bad element: high walls

[ErikW]

I don't like stages with walls that are higher than my chest. It takes longer for us short people to acquire the targets behind them and it puts us in awkward shooting positions. It gives an advantage to tall folks....

[Dani]

Erik

I don't like windows at 15" from the floor, it gives advantages to shorts folks.

Usually there are more windows than high walls, don't you think?

[Ron Ankeny]

At 6'4" I am with Dani. Shooting through ports and barrels, and so on really sucks. Gives a huge advantage to short people...

[ErikW]

We can all stoop, bend, kneel, or go prone to lower ourselves to a port of infinitely low height, but I can only gain an inch or two by standing on my tip-toes for a high port.

I'm going to start demanding a booster platform as outlined in the rulebook.

[Ron Ankeny]

Eric:

I was just joshing you. I set up quite a few courses and I really have to watch it because I am so tall. I try to keep walls that need to be shot over no higher than 4 feet. Is that still too high?

[Shooter Grrl]

4 ft works for Erik, but not for me :-)  I have an AWFUL time at matches being "almost 5'2"!

[ErikW]

Four feet is somewhere around my armpits and is still awkward.

[Flexmoney]

Four feet is the size of a piece of plywood.

We have to have some basis in the "practical".

[38supPat]

4' walls aren't a problem.....if stage designers can figure somewhere else to put the targets other than  2.5' away and on the ground. Hey heres an origional idea, how 'bout some distance shots? I think I have shot that exact target array about 40 times this year...its getting a bit old.

Pat

[2alpha]

Vertical slots are the best, fair for everyone.

JJ

[benos]

Imagine the IPSC stage of the future... Before you shoot the stage a computer operated electronic device makes a light humming sound as it lowers down to touch the top of your head as you stand in the "pre-shoot-stage-configuration-box." Then, as you are given the load and make ready commands, all the props in the stage electronically adjust (up or down) to compensate for your physical height...

be

[icer]

Nice idea Brian.......but you know guys would game it by squatting or standing on their toes.........and the monumental amount of bitching by the poor sap picked that month to get up at 4 in the morning to run all that wiring for the electronic targets........there go all my set up volunteers.

[ErikW]

...or it'll have one of those amusement park signs:

You must be this tall to shoot this stage.

[Flexmoney]

Wiring???

The "pre-shoot-stage-configuration-box" would have to be RF...we would likely be shooting holograms anyway.

[bonedaddy]

I love this sport!   I am so totally "average" that somebody always has a harder time with a wall or port than I do.   Maybe it's time for a new slogan?  

USPSA: The Sport for the Average Guy.  

Or maybe "AVERAGE ROCKS!"  ?  

Shorter......taller......I guess it all averages out huh?

[Steve Moneypenny]

if you want a booster thats no probelm, but i have to wine about being tall, its impossibile for me to get as low (i'm 6'2") as some people, i am not extremely flexible, there for i want no shooting barrels lower than my belly button at the top edge, and no ports between the heighth of mid thigh and said belly button region.

yes, USPSA does make being average a good thing! unless its a tall or short guy designed stage :-)

[Lumpy]

I'm 6'3" and sure walls that are high are no problem for me. My buddy "Taz" is 5 foot nothin and sure it's tough for him to shoot over walls.

I see more "fat guy" eliminator stages than "short guy" eliminators. I've almost blacked out due to lack of oxygen from shooting in very low awkward ports on stages. :-)

Here is another situation I ran into.

Stage was a "quick & dirty" with 4 targets situated behind a wall that was on the berm. You started with gun loaded on table with yourself seated in a lawn chair. On signal you had to get out of the chair, retreive your gun, run up to the wall, and engage the targets from around the sides.

Great, fine and dandy for the little guys, but you take a 300 lbs+, 6'3" guy and plunk him in a standard lawn chair and you have a problem. Everytime I played with the stage I'd get up with a lawnchair stuck to my ass. Ya ya, laugh all you want.

My solution was, because gun is loaded on table, to take off my holster rig as it was "locking" into the chair.

Of course the skinny guys ran to the match director to complain that I now have an unfair advantage. So what? I gain what a 1/2 second of struggling to get me big butt out of a lawn chair?

Let's think about it, either they make the stage to accomadate ALL shooters or they throw it out.

In the end, stage stayed, I was allowed to shoot without my holster rig on, skinny whiny guys were told to shut their yaps. :-)

It's only a game.

Lumpy

(Edited by Lumpy at 4:17 pm on Nov. 21, 2001)