The Fish

[Catfish]

Outstanding day at the gym today. Lifted heavy and felt like I was lifting light. Major Monday lifts plus cardio and abs. First day to lift heavy in squats and OHP without the safety cushion of the smith machine. Felt good, no worries, and even though I knew it was mostly mental, it took that first set of each lift to convince myself that I could do it. Good stuff.

Table reloads tonight. Lost count, but it was a lot.

[Catfish]

Been getting in my work at the gym this week - and lifts continue to feel good and strong. About all I can really complain about is pinching the meaty part of my left palm between two 45 pound plates when I was re-racking the weight. DAMN that hurt.

Hopefully it won't affect me too terribly much at tomorrow's shoot till you puke match. Should be a fun test of the ole Single Stack setup - 6 stages of 50 rounds each!! Thought about shooting Limited, but what the heck, I can use some practice reloading anyway.... I will shoot it in L10, with 4 ten round Wilson mags and at least that way I won't have to add another mag pouch or two on my belt, not that there's any room anyway.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rain earlier this week didn't trash the range too much and that the rain holds off tonight so we can play tomorrow. Regardless, it'll be another day of fun at the range with my pals!

[Catfish]

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

I shot the first two stages great. Times consistent with the Limited and Open guns, with 3X the reloads. Good hits, good stage strategy and good movment on a looooooong field course of 51 rounds and a short, movement-wise, course of 50 rounds.

And then the bottom dropped out. It rained like a sunuvabitch and brought the match to a screeching halt. The range, like a lot of them in these parts, has that gumbo-type mud that sticks to everything and before you know it, your shoes weigh about 20 pounds each. And it's slicker than you know what. With long field courses with tons of movement, it just wasn't an option, and it rained like hell the rest of the afternoon. Hasn't rained all damn week and it has to open up on us today.

This crap is getting old.

[Catfish]

Hey, guess what? It rained again today!! Sheesh.

I'm tired. Just about through week 6 of the 7 week lifting program and I can feel it. Sore, tired, and sore. Even though I'm pretty much whipped tonight, I got in some dry fire draws and reloads, and continued until I got too sloppy to be productive. This week is really the last 'hard' week at the gym before TSL, so I'm just going to suck it up and get it done.

Now if we can just get a weekend with no more rain, I can get some rounds downrange and hopefully get a match in at Porters on Sunday. Rain rain go away....

[Catfish]

Some interesting concepts this morning. Went 3 seconds slower on my pain dance of 10 DL + 25 box jumps X 3; 5:03 compared to last time's 5 flat.... However, I had raised the weight on the DL by 20 pounds, so I'll take it. After it was over I did my best not to puke and just walk out of the gym to hit the showers....

On the way in to work this morning, had the jazz on just trying to mellow out in traffic and catch my breath from the morning's exertions. After one fantastic track, the DJ came on and mentioned that the trio that had just performed basically just showed up to the studio and played. His words "they didn't think about music, they just played..." really hit home with me this morning as I was, as usual, cogitating shooting.

They didn't think, they just did. I know we've seen it countles times before online here, but it never gets old. That led my stream of consciousness to thinking about the Barnstormer's new range diary. Now here we have one of the very best talents on this forum, someone who totally GETS it, and what's he practicing right now? Simple, basic stuff. Draws, reloads, and transitions. That led to my next stream of consciousness to a CQB class I took a while back with one of the best guys in the biz - he said "an expert is just someone who does the basics better than anyone else."

As I was chewing on that, it hit me as to why I've been getting so frustrated with some shooters lately, particularly when I partake in an IDPA match. These guys (mostly SS-EX) will spend 15 minutes trying to find that elusive 3/4 a second on a stage where they can pick up time. And it never works. Rather than just sticking to the basics, like the Barnstormer; or just showing up and shooting without making it more complicated than it is like the jazz trio; they invest a significant amount of time and energy trying to achieve what could better be achieved by a greater work ethic and letting their mind be free.

To complete the circle, it left me feeling pretty good about where I am mentally about my shooting; as long as I remember to work the basics and to just approach the stage and shoot, I do well. There's typically no magic bullet on any given stage that I've run across lately. It is what it is. Why make things harder than they are?

I'm sure there's a lesson here somewhere.

[sfinney]

as long as I remember to work the basics and to just approach the stage and shoot, I do well. There's typically no magic bullet on any given stage that I've run across lately. It is what it is. Why make things harder than they are?

Good stuff.

[Catfish]

I'm in shock. Looks like we finally get a weekend with no rain!!! Man, I've nearly forgotten what that's like.

Been hitting loads and draws on the move. Looked at the stages for Texas Limited and it looks like there is going to be a bunch of shoot to the left, jam a reload and shoot to the right kind of stages. I will be incorporating those transitional type loads into the program starting about 3 days ago.

Looks to be a good match at DT tomorrow, will be surrounded by friends and it oughta be a hoot.

[Catfish]

Fun fun match at Porter's yesterday - I shot 6 really really good stages. And tanked one. First stage I've ever zeroed and it cost me 120 points; lost the match by less than 70, I'm not really pleased with the outcome.

Short stage bit my butt again, and on the classifier this time. At least it won't go towards my classification!! I posted on a thread somewhere around here that whenever I try to over-ride the natural speed of a stage, I get hosed, and I tried really hard to get on the front sight hard and get points. And it went to hell quickly!!

There were some good points - I tanked the classifier on the 2nd stage, and went on to shoot 5 pretty good stages and put the bad one behind me. Shot 6 out of 7 stages really well - but consistency and focus on the short, easy stage cost me big time.

Better to have it happen now than at the two big ones around the corner....

[Catfish]

some vids from the match at DT this past weekend. Felt good as I mentioned, but I've got to make it a priority to MOVE from one position to the other, even when it's a short distance...

[Catfish]

Good practice session with friends last night. Spent the time chrono'ing ammo for TSL, sighting in at 50 yards, and running some paper, steel, paper with reloads in the middle drills to fill our time.

First attempt at 50 was not too hot... I think I had 3 and 4 hits on the two targets. 2nd run 6 and 6, although to be honest, one of those 6 was a looooow D hit that was at/touching the perf... Just got serious about the shots and focused, working on a good slightly forward stance, and a more solid grip on the gun. Like everything else I've discovered over this past year, it just comes down to focus and paying attention.

The close up drills were more of a relaxation thing. Too tense, and nothing worked, very similar to the can you count classifier. Had to work hard to twist the grip of the gun on the reloads so I could see the magwell. Again, focus. Was able to relax near the end and have a good run and then worked on bill drills for a bit, and finished with some group shooting.

All in all, a great day at the range and gotta thank SgtSvi for bringing us along to his party!

[Catfish]

Good match today!! 6 Stages of running and gunning with some mental toughies thrown in there at the end. Steve (josey wales here) did a great job designing stages. It was a hoot to watch everyone shoot because I think that with the exception of the classifer, not one person shot any stage exactly like someone else did. To me, that's the sign of a good stage, and a demented MD.

Shot pretty well today, well in control and on top of my game. I'm getting to see lots of positives from all the gym work I've been doing all year - I was fresh and good to go even at the end of the day when everyone else's ass was getting kicked from the heat, and it WAS stinkin' hot today. Went through about 4 liters of water myself....

Had a couple of instances where I guess my shooting "maturity" (cause God knows I'm still emotionally a 16 year old...) really kicked in. On one stage I came really close to muffing a reload and instead just kinda fumbled about on transition without losing too much time. Got the mag in, got into position and clearly recall my brain back in the distance calmly saying that don't worry about it, it's just one reload of 4 and very early in the stage. Settle back in to your groove and keep going. And I did. Second moment was on the last stage - which had at least a dozen different ways to shoot all the targets - To shoot the way I had planned, I needed to get all my hits on the little steel at the back of the bay on the 1st shot. Took me two hits and I knew right then that the next two arrays were going to have to be shot differently than I planned but that I could catch up with the rest of the stage. Made the correction of the fly and I don't think that from just watching you would ever notice that I had to do something different than I had programed. A year or two ago and the rest of both those stages would have really been ugly. So in that respect I'm really pleased.

Heavy lifting is pretty much over till after nationals. The next few weeks will be spent at no more than 70% of my one RM on any exercise, but instead I'll do reps till failure and work on just being explosive. Footwork drills will be on the menu again and I'm again looking forward to the payoff from the gym work at next weeks TSL and Nats next month.

[Catfish]

coupla vids from yesterday's match for your entertainment... Going to have to work at snapping those reloads a bit more, not every match is going to give me lots of movement space to hit a load....

[Catfish]

This week in the gym and in dry fire is all about speed. The strength and refinement part of the game have passed and I'm just working on my speed and agression, getting ready for TSL this weekend and Nats just around the corner. Last day of weights today, will do footwork and sprints tomorrow for a short, intense session and then nada but rest and water on Friday.

Been using http://www.burkettvideo.com/flashfiles/dra...ideclassic.html to get my timing down. Interestingly enough, my draw is quicker than I thought - I was hitting .9s tonight with called hits on paper in dry fire but my reloads are slower than I thought, I really struggled at first to hit consistent and reliable 1.5 second reloads. Glad I put it to the clock tonight and will continue to do so through this weekend and then through nats.

All in all, the ammo's loaded, the gun's cleaned, the poncho is packed. I'm ready to play this weekend and I'm looking forward to the test. There will be two other single stack shooters in my squad - and one of them was the TSL SS champ last year - so it will be a good test and a great weekend of competition. Can't wait, it's almost as bad as waitin' on Christmas!!

[bierman]

Derrick,

I just spent the last hour and a half reading your entire range diary (yes, I know, I have no life). All I can say is "WOW!!!". It has really inspired me to work much harder on improving my skills. I have not been able to shoot much at all lately due to finances, but I have been neglecting dry fire, probably because it is not as fun, for me at least, as live fire training. Not anymore!! I may not be able to do the amount of live fire training that I want, but I will no longer let that keep me from dry fire training. Keep up the hard work, keep us updated and thanks for the inspiration.

[Catfish]

thank YOU, Keith, for the inspiration.

[Catfish]

In and showered from the TSL. I wound up being the first loser! Don't have the juju together for a complete blow by blow account of the match, but overall I'm pleased. Was down 5.x% to Hicks for the TSL SS title. Considering he got me by about 10% at A4, I'll try to find some silver lining here.

The match was very straightforward. I'd have to say compared to last year, it was a simpler, less complex match. You couldn't tell that from the mikes I threw, but there you have it.

What I'm most pleased, performance wise, about the match was that Saturday all day was a mental struggle. And I don't know why exactly. Just felt out of kilter.... I did some things that, focus wise, I haven't done in years. And again, I don't have a ready explanation for it. All I can say is that my focus shifted in and out. When my focus was on, I was tearing stuff up. When my focus was off, I threw mikes. I don't think that at any point on Saturday I actually saw the sights lift.

To complicate things mentally, I completely and totally tanked the standards stage, getting only 1 hit on the 50 yard target. Considering the work I've put in this year at distance, to say I was massively pissed was a pretty good understatement. The complication came in as the standards stage was the last stage of the day for me, so I got to chew on it for awhile, and it didn't taste good.

At some point Saturday night, between margaritas, cigars, and friends, I decided that I could either submit and spiral out of control or get off my ass and fight on Sunday.

This morning was a completely different day. Whatever storm clouds that were present in my shooting psyche were gone. I just felt totally different. And I attacked each of the 3 stages, setting good times with good hits - short of a mike on the first stage of the morning - which was odd because I called a D on the previous target and made it up, and have no recollection of where the sights were on the mike. Which is probably why it was a mike. Outside of that miss, I watched the sights lift for the 3 stages today, and wahtever bad juju that plagued my mind yesterday was long gone. My agressive shooting today put me in position to take 2nd place overall - when my buddy Fred (3rd SS ovl) had a death jam on the last stage. Had I rolled over and died, I would not have been able to be in a position to take 2nd. And while I would much rather have beaten Fred heads up rather than because his gun died, I know that the only reason I was able to do that was because I didn't quit the match, and that's what I think is important; more so than the finishing position.

I did have one of my beliefs upheld, however, and that is my thought that there is no magic bullet on a stage. I saw several shooters throughout the match and talked to others who tried to get "cute" or outsmart a stage. And to a man, they only dug themselves a deeper hole. The stage is what it is, nothing more, nothing less...

Equipment worked, gun and ammo ran flawlessly, physically I felt really good.

Moving forward, I've got a little less than a month to transition into Limited and get ready for the big show. I feel good about it, and don't really have any expectations for the match other than to go, track the front sight, and have a good time.

[Catfish]

Worked up my Limited gear today. Got rid of the CRSpeed holster and went to the comp-tac locking paddle. Yeah, I'm probably going to be giving up a tenth or so on the draw, but this way my Limited draw and my SS draw will be identical and I won't have to relearn something going either way.

Limited gun feels fine, will start hitting Leatham's Drill Masters here as soon as I can get to the range and dry firing is moving forward as planned.

Set up the 550 to start loading .40; now I just have to suck it up and get to the store and buy some TG and small primers! Lucikly I've got a nice little stash of .40 around the house, but that'll be gone by mid week next week I'm sure.

Only dry firing comment I can make at this point is dang is that mag well huge.

[Catfish]

Golly, actually got in some range time today!! If all goes according to plan, I'm putting nearly 2,000 rounds downrange between now and nats. I WILL be ready.

I broke down and joined TGO's DrillMasters. If you haven't done this yet, you're only hurting yourself. I'm not giving any of Rob's secrets away, so if you're not familiar with DrillMasters, this might seem like Greek to you....

Tonight, shot 3 of the drills with my fellow members of the Nationals "team". We got in about 150-175 rounds of quality work.

First Drill, "All you can get" = 86 points. This drill really really really gets you on the front sight. Excellent starter.

2nd, "The W" = best score = 4.95, going L-R, reload before last target. This one was interesting. Learned a lot!! Bascially found that if given a choice, Left to Right on an array suits me better than the other 4-5 ways I tried, including the way TGO shoots this drill. All 4 of us had different "best" ways to shoot this. There truly is no "one size fits all..."

3rd, "The Drawmaster" = best score = 14.37, best 10 round avg draw = 1.07. Fastest = 1.03, Slowest = 1.25k SgtSvi caught me "scooping" the draw on the 2nd run here (ran it 3 times) and helped me with a correction that took about .04 off my draw, not to mention getting me back up in the A zone.

Comparing my scores to TGO, I've got some work to do, but knowing the baseline is excellent motivation for me.

I WILL be ready.

[PHolsted]

I broke down and joined TGO's DrillMasters.

ok how and where do you join?

[Catfish]

I broke down and joined TGO's DrillMasters.

ok how and where do you join?

Hey Patrick - can't get the link here at work, but if you go to TGO's webpage, I wanna say it's RobLeatham.com or something like that, follow the links to the Drill Masters Club. Considering you're getting to read TGO's thoughts on how and why he does things; it's a bargain at $29...

[PHolsted]

I broke down and joined TGO's DrillMasters.

ok how and where do you join?

Hey Patrick - can't get the link here at work, but if you go to TGO's webpage, I wanna say it's RobLeatham.com or something like that, follow the links to the Drill Masters Club. Considering you're getting to read TGO's thoughts on how and why he does things; it's a bargain at $29...

Cool thanks man.

[Catfish]

Shot Double Tap today and not a horrid showing at all. First match back on the fat gun and my main goal today was to make it through the whole match without reloading after only 8 rounds; other than one stage where I did it on purpose, goal met.

Shot penalty free till the last stage where I uncorked it a bit pushing; knowing I had nothing to lose in either the overalls or on the classifier I just went for it and threw one into a no-shoot. Was able to reshoot for classifier score after the match and hit an 89%er by the classifier calculator tool, inching me that much closer to my M card; only another percent or two and I'm there. This makes two great classifiers I've shot lately - today's and last month's at Waco - gads the weather has really sucked if that's the only two I've shot lately... Today I actually started seeing light at the end of my classifier frustration tunnel.

Bad news is I've come down with a damn cold and feel like crap. Was going to shoot steel tomorrow at DPC, but I figure I need the sleep more than anything else now, with nationals only a few weeks away.

[Catfish]

Been practicin'. Nationals is beckoning.

On top of the shooting, really looking forward to seeing some of my fellow enosverse folks out there.... And will miss at least two guys that won't be making the trip this year - Barnstormer and Micah, I'll be thinking of you guys and hopefully carrying some of your good karma and work with me.

[Catfish]

Shot local match at Tyler yesterday and sheesh was that ugly.

Couldn't hit anything to save my life. Still getting over being sick and puny, a week of no quality sleep and eyes that feel like they don't want to be open doesn't really contribute to a quality, like me, performance.

Best thing about the day was really two things:

1. really stuck the classifier, maybe there will be good news in a few weeks.

2. learned that with a fat gun chock full o' bullets, I was placing less value on each shot than I do with a skinny gun and only 9 rounds. Less value = less focus....

Good practice session today with the rest of the nationals squad. Last night got GOOD sleep, took some good allergy meds and today at the range my eyes actually worked like they're supposed to and got in several good drills.

Really looking forward to nats. Not really going in with any expectations other than to make every bullet count and to have fun.

[Catfish]

Woo hoo! Nats is almost here!!

Hopefully, my right arm won't be completely dead from all the handloading I've been doing this week.....

One more practice session at the range tomorrow and then it's just refinement and reps at home till we depart Saturday afternoon.

Worked on smoothing some things out in dry fire tonight. Speed work is done, now it's just time for perfection.

Can't wait to start hunting those Azones starting Sunday afternoon.