s, watch your muzzle as you go from the paper to the first popper, and then from the 2nd popper to the partial. 00:54s, look at the difference in your muzzle and how cleanly it stops going from the open target to the popper, vs popper to the next open target. Generally speaking, this over transitioning seems to happen more coming off of hard/small/far away targets.)
• There were several instances where, on the last target of an array before leaving that position, the camera looked like it started moving before you broke your last shot. (I'm assuming if your hat cam is moving, so is your head/eyes). Maybe leaving a bit early with your vision? (00:18s, 00:36s, 1:44s)

Commonalities in your 4 best stages:

• Generally stand and shoot/classifiers type stages
• Closely packed arrays/ narrow transitions
• Transitions on most of these targets were clean and crisp. 
• Movement and reloads were very clean. On the two stages where there was some movement your entries seemed much more controlled and confident. 
• Target confirmation was good. You saw what you needed to see on each target, but nothing more. The gun didn't appear to hover or stall on any particular target. 

 

 

At 1:36s, it looks to me like your gun is recoiling differently for different targets. On the close open and partial, the muzzle comes back down cleanly and stops. But when you transition over to the far away steel, particularly the mini's, the muzzle starts snapping down much more aggressively, causing much more muzzle shake/wiggle. This makes me think you're changing your grip/tension based on the perceived difficulty of the shot. Increased tension could be a reason the two miss/makeups on the steel at that position.

 

Overall your gun handling and reloads looked super clean and sharp. You shot well, and got good points (91% I think?).

Your movement, especially entries into specific positions seemed a bit rough sometimes, like you were hunting around in a port, or stepping into a shooting area with the gun up but having trouble getting set up and stable.

 

The stuff I'm mentioning is small stuff, but I hope it helps.

 

 

[rowdyb]

Thank you, there were 3 really good nuggets in there for me! I appreciate it.

[Reds_Dot]

Transitions were not consistent. 

 

When you are confident on shots you don't wait for the third sight picture, you just transition and that is damned beautiful to watch. Then something would go sideways mid-stage you start taking that third sight picture on paper. Not sure what causes it but I saw it on both "good" and "bad" stages. 

 

Adjacent to that on your "bad" stages your misses on steel and wide hits on paper are due to you transitioning before you pull the trigger. You have a solid sight picture then drift off the target as you begin breaking the shot. So not seeing the sight lift before transitioning. Rushing maybe? 

 

I can't really judge movement from the 1st person. There are a couple times it seemed like you were ready to start shooting and you didn't and other places you might have been able to start moving out of position on last shots but stayed flat footed. Again, with the semi-wide angle lens and being in 1st person I could be "seeing" that wrong. 

 

3rd person would give me a better understanding of: shooting on entry, transitioning in shooting positions, exits to provide better feedback.

Overall you did very well and I'm pointing out relatively small things. You gun manipulations were great and even when you "had nerves" you kept control. Maybe didn't seem like it at the time but you did. Thanks for sharing the vid.

[rowdyb]

On fb some people, like @waktasz, have commented that the super smoothing of the gopro messes the timing up and they said that's why they think there seems to be a disconnect on the transition timing.

[waktasz]

On 5/30/2021 at 12:01 AM, Crash-7 said:

 

• Wide(r) transitions (than in your 4 best stages). On those wider transitions I noticed, what looks like a lot of over-transitioning on those targets. Like you're either staring at your front site during the transition, or you're really muscling the gun trying to get it to the next target quickly (00:46s, watch your muzzle as you go from the paper to the first popper, and then from the 2nd popper to the partial. 00:54s, look at the difference in your muzzle and how cleanly it stops going from the open target to the popper, vs popper to the next open target. Generally speaking, this over transitioning seems to happen more coming off of hard/small/far away targets.)
•  

 

 

 

 

I noticed exacty this. 

Watch the video in .25 speed. In the first 4 stages there are more wide transitions and you are flinging the gun past the A zone and having to reign in back in on most of the tranisitions. On the good stages the targets are closer and you aren't doing this. Maybe just because the transitions are smaller but also you don't seem to be muscling the gun and trying to over drive the transitions. 

[rowdyb]

check, work hard to improve wide transitions. definitely move my dry fire targets further apart. and i am the opposite of a "muscle it around" person, that's for sure. I probably can move the gun far faster than I can see. i know i've whined about it before, but my vision is 20/200, astigmatism in both eyes and i wear tri focal progressive lenses for both eyes. hahaha.

[waktasz]

Are you a one eye closed guy?

[Crash-7]

On 6/2/2021 at 3:18 PM, rowdyb said:

On fb some people, like @waktasz, have commented that the super smoothing of the gopro messes the timing up and they said that's why they think there seems to be a disconnect on the transition timing.

Makes sense. 

I wasn't aware of that.