The Fish

[Catfish]

The last couple of weeks, I've been writing in my workout diary "2008 starts NOW" Luckily, that's the case. I'm too damn sore to do anything seriously competitive on the range.

After a week or so of being sick after TSL, and then about 3 weeks of rest and maintenance at the gym; basically doing just enough to not stagnate and something that would allow me to be peaked and rested for nationals - I've started hitting the gym hard again.

We can call this routine a "back to basics" and I'll carry it on through the next 6-8 weeks or so, then take a break and hit my earlier program for 7 weeks; then re-evaluate and see where I am for the first big match of the year next year, the DTC.

For my fellow gym rats, here you go:

DAY 1:

Incline bbl press 5 sets x 8-12 reps

Flat dbbl press 5 x 8-12

Flat dbbl flyes 5 x 8-12

Triceps (pick your lift) 3 x 8-12

Close Grip Bench Press 5 x 12-15

DAY 2:

Squats 5 x 8-12

Leg Press 5 x 8-12

Standing Calf Raises - 3 x 15-20

Abs (pick 'em)

DAY 3:

Chin ups 50 reps as many sets as needed

Deadlifts 5 x 6-8

Standing bbl curls 5 x 8-12

Preacher curls 2 x 12-15

Make sure to rest a day or two between Day 2-3. For me, I'll do all my lifting during the week so I can shoot on the weekends. First week of this last week really kicked my arse, but good. This week my body is adjusting somewhat, which means next week the lifts get heavier.

[Catfish]

Sharing Goals

Lanny mentions the benefit of sharing your goals with the people you care about. I've done this to some degree here in my range diary, and to a deeper level with my close friends. The thought being that those who you have shared your goals with will help you make them happen.

One of my buds really stepped up to the plate today to get me closer to realizing one of my major goals for the '08 season.

I'll explain more as the year progresses, but I'm totally amped up already.

[Catfish]

Reloads

I guess you can tell when something becomes a habit when it doesn't seem like work any more. Sat down with 7 mags, a target, and the TV on one of my favorite shows Mythbusters, and started doing table reloads. Did them without really noticing that I had "watched" the whole show. Really working on seating the mags all the way in and shifting my eyes quickly from the mag well to the target without dwelling on the mag well after the mag had been seated.

Will hopefully get to do some live fire tomorrow....

[bierman]

Isn't that what it means to be a "master"? Doing the basics, with excellence, without conscious thought. Keep it up Derrick.

[Catfish]

Penalty free

Earlier, I started a thread on whether or not shooting penalty free should be a goal for a match, or just the outcome of shooting well. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53744

After shooting a small local match over the weekend, I think that in the future, shooting penalty free at THAT match IS going to be a goal. I shot fairly well, but had two mikes for the match - one on the classifier which I made up on the 2nd string to pull back 10 of the 15 points I lost, and the other a shot that I took in a hurry rather than waiting to be visually patient on the target.

Since the match was only 4 stages, those two penalties really really hosed me in the overalls. Now, in a 7 or more stage match, those two mikes aren't quite as painful!!

So, next time I shoot this match, we'll see how it goes with the goal of shooting a penalty free match. Lord knows you can't afford 'em there!

[Catfish]

Performance level

Good lesson today at the Waco match. Finished 7th out of 30ish shooters shooting SS, but should have finished higher up than that. Had isssues on 3 of the 5 stages and all of them were just rust issues.

I'm pretty much in off season mode right now, between work and the end of a long season I really haven't been hitting it very hard the last 10-12 days at all and it showed today.

Which is OK. I hit this match and will hit the steel match tomorrow for the purpose of shedding some of that 'rust' for next week's North Texas Sectional at the DT ranch... Will probably get some practice time in this week as well and after that, it's a 3ish week break of nothing really serious and little to no shooting.

I know that by next week it'll be just fine and I have to accept less than perfect performances when I put in less than perfect practices.

[Micah]

Derrick, I'm not sure how I missed you getting the M card, but a big belated congrats! Thanks for picking me up when I was bummed last week man...making Master is kinda like when Luke enters the cave on Degoba and is forced to look inward.

Glad that you are getting ready for 08 now! There's no better time

[Catfish]

Derrick, I'm not sure how I missed you getting the M card, but a big belated congrats! Thanks for picking me up when I was bummed last week man...making Master is kinda like when Luke enters the cave on Degoba and is forced to look inward.

Glad that you are getting ready for 08 now! There's no better time

[Catfish]

Shot steel match today; was an ok day. First match with the new 1911 where it actually was starting to feel at home in my hands. Put a new set of ambi safeties on before yesterday's match and my fat trigger finger was getting popped pretty bad by the right side. Got the dremel out (YES, that of course makes me a master gunsmith. ) and took some of the metal off the safety and today it was just fine. No pinching and life was good.

Will be hitting the dry fire pretty hard this week to polish the blade back up for the NT sectional this weekend.

And then..... it's time to take a break!

[Catfish]

new front sight installed, and new trigger installed, thanks to Sgt Svi - THANKS Dave!

Worked on draws and reloads tonight, the gun is feeling dialed in pretty good. Looking forward to this weekend's match!!

[mike cyrwus]

Ill see you out there at DT, D.

Im pretty sure about 7-8 of us are making the trip down from OKC.

Tell me about your new s.s......

[Catfish]

Mike - you bringing that Limited MP 40?? I still think that's a rockin' setup for limited....

I'll have to show you the blaster I'm shooting on Sunday.

Got to put about 200 rounds through the gun today - started with my original load of WST pushing a 230g lead bullet (for practice purposes) and worked into my new load using 3.7g of Clays pushing a lead, and then a jacketd 230g bullet. OH MY. That is a sweeeeeeet load. Recoil is so mild it's mind boggling. Why has it taken me so long to make the switch!!!??

Yowza. Anyway, it's good to know for next year's shooting with a soft shooting, 165+ power factor load.....

Couple of simple Leatham drills, just working on watching the sight and gettin the gun out of the holster. Felt good to get to the range and with that new load, wow....

[mike cyrwus]

not to trample over your range journal, but youre getting major with 3.7g clays and a 230??? Cool!

It takes me 4.0 in my 5" .45 to get 170.

Ill bring the M&P, it plain works, basically. This is my last match with it and then I play in s.s. until the ss classic in Pasa.

Good luck.

[Catfish]

To be honest I haven't choron'd it yet. That's the recipie that I was given and told it made major in the gun.

See you tomorrow!

[Catfish]

Well, all the concern about whether or not my new Clays load makes pf or not was rather irrelevant.

1st stage of the match I had some steel that didn't fall, ended up asking the RO "well, do I request calibration now or just wait?" as the steel activated the swinging target on the stage, I wasn't 100% sure... he said just wait till after and so I finished the stage. Calibration came and of course the steel fell. OK, so I just tanked a stage, great way to start - MD comes over, they discuss the situation and on a technicality - the RO "coaching" they gave me a re-shoot. Great. Now I'm pissed because I f'd up, and embarrased that I got a reshoot on a technicality. Yippie.

Shoot the stage fine and go to stage 2. Muffed a reload, but as there was LOTS of room to move, stuffed another mag in there and turned out just fine, I doubt the reload cost me much, if any time.

While I'm cleaning my mags from the omnipresent Double Tap dust, I lose track of a mag spring. It just flat out dissapeared. And I didn't have any extra mags, or mag springs. So now I'm starting to freak out because I nkow there are some big field courses where I'm likely going to need that mag. I looked and looked and looked and had 4 or 5 other people looks all to no avail. And yeah, I was starting to panic. Finally say F it and went and hunted down extra mags from my buddies. Got to my car, and got the extra mags out - walk back to the range and HEY those mags are 7 rounders. Now I'm going from panic to just being flat out pissed off. Go back to the car and find the RIGHT mags and get to the stage. And hey, someone turns out that they find my missing mag spring. Great, now I have to find all the pieces of the mag that I threw in my bag. Put everying back together, load mags and try to figure out the stage.

There were two targets at close range, then a reload for me shooting SS, a low target close up, a small popper that activated a drop turner and a swinger, and then another reload. Well, after that reload, I tanked one over the berm. I stopped myself before the RO did and apologized for making him DQ me. God damn that was f'ing stupid. I've been shooting either IDPA or USPSA since '99 and this is my first (and hopefully last) DQ.

Sucks to end the season like that, and to lose the Sectional championship points race because of it.

I'll be wrapping up some final thoughts in the next day or so about the season, and then I'm taking a break.

[bierman]

Derrick,

I know you are bummed about the DQ, and there is nothing any of us can say that will make you feel better. Try to put it behind you, enjoy your break and just re-focus and get set for next season.

[Sgtsvi]

The look on Derricks face was pretty funny when he grabbed the Officers model mags from my carry gun bag in the car. The 47D's were in the side pocket. He took the DQ like a true sportsman and stayed around to help run stages and take my abuse. I felt bad for doing such a good trigger job on his SV single stack at first, but he said he shouldnt have had his finger on the trigger anyway. I'm ready for a break myself as is the rest of my shooting companions. Time to clean guns, replace parts on the Dillon, and enjoy friends and family for the upcoming holidays.

[sfinney]

Sorry you had a bad day Derrick. Its hard to clear your mind with all of those distractions. Now you that have it out of your system, press on, and put it behind you. 2008 is a new year!

I think also maybe we need to tweak the rules for the Section points series so the Championship match counts less than 50% of the Series - maybe 40%, with 4 other matches being 15% (or 5 being 12%)?

[Bear23]

Sorry to hear about the DQ. Better now than some other match

Watch 'Beerfest' that will take away all of your troubles.

Hang in there D.

[Catfish]

2007 Reflections

The ugly:

The two bookend matches of the year, the Double Tap Championship and the North Texas Sectional Championship matches were horrid: gun breakage at the DTC and mental breakage at the NTC. The gun breakage at the DTC cost me any reasonable semblance of a good finish, barely earning something like 8 or 9 points on one stage and costing me mega points throughout the day as the gun gradually gave up the ghost. My mental lapse at the NTC cost me an AD followed shortly thereafter by a well earned DQ. Hopefully, I’m not developing a case of bad juju at the Double Tap Ranch!

The bad:

Standards. Standards continued to pose a problem for me throughout most of the year. Certainly not in the difficulty level of the shots given, but more for the lack of focus I seemed to carry into each standard stage. I didn’t view standards as a fun part of the match and often looked at that stage as something to be done so I could just get back to having fun on the rest of the COF. As a result, I tanked an awful lot of standards.

Nationals. Nationals was mostly good, but there was enough bad to earn a spot in this category. It was my first USPSA Nats, and if not for a bad primer I would have finished close to, if not on my goal of finishing in the top 50. Yeah, it’s an equipment failure kind of deal, but I let it bother me for the next stage too, and mentally was still pissed over the bad primer. I think I shot way too conservatively, and didn’t push anything during the match at all. In retrospect it almost felt as if I was just loafing through each stage.

Guns. I swapped guns around waaaaay too much. I think I went through 4 or 5 by the end of the year.

The good:

Earned my M card. Something I’ve been working on for almost the last two years. Now it’s time to get serious! I finished in the top 16 ovl at Space City and the Arkansas Sectional, both shooting Limited. Shooting Single Stack, I won the New Mexico Sectional, came in 3rd ovl at Area 4, and 2nd ovl at Texas State Limited.

Probably the best thing about the year in reflection is that none of the ugly or bad things are unfixable. To help with my standards challenge I joined Leatham’s Drillmaster club. Mentally I’m just going to need to cowboy up at the matches and learn to love standard stages, and start looking at them as something that I want to shoot rather than something that I have to shoot. The equipment failure – both pistol and ammunition – can be fixed with more attention to detail. I have set up a maintenance schedule for my pistol and have switched over to Federal primers instead of Winchester (I had 4 “bad” primers leading up to, and at Nationals – all were Winchester) and will put all my match ammo in ammo boxes so I can visually inspect each round in addition to case gauging as I have been. My mental lapse at the NTC was more a result of me letting myself get flustered and out of my game and to combat that I am just going to be better prepared. I have ordered 3 new Single Stack mags so I don’t have to worry about losing or breaking one in the future.

It’s been a very good year overall, and I’ve learned a lot. Shooting well at a match is so much more than just pulling the trigger. Exercise, sleep, preparation, mental state, equipment and just plain ole luck all play such a huge role.

Now that I’ve earned my M card, there is so much more work to do and I am looking forward to it. 2008 will start after Thanksgiving, if I can lay off that long; I’m already missing the routine of practicing.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by, read, and made comments in my diary. Your thoughts, help, and advice are wonderful motivation for me and I have really enjoyed the experience.

See ya'll in a few weeks.

[Catfish]

'08 is here.

3 weeks to the day since I last touched a gun, I'm back in business. Nothing serious yet at this point, mostly just refamiliarizing myself with my 1911 and rebuilding up the callouses on my hands and fingers.

Probably won't be actually able to shoot a USPSA match till December, but that will give me a week or so to get back in the groove of the gun.

I had a good little break from anything remotely resembling practice and I'm ready to start building the base that will be necessary for success in '08.

I'm still somewhat mentally preparing my goals for the '08 season and as soon as I have something concrete that I can share, I will do so.

[Catfish]

Discipline

1. Discipline will be my driving force in '08. The discipline to practice, the discipline to focus, the discipline to take care of all the little things that contribute to a superior match performance.

2. No gifts. I fully realize that I'm not going to win every match I shoot; local or major. However, if you beat me, it's going to be because you beat me and not because I tanked a stage somewhere.

Between those two concepts, I think that covers it!

I've been hitting the gym for the past week, doing some moderate weight 5x5s - building up my hands and getting my body used to lifting the weight again. One more week of moderate lifts before I start hitting it hard again. Lesson learned from this year - don't just jump right into it!!!

First match in a month last night, IDPA with my local club. Nice to pick up the gun again and it felt good to be out there putting rounds downrange.

[Catfish]

All dressed up and nowhere to go

All set for the Tyler match today, but rain and the chance of rain have pretty much killed that plan.

Tyler is just too damn far away with $3 a gallon gas to drive out there and not shoot; which sucks, because I was ready to get back to USPSA land after my month off.

Oh well, not much I can do about it at this point other than go work on my teleportation machine.

[Al Capizzo]

You should have come out and joined us. We shot, although there was about a 30 minute delay getting started.

Ken Hicks shot single stack so you would have even had some competition.

I shot single stack also, but all I got to say is..."it sure is different than an Open gun!"

[Catfish]

You should have come out and joined us. We shot, although there was about a 30 minute delay getting started.

Ken Hicks shot single stack so you would have even had some competition.

I shot single stack also, but all I got to say is..."it sure is different than an Open gun!"

aagrhh.

I really really wanted to shoot against Hicks, too.