Turtle Moving Up

[markwilliston]

Must have been a good leg workout yesterday, cause my butt hurts, have a hard time getting up or sitting down, and I'm walkin funny But it's a good kind of sore. Today was chest day, it's feeling good. I'm stickin with free weights, I want everything working together.

The club match last weekend, and the qualifier coming up in april are upping the motivation for dry fire. Right now, short term goal is to make reloading a strength. I have no idea how Pharaoh Benders glock hasn't crumpled from reload drills. I've had a steel magwell in my gun for 2 months and it's allready dinged up!

Chapter 7: Train the Mind

Samurai Strategies

[Chris Conley]

You reloading with full mags loaded with dummy rounds? Seems to help a little with the dings. My SV is still beat all to hell though.

Chris C.

[markwilliston]

Hey Chris,

I do practice with the mags full of dummy rounds. It's a pretty significant change in weight of both the mag and the gun. Plus if the gun really jams up, you can throw a mag at the target, I bet it would score major

Thanks for the input,

Mark

[markwilliston]

Woke up sore and tired this morning, so I must be doing something right. Had a decent back workout today, I'm keeping the weight light for my right elbow and burning the back out with reps. Elbow is a little tender tonight, but nothing that Ibuprofen won't take care of. If it's still bugging me before my two week stint of flying at the end of april, I'll look at a cortizone shot before I leave. Let it work while I'm gone.

Tomorow I have to go to Toronto for 4 days of flying the following afternoon. So no shooting or dry fire for a few days coming up. Tonight split dry fire up while doing laundry. I hit reloads first, then two more drills and a break. After the break 1 more drill and finished with reloads again with a lower par time.

When I look at a point, the gun draws on the point, smooth and fast.

More and more baby steps are coming together. It's going to be a great year.

Chapter 8: Clear the Mind

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

Yesterday started in New York up at 8am. We flew out of LaGuardia back to Toronto, then did a turn down to Dallas and back. That was my work day, which finished at 9:15pm eastern. Next step, hop on the last flight back to Vancouver and get in the door at 2am. I got a few hours sleep on the flight home, but today I am worn out. Still did chest day at the gym, left shoulder isn't great but otherwise good workout.

I put in an order for 10,000 bullets, and primers, and a few pounds of tumbling media. Was supposed to pick it up this afternoon, but inspecting the insides of my eyelids seemed like a much better idea.

Dryfire was excellent tonight, weakhand and reloads are catching up to everything else. First qualifier of the year is this saturday, there is one on sunday as well, but I'll be flying in Toronto on sunday

Live fire thursday, range setup for the match friday (hopefully some shooting as well) it's gonna be a busy week.

Chapter 9: The Power of Emptiness

Samurai Strategies

[Chris Conley]

You gotta get your sleep for sure. I have to be at work @ 0600 and I get up at 0300 to dryfire. One reason is that I am way too tired to do it when I get home at night and sometimes there is too much going on when I get home. I used to do it early in the morning no matter how tired I was but this led to getting burned out and took a fishing trip to get out of it and didn't touch a gun for a week. Some mornings I don't feel like dryfiring if I had a hard 14 hour shift the day before and I don't. It has helped alot. I don't feel guilty anymore about missing a day here or there. Working them 50 hour weeks can wear on you. So get some sack time, it will help you in the long run.

Chris C.

Edited April 4, 2007 by headhunter25

[markwilliston]

Sleep is pretty important, I've been learning to juggle it when going to work or coming home from work includes a 5 hour plane ride over 3 time zones...

I'm a morning person for hitting the gym, but I have been finding I enjoy doing dryfire later in the evening. When I am home in Vancouver it's a "day off" if there is such a thing.

Today I learned that it takes 7000 grains to make one pound. I met up with Murray after the gym (heavy leg day) to pick up some of the bullets and primers that I ordered. He had 7000 200gr LSWC for me, and 5000 Federal large pistol primers, and 8 lbs of tumbler media. Loaded up the back of the corvette and brought it all home. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass living in an apartement grab two boxes of bullets (60 lbs) walk across the underground parking lot, lean against wall while getting keys out to get into the building, wait for elevator... lean against wall to press button for 18th floor Repeat 3 times... It's all good now, and my reloading bench is very well stocked for the next little bit.

Dryfire was pretty awesome tonight. The speed has been coming up on all the excercises, I can look at any point, and draw the gun freestyle/strong or weak hand, and I know the front sight will be lined up with the point I was focused on. Doubling up on the burkett reloads has paid off in a couple tenths.

Live fire tomorow, looking forward to it. Now it's time for a hot bath.

Chapter 10: Learn From your Oponents

Samurai Strategies

[Catfish]

Excellent, keep it up!

[markwilliston]

Not enough hours in the day, just gonna write this and hit the pillow. One of my goals for this year was to not be loading match ammo the night before a match. I beat it by one day for this qualifier Now I have probably two matches worth of match ammo prepped, cleaned, chamber checked and ready to rock and roll.

Started the day with a pretty good back workout, staying light on the weight is keeping my elbow happy, so that's a good thing.

We had a good long live fire this afternoon. I wanted to do a bit on my own, so I went out a little early. Everyone else had the same idea First practice of the year with the regular gang of Murray, Tracey, Brad and myself. Started off with my aftec not aftecing, I don't know what happened, but something isn't working with it. Didn't want to mess with it today, so the old standby went back in and ran fine.

We practiced some of the fixed time standards for the weekend. The weakhand excercise was working well for me with a good draw, and good shots. The next excercise was giving me brain farts with, 3 targets 2 shots each, reload, 2 shots each target strong hand only. Good draw, good cadence, half decent reload, but I'll be damned if I could get the gun back on target without having both hands on it! Got it sorted out after a couple tries, just funny conditioning. Then after watching me do it, Brad did the same thing... Throughout the practice I seemed to be pushing the first shot off the draw pretty hard to the left. Just squeeze the trigger.

Overall good practice, now sleepy time so we can do it again tomorow!

Chapter 11: Pay Attention to Details

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

Friday morning, up at 7:15 to be at the range for an hour of shooting before starting setup for the weekend qualifier. Good practice, and long day setting up the range. Pounded a LOT of spikes....

Saturday match day, normally shoot half the day and work a stage half a day. In my case shoot in the morning, and catch a flight to Toronto in the afternoon.

Qualifier #3

The match went very well, learned a lot and had a great time. With me having to be in Toronto saturday night I wasn't sure if time would allow me to shoot with a squad through the morning, or just shoot through and get it done. I started off with a great squad that i have shot before, and just watched the clock. It worked out perfect.

Right off the bat I'll thank fellow squad mates Don Leedham, Charlene Vilkas, John Mavritsakis, Steve Price, and the rest. There was a ton of experience on the squad and I appreciate the help, and enjoyed the day.

We started on Stage 3, fairly easy stage. Made a mental booboo on the first part of the stage. 4 targets pretty close up with no shoots between, shooting and backing away to move to the next part. The last target, my eyes registered the miss but I kept going. Made good time, and Don pointed out starting with feet together and starting the movement on the draw, that worked great. 10 points down for a miss on a smaller stage was killer. Learned from it, time to move on.

38/54, 61 points 10.64 seconds, 5.4 hit factor, 49.88%

Stage 4

Straight forward stage, little weird picking up the loaded gun off a table.

23/54, 79 points, 12.22 seconds, 6.46 hit factor, 64%

Stage 5

Probably biggest mental booboo of the match, but that's okay. It was a more complicated stage with two sides to the stage with swingers on both sides. I'm still working on nailing swingers so I would rather get the suckers moving, nail everything else then finish the swingers at the end. Don (who is a former National Champ, and current Provincial Champ) suggested just shooting the left side (7 shots), reload then the right side (9 shots). Done, easy. I should have stuck with that plan I had a plan, but it wasn't 100% in my mind and that's not the way to start a stage I ended up looking around to see what the hell it was that I hadn't hit yet. Oh well.

32/54, 44 points, 23.67 seconds 1.85 hit factor, 32%

Stage 6

No big comments, just work on foot speed.

22/54, 85 points, 18.55 seconds, 4.58 hit factor, 62%

Stage 7

Good plan, shot it well, work on shooting close up targets on the move. Would have saved 2 seconds.

23/54, 89 points, 13.85 seconds, 6.42 hit factor, 60%

Stage 8

Fixed time We have been putting a lot of practice time into these. There was one thing in practice that I didn't pick up, kinda important. DON'T shoot AFTER the BUZZER It cost, but I won't do that again. It was soo funny with Tracey the other day too I was saying, aww come on you can get one more shot!

Even with 2 procedurals I still ate this one up pretty well.

18/54, 64 stage points, 62%

Stage 9

I lit this one up big time! 3 full size targets, 2 A-zone only targets. Nailed it

5/54, 37 points, 4.68 seconds, 7.9 hit factor, 89%

Stage 10

This stage was on the same range as stage 9, and we loaded for stage 10 after finishing stage 9. I flipped the lock on my CR speed before stepping out of the box. Somebody forgot to flip the lock off the holster.... Aparently if I would have really yanked on it, the gun might have come out of the holster. Anyhow after the first yank, awwww s#$t!! flipped the tab, and got the job done. Oh and one miss too.... Those are very expensive.

39/54, 21 points, 7.35 seconds, 3.03 hit factor, 30%

Stage 1

Good stage, no real comments

18/54, 78 points, 11.02 seconds, 7.07 hit factor, 67%

Stage 2

My head wasn't thinking more about getting my ass home/changed/off to the airport, than one the stage. I dropped more C's and D's that I should have.

31/54, 67 points, 13.97 seconds, 4.79 hit factor, 54%

Overall:

24/54, 61%

VERY HAPPY with that. Allready a big step up from last year, and looking forward to more. Was back on the road by 12:30, home at 1:15. Quick shower, grab my bags and out the door by 2, made the 3:15 flight to Toronto. Piece of cake.... Now 5 days of flying out of Toronto before some time back in Vancouver.

[markwilliston]

Just spent the day walking around seeing the sites of Washington DC, really a beautiful city. Also gave me time to ponder where I am at with shooting after my first qualifier of the year.

Shooting from one position, I can shoot with the big boys. Movement drills need more work, both getting from A to B and shooting on the move.

Fixed time/stronghand/weakhand excercises seemed to work out pretty well. I need to spend more time on swinger targets though.

I am very happy with how the year is starting off, and it's only going to get better!

[Catfish]

You can get some free work on swinging targets on Burkett's website. He's got some of his dry fire drills online that include swinging targets....

[markwilliston]

Thanks fish, he has some good stuff on there.

Yesterday started in Houston waking up at 4:15 to be downstairs for 5am checkin. Really good breakfast burrito in the terminal, and pushed back just before 6:30am. After getting back to Toronto we were supposed to do a Chicago turn, then I was gonna head back to Vancouver. Fortunately we got a message that the chicago flight was cancelled, so I got to head home early (in time for live fire practice ) Got home and did the opposite of when I left home last saturday. Got changed, grabbed the gun bag etc... and headed for the range. We did some movement drills, mostly I wanted to go out for the after match debrief at Starbucks. Oh, and I got HARDWARE from the match Tracey had a first place D class trophy for my 61.42%. Hopefully next qualifier will have me well out of D. We went over the stages together, and came up with places for improvment as a group. Looking forward to next live fire pratice.

Some meathead forgot too turn off the alarm clock on his cellphone, so at 4:15am this morning my damn phone woke me up , got back to sleep easlily enough. Still pretty exhausted so only did Bi's at the gym this morning.

Dryfire tonight, once again kinda pooped, but worked my way through half an hour worth of drills.

Chapter 12: The Power of Silence

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

Training in the gym has been going great, had an awesome leg day on saturday, and chest and tri's on sunday. The workouts were good enough that I really wasn't moblile enough for dry fire those days . This morning was light back day, and the intent was live fire on my own this afternoon, then group shoot this evening.

When I got out of the gym, it was raining BIG TIME. Decided on Dryfire, dry at home. Went out for live fire practice with the gang tonight. Did some movement drills, some draw and two shot drills, and some multi target different distance drills. One thing I think always looks neat when somebody wings the wooden sticks the targets are stapled too. It's fun seeing chunks of wood fly. I decided to play chainsaw on the stick a where it was sticking out just above the target. Two mags later it fell over

Chapter 13: Change the Rules of Engagement

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

There was a hail storm when I got to the gym this morning, it never hails in Vancouver. Had a decent, but light shoulder workout. My left shoulder is still grinding, but it doesn't hurt as much.

Dryfire was excellent tonight, really really solid. Went over a couple drills I hadn't done in a while and they felt good. It is gonna be an AWESOME year.

Tomorow I am going over to Nanaimo to wake up my little airplane, it's been in storage since new years. I hope it's not too mad at me.

[markwilliston]

Yesterday wasn't very productive shooting or gym wise, but I did get a lot of other stuff done. Got over to Nanaimo and woke up the airplane, ran it, filled it up with gas and it's all ready to run up to Oliver tomorow for it's annual checkup.

This morning was leg day, swapped in Front squats instead of hack squats. Getting stronger, but not pushing too hard, wanna get my body in good shape all the way around before really pushing things. It's not quite there yet.

Live fire this afternoon. Good weather, first day shooting in shorts this year. We did mostly movement drills, diagonal forward, diagonal rearward, straight forward and back. We took a break when one of the RCMP (northern version of FBI) instuctors came over to visit. It's always fun talking about shooting. When we got back into it, did a bunch of shoot one, reload shoot one drills. and then finished with 4 mags worth of Bill drills.

My draws were kicking butt today, from 10 yards good hits 1.3-1.5 up close at 5 yards good hits 0.9-1.2

Reloads went pretty well, still need work. I was getting them down to 1.5 but not so sure on the hits

Shooting on the move is feeling better and better each time we do it.

Bill drills, I was all A's between 2.05-2.1 One time I got it down to 1.95 but there was a C on the draw. Still VERY happy with that. I really enjoy the group that I practice with, it's always positive, and it's good to push each other to do better.

Saturday, I have to go back to Toronto for the better part of two weeks of flying. That's gonna be a long time with no shOOting On a lighter not, it apprears I just bought a long gun. I kinda wanted a 308, and asked Murray to keep an eye out for one for me. It's a 308 Norma Magnum, with a 30" heavy heavy barrel, Mauser action, awesome trigger. At first I didn't want the oddball cartridge but after reading more on it, I'll try it out and see how it goes. Don't think there is gonna be a lot of time for it, but at least I have it Always ready to learn something new.

Chapter 14: The Power of Fear

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

Back yesterday from a whirlwind tour of east coast early mornings. Had a wonderful warm day walking around DC. The captain and I decided to visit the holocaust museum, we've all seen pictures of what happened. It was interesting seeing it all presented in one place, although not the most pleasant thing I am glad we went. I didn't get to spend a day in Dallas as I hoped. A panicked call from crew sked about somebody missing a wake up call had to off to Houston for the day instead. Another bright side, on the oh so early shuttle ride to the airport in DC, I noticed Gold's gym a block away from our hotel! SWEET! I have two overnights with good workouts to look forward to next month.

Legs day this morning, went very well. Had my trainer take a peek at me on the legpress, she was happy with the range of movement. She also said I was putting meat on my legs so that's good

Picked up a new toy after the gym. Been keeping an eye out for a 308, seeing as there allready isn't enough hours in the day one more toy can't hurt right? Murray had a gun come in that he wanted me to see. 30" heavy heavy barrel, mauser 98 action, awesome trigger, bunch of other stuff with it. It's in 308 Norma Magnum, which at first didn't seem like a good idea. After some reading, I decided what the hell. There's a bunch of brass and dies, and bullets etc... with it. With no scope it weighs something like 14 lbs... should be fun once it's setup.

The day was really going well, and the plan was for live fire in the afternoon. Unfortunately I got a not soo good call from my mom. She has been back in Montreal helping out with my grandpa who has been on the downhill slide for the last while. Today was his last day I should be happy for him that's he's not uncomfortable anymore, but damn he was a good grandpa. Really miss him

[Gameplayer]

Mark, condolences to you and your family.

[markwilliston]

Thanks GamePlayer, appreciate it.

It's time to get my head back in the game. With everything going on, I hadn't touched my gun in 10 days. That's a long time... There's a club match tomorow at TMSA, so I went out for some live fire practice today. Mostly just to get the gun back in hand.

When I read some of the other diaries, some people keep closer track to how much they shoot. I have a cardboard box in my range bag. Before I leave home, I take the lid off one of the bullet pails by the reloading bench and scoup however many handfulls of bullets into the box till I figure it's enough (or heavy enough) for todays practice

Todays practice wasn't a defined plan on anything in particular, just wanted to hit a little bit of everything to get it back into my brain.

Started with a few groups off the bench, which went very well. The gun still works Then did some draws, reloads, shooting on the move left to right, and right to left. I wasn't sharp, but it felt good to get back on track.

Time for a good sleep, and club match in the morning!

Chapter 15: Confuse your Oponent

Samurai Strategies

[markwilliston]

Shot a club match at TMSA on sunday and it went pretty damn well. We had 20 shooters in standard, here is the top 10 overall:

1 100.00 680.7979 7 Randy F S M

2 67.78 461.4501 24 Lewis K C

3 65.21 443.9216 33 Andrew C B

4 64.64 440.0927 31 Andrew L C

5 64.63 439.9789 18 Mark W D

6 63.09 429.5407 21 Stephen L B

7 62.20 423.4284 17 Tracey M B

8 57.05 388.3996 16 Philip S C

9 56.87 387.1783 1 Sheldon W C

10 54.62 371.8796 15 Edgardo M S C

complete results here:

TMSA April 29 club match results

Club matches are fun and kinda weird at the same time. The stages are published so it's a big unknown when you show up. Gotta come up with a plan that works, and will stick in my brain without having thought about it before hand. We had a fun group of people in our and most of us were shooting Standard so it was fun pushing each other to do well at each stage.

A friend of mine wanted to come out and watch, which worked out pretty well cause I put him in charge of the video camera

TMSA club match video

Tactical booboo on the first video stage which is stage 4, if I would have left the last mini poper alone after missing it. Would have placed higher than reloading for 1 shot.

The next stage was a weird fixed time stage. 4 targets at 15 yards, and 2 more at 25 yards. 10 seconds, mandatory reload after the 6th shot, maximum 4 shots on target. 2 shooting strings. On the second string for watever reason reloaded after 5 shots and got a procedural.

Stage 6 was a fun blaster stage. 3 shots on each paper, two steel on either end. Almost went through the barrels on the left hand side

Stage 1 way back up at the top of the hill. This was the most complicated stage, with mulitple positions and back and forth to get everything. Kept it as simple as I could. Bobble at the second spot looking for targets otherwise happy stage.

When I was setting goals for this year I really wasn't sure how high to aim. I use Steve Anderson's book, no doubt it is making a huge difference for me. No excuses, I don't get to dry fire every night, and dry fire practice isn't an hour and a half for me. I try and keep it around 30-45 minutes. I knew I wasn't going to be a "D" ranked shooter for too long, not worried about that, I"m just curious to see where I can end up by the end of the year. Things are definitely looking up

I'm away flying again, so no dryfire till next sunday just gonna have to do some good reading in the meantime

[markwilliston]

Whirlwind week, Montreal on monday for Grandpa's funeral. 4 days of flying started on wedsneday and the schedule went out the window pretty quick. First night in Atlanta, second night back in Toronto, friday night in New York, then home just after midnight on saturday.

This morning I felt kinda like I was run over by a truck... had some breakfast, and managed to get my candy ass off to the gym for a light leg workout. Tonight I didn't feel much like dry fire, I am just plain whupped. I emailed the gang, to confirm everyone is in for practice tomorow, and put together Tracey's video from last weekend. Got the timer out, put the belt and gun on and did a good half hour of dry fire.

The Prince George qualifier is less than two weeks, gotta step it up a notch. Live fire tomorow, right now time for 12 hours sleepy....

[markwilliston]

Only home for a couple days so make the most of it. Up early, load of laundry and big breakfast before the gym. Chest day, along with rotator work on my shoulders. It all felt good, pushed the weight up a little on dumbell bench and it didn't hurt, so that's good.

12 days left before next qualifier, if I had more hair left it would be on fire... there isn't enough hours in the day right now. Made an afternoon, and evening of shooting today. Live fire practice on my own this afternoon, my energy really wasn't into it. I did some work off the bench, tried to relax. Enjoyed the sunshine, and picked a bunch of brass.

Evening shoot after dinner, with Murray, Tracey, Jim and Dave. Jim is getting back into IPSC this year, and Dave is brand new. We mostly did Standards for the qualifier. If anything, I need to come off the gas a little. My comfort level is good, we did the targets at a longer distance than the match will be and my hits were excellent.

It's fun having new shooters out. Dave does long gun shooting, but it's fun seeing somebody where I was a year ago. Making sure they take their time, nice slow solid A's. Plus just getting them used to the sequence before and after a course of fire. SLOW DOWN

We finished with a few mags of Bill Drills, I managed a 1.96 with a 1.03 draw. Did get 3 C's out of it though... I know, I know if it's not all A's it don't count....

Plan for the week:

Tuesday, Back workout in the morning. Get the right 200gr LSWC bullets that my gun likes... Pick up my Long gun if it's ready. Dry fire in the evening, work on reloads.

Wedsneday, Arm workout in the AM, plus Dry Fire. Catch afternoon flight to Toronto.

Thurday through Saturday hop, skip and jump around the east coast with overnights in Boston, and DC. Gonna get a good workout in DC cause Gold's is a block from the hotel.

Saturday afternoon, back to Vancouver, and dry fire in the evening.

Sunday morning, Leg and shoulder workout, and live fire if possible (need bullets and powder between now and then...) either sunday night or monday get my butt back to Toronto for my first recurrent Simulator training on tuesday and wedsneday. After sim on wedsneday get my butt back to Vancouver ASAP, and maybe live fire or dry fire weds night.

Thursday, chest workout in the morning, live fire in the afternoon leave my gun and stuff with Murray to take to Prince George.

Friday, Brad travels with me to Prince George for the match. Piece of cake...

Chapter 16: The mind as a Weapon

Samurai Strategies

Edited May 8, 2007 by markwilliston

[JThompson]

Way to spank those upper classes bro...

[markwilliston]

Okay, I'm back

Way to spank those upper classes bro...

Thanks,

I do like that part

Okay, I just survived hell week... Pretty much been going flat out since last thursday. Only had the gun in hand for some live fire on Sunday with Tracey. That went pretty well, we did some drills for the match coming up this weekend.

Tuesday and wedsneday in Toronto this week were my first recurrent sims at work. It was pretty heavy duty, with mutilple compound fractures of the ego. After just under four hours in the box this morning starting in at 5:30am.... well lets just say I had enough Finished debriefing at 10:23am, and made the 11am flight home Walked in the door, at just after 2pm. Quick check of email shows the gang going for practice at 3:30pm... One protein shake, and a range bag and out the door.

We had a pretty decent live fire today with Murray, and Tracey. One of the stages for the weekend starts with the gun unloaded, back to target. I had been doing a fair wack of turn and draws, but never turn, draw, and load.

Identified a bad habit that I had picked up with my trigger finger. After the shot goes off, I was taking my finger off the trigger. I think we fixed it, and it showed on the paper. The lack of dryfire the last couple weeks is showing. On the bright side my stress level just dropped to close to Zero, so it's gonna be a fun weekend.

For now, time for 10-12 hours of sleep.

[markwilliston]

10 hours of sleep was wonderful. I really really didn't wanna go to the gym this morning, in fact I could have gone back to bed. I do need the gym, so I went figuring I would feel much better after Just did an easy full body workout so I won't be a cripple for the match over the weekend. At the end, I still felt like crap

Loaded up some more match ammo and ran it all through the tumbler before chamer checking them. I don't mind loading on a nice sunny day, cause I can tan at the press... which I actually did today. Cleaned up all my mags sitting on the balcony, kinda relaxing. Everything all packed for Prince George.

Live fire with Tracey tonight, honestly I could have slept instead I am just plane worn out. We did have a good practice though, worked on the standards for the match. One is a modified El Presidente starting with the gun unloaded, and from 6 or 7 yards. Tracey nailed it pretty nice, and I wasn't far behind her. The other standard is 6 targets, farther 12m, closest 2m and some kind of vision barrier. First string 1 shot each target freestyle, reload after the 6th shot, 1 shot each target strong hand in 10 seconds. Second string the same, but weakhand after the reload. I think I'm gonna eat this stage up.

Time for a very intense pillow and eyelid inspection. It's gonna be a fun weekend.