An Alarming Trend

[a-44978]

in 2 whole years in this great obsession(sport) i am seeing an alarming trend

Less and less new shooters.Why?.............................

I hear-tell IDPA is overwhelmed with new shooters (disclaimer),not to say ipsc competes for members no not my point.

What i see is an elitist attitude from several mid to higher handicapped shooters and Race gear intimidating an already nervous shooter.Coarse design sometimes being a little too racey.

"Who's the next victum?" "instead of whos the next shooter?"

It is an overriding attitude ,(macho jock) a whole picture that embarrasses me to be a part of at times.

2 years now b lim and damn proud of it i practice hard, but i have a place to practice and i don't have a wife and kids.

Others have different demands on their time and are not Bruce Jenner incarnate.

I got roped into VP of my local club and now i see the attitude "i paid my dues let them work now"(paste,set up tear down,etc)

ROs barking at shooters,etc. there have been exceptions to this (a few)

Now i have seen great shooters like Armondo Valdez take extra time to calm ,coach and teach beginners at the line (me being one)at local matches.He sets a great example i hope to follow forever,and everone needs to remember we were all slow and nervous in the beginning even Frank Garcia once told me "I was a D shooter at one time".

If everyone improves then the bar is raised higher for everyone ,stronger "Ds" make stronger "Cs" all the way up to GM

We can't do it without members.

Am i wrong?Maybe i need a brake.....

I don't know that i can stop this trend at my club,frankly i wuold rather drive 2 hours to shoot with other clubs.

ok ranting and venting time is over

AL B.

[EricW]

Well, let me tell you, all it takes is one rotten apple to spoil the barrel. One or two a-holes can kill a club in no time at all. There's too much other fun stuff to do in the world to have to put up with it. Virtually everyone has to drive an hour to get to a match anymore and most people won't bother if they're going to get bitched at by a bunch of crabby old farts or worse - drugstore commandos. That's what's killing off the shooting sports in general. Who the hell wants to deal with it?

The one shooting sport that's really expanding is Sporting Clays. People need to pull their heads out of their derrieres and figure out why: It's fun, relaxed, and it's a family atmosphere.

[BrianH]

Well, 15 years of this and you know what? Nothing changes.

You pretty much called it in your post....this is very intimidating when squaded with shooters who (seem to) know what they are doing.

The new shooters see that this is going to take practice; ie. time and money. You can suck at golf...swat the ball all over the course, nobody sees you except maybe a buddy or two. But it's a little different when you got a whole squad watching you're every move. Dudes don't want anyone to think that they don't "kick ass" at everything.

Guns, too. That's been around forever. It's not just that they think they "need" a tricked-out blaster...it's also that they "want" a tricked-out blaster. And for some, that's a tough sell back home. (They cost WHAATTT???!!!) And since the better shooters usually have some money in their gear, new guys see the gear and the scores, and think it's the gear. But that's American culture...we think we can buy everything.

If you've been going balls out for 2 years, you probably do need a break...(not a 'brake'...my boss just did that on his Vulcan...shattered his leg....). Maybe shoot another club for awhile. I think I retired 5 times, and my classifiers show it! (I SWEAR I shot a match in 1997 ). Just don't flip out or get too discouraged. It's not just the new shooters we have to worry about losing, it's also the dedicated shooters like yourself we need to hold on to as well.

[Madmark]

I can only answer personally. My membership in the USPSA has lapsed,and I am uncertain about renewing. I have missed the last 4 matches at my home club. I simply can't afford to play the game. There is a lot of used equipment out there, but how much reasonably priced useable equipment do you really think there is out there? I shoot open due to vision, and I have bought 2 open guns over the internet. Both of them were shot completely out. Most shooters won't part with a gun that functions dependably. And the new unsuspecting shooter is a target (no pun intended) for experienced shooters wishing to unload junk equipment. I cannot afford to do this a third time. It does not matter how old, ugly, scratched, or unfashionable a gun might be, if it works, you will have fun. If not, you will get discouraged. A friend loaned me a STI limited gun with a fiber optic front sight. The first time I held it, despite not being able to line up the sight, I shot 2nd overall, and jumped up a class on the classifier. All of my practice showed fruit. But shooting my old gun is only making me a GM in clearing malfunctions. Maybe open-10 would make a difference in the cost associated with pklaying the game. But for me, I just can't afford another bad piece of equipment. And I certainly can't afford a new one. I can suck at golf for a lot less money, and I can stink at archery for a mere pittance!

[Larry White]

I hate to say this, but its not a trend, its a constant. All you can really do is to spread enough goodwill to offset some of the jerks. We all get tired of the crap and some times you just have to step back, take a break and regenerate, this may take an hour or a year, but if you love the game you'll be back, and the game and you will be better for it. But just keep in mind that it is a game. Larry

[kimel]

I guess I got lucky. The clubs I shoot with aren't populated by Range Nazis or Gun Store Commandos. Just by good, honest, hard working folks that love to shoot.

Burnout is going to happen. The rules of sociology tell us than in any group, no matter the size, the majority of the work will be done by 7 plus/minus 4 people. The trick is to keep bringing people into the core group at a rate at least as fast as folks are falling away from the core due to burnout, other committments, etc.

I seems like too many clubs have a single MD & Stats person who is expected to design the whole mess, do the setup and the tear down and do all the stats and everything else. Meanwhile the shade tree contingent bitches that the match results don't get posted for a couple days. Goes great until that person gets sick of the whole thing burns out and then either someone picks up the slack or the club dies. Some clubs use a quarterly rotation of the stats and MD jobs to keep folks from frying to a crackly crunch. Sounds like a good idea to me...does it work? Anyone?

We shouldn't even try to compete for members with IDPA or SASS or anything else. We SHOULD try and get those folks to shoot with us too. IDPA/SASS/IPSC are not exclusive in that you can only shoot one. Trigger time is trigger time. Shoot 'em all if you want.

I don't know about the rest of the nation but locally I don't think Production is getting much of a push to the masses. I think that "we" built Production division for the common gun and figured folks would just magically show up to shoot it without a full court press media blitz. Didn't happen...at least not to the extent that it could/should have.

Hopefully the brochure insert campaign with new guns will help bring in new shooters. I bought a new Kimber the other day and inside was a VERY nice tri-fold full color brochure from USPSA. I was surprised because I wasn't even aware that they were doing this. Now if we can get Midway, Brownells, etc to drop these in their shipments too we might really start seeing some growth.

However, in order to grow in a healthy manner "we" need to have a solid infrastructure to support the rush of new shooters if/when they arrive in a safe manner. We need more qualified ROs, CROs and so on.

If you live near a larger city with an active USPSA contingent it looks like it is pretty easy to go to an RO course. If you live out in the sticks like I do or don't have an active group nearby then finding an RO course means significant travel expense. If I want to go to an RO course this year I have to take a day or two off work, miss a match weekend, drive 350+ miles, stay in a hotel for 2, maybe 3 nights and so on. Yeah, I will probably do that anyway but there are lots of folks out there that can't afford to do it. If a guy/gal can just barely afford ammo for the local match how can he/she afford $300 or more to attend an RO course?

Scraping 15 - 20 people together for an RO class is tough when you don't get 20 people at a match. I know, it is tougher on the guys that teach the RO courses. Travelling several weekends a month to teach the same stuff over and over again can't be a real thrill ride and they have to maximize their impact. Maybe we need more of those folks too. I don't have a good solution. I wish I did.

Later,

Kevin

[Matthew_Mink]

Here in central Arkansas, IDPA is losing shooters at an alarming rate. At our club, the USPSA program has seen an increase in participation over the last 6 months.

I don't know exactly what the cause is for either scenario, but I know I like seeing more and more USPSA shooters.

[rhino]

After seeing the results of the new divisions, I can see that Limited-10 is a huge success in my area both for experienced shooters and newbies. Production is doing well too, but I think that it could do a lot better if it were "sold" differently. The way it's marketed is more than a little condescending toward new shooters rather than making it clear that it's just an additional opportunity among others to participate.

The previous mention of one or two bad apples ruining it for everyone is very, very true. My home club is finally starting to feel like we're "back" after several collapses, mostly for that reason. Because of that, I make it a point to be vigilant for any disrespectful behavior and I try to make the atmosphere as positive and welcoming as possible.

[ORCA]

At our local club in Roanoke VA we've seen a large rise in the last year of people coming to the matches (me included), I believe nearly double. The main difference is a new match director. He is frendly and encouragining, puts on a good challenging match (you better like a lot of steel), sends out e-mails when he needs help, wrestles with the powers that be at the club for range equipment and improvements. We got a Texas star, a Texas windmill and a motorized rotator last month. He works hand and hand with the IDPA director. The last match director was lucky to get 15 people to come to a match, the new one had 20 show up to move rocks to improve the range and 35 to the first match this year.

To get more RO's he got the club to help pay for a RO class, I believe if you were a club member the fee was $30 and $50 for non club members. We now have 20 certifed RO's.

Most people at the club shoot production, limited-10, or limited.

[Duane Thomas]

In this years Handguns Annual - coming soon to a newsstand near you - I have an article on USPSA Production division titled "Stock Pistols Invade Combat Handgunning!" Maybe that can make a few more people aware of Production.

[ErikW]

I wish I had more patience with new shooters. I wish I could take them under my wing and show them how to be safe. But what happens is this...

These guys show up who don't even know how to manipulate their handguns. They need to be taking NRA basic handgun safety 101, not competing in a match. It's like a 16-year-old getting a driver's license and heading to the local stock car track, but worse.

But I can't help them out because I'm busy RO'ing with ShooterGrrl's husband because we're about the only people in the squad willing or qualified to run the clock and clipboard.

[Paul B]

I think we have to do everything we can to attract new shooters to our competitions. The more that come, the more will stay. The more that stay, the more will work. This prevents the burnout that any of us who run or set-up or score matches have or will encounter. It is refreshing to see new blood take over a club that has begun to die on the vine because the people are just running out of energy to make the match a fun experience for all.

Attracting new shooters is part attitude and part organization. Very little is national level advertising. The following is a post I put on the "members only" USPSA board several days ago. It describes what I've seen work.

I can't tell you how many new shooters I've seen come to a match once and never show up again. They either found out that they simply didn't like the sport or the competitive parts of it or something at the club turned them off. There are 2 clubs in my area of the country that paint a very interesting contrast in retention of new shooters or shooters who have caught the "bug."

Club number 1: Has their own website and it is always up to date with results, schedules, and new items of interest. Their matches start with the club providing coffee and donuts and drinks as part of the match fee. Their matches are always at least 5 stages and they are fun stages to shoot. No head shots at 25 yards because it was easy to set up. No sea of no-shoots. No 180 traps. They do have accuracy oriented stages, but also hosers that will give every shooter a chance to have fun. Their stages aren't won by who misses least, but by who shot more A's in the fastest time - and there is a difference. They have a fairly large and growing contingent of helpers to set things up and they treat the shooter as a customer.

Club Number 2: Their Website is always out of date. They do provide a verbal welcome. Their stages are very accuracy oriented and new shooters often take well over a minute to shoot them with high miss counts while the few really good shooters do OK. Their small contingent of helpers are just burned out. Their attitude is that if the shooters don't like the stages, let them shoot somewhere else.

Club number 1 has brought in a constant flow of new shooters who catch the "bug." They have taken a group of 25 plus shooters who were all classified "U" last year to "C" and "B" shooters this year. More are still coming with match attendance of 50 to 60 and growing. Club number 2 always has less than 30, sometimes less than 20 with seldom a new shooter attending more than once. It's pretty obvious that club number 1 has philosophically joined the camp of "we need new shooters" and club number 2 really does not care about this issue. I know that I'll shoot just about anywhere cause I just love to do it, but it sure is a lot more fun at club number 1. That's what I call a shooter friendly environment.

[Steve Anderson]

EVERYONE I talk to about shooting ipsc/uspsa for the first time is convinced that you have to have an open gun to show up.

(course, I am usually wearing an open gun during the conversation.)

At our last match, we had 12 new shooters, most had no idea in which division they should shoot.

I plan to make a flyer for our two prominent gunshops, publicizing prod, lim 10 and our .22 division.

I will start asking the new ones how they heard and whether they plan to come back.

I can understand the stress of 4 newbies on a squad where the RO is the most experienced (therefore competitive) shooter. That's tough to handle when you're tring to be the bullet and shoot well.

SA

[Dowter]

Club Number 2: ...Their stages are very accuracy oriented and new shooters often take well over a minute to shoot them with high miss counts while the few really good shooters do OK...

*slight drift mode on*

OK, but where is the happy medium where new shooters aren't intimidated by the accuracy and experienced shooters can find a challenge.

I've had ideas that I thought would make a fun challenge that were put down because new shooters wouldn't like them. ok...

So what's a good rule of thumb to keep experienced and new shooters having fun?

BTW - Most new shooters miss because they are just trying to go way too fast for their current skill level. I don't remember too many shots at matches that new shooters couldn't make if they took their time.

[shred]

I had an interesting conversation with some new shooters the other day after a match-- they didn't mind the harder shots on long paper because they could throw a couple shots at it and move on. What they didn't like was the far off steel which took forever to down, and courses that took more ammo than they had with them or could carry. Most first-timers don't show up with enough ammo carriers to shoot 40 round stages..

I don't know if all new shooters are like this, but take a few minutes after the match to ask "what did you like, what did you not like?"

[Ironman]

Something that I would like to share with all of you is that I am relatively new to this type of shooting and have brought two more shooters into it in the last 6 months. My wife and I also own a Martial Arts club and it is the same thing there. The newbie’s bring in more newbie’s because of the different circle of friends that they influence. So the best advice I can give is to make sure they have fun. On that note I must say that I was treated with respect and with a friendly attitude by most of the people that I have come in contact with during the matches. I shot once with Mike V., Taren and a bunch of the big boys. It was the most fun I have had at a match because they were so helpful and friendly. I hope to help more with a local club someday when I get a little more experience. JMTCW

Jim

[Detlef]

Shred,

Area 4 Championships is a nice (or rather, not so nice) example. My first year was 1998, it was one of the best matches I had ever shot, lotsa cool stages, 320 competitors, nearly everyone that had a name in IPSC was there to admire. Now, 5 y later, with 3 more divisions, participation has gone down to a record low of around 220, and most *name shooters* don't show up any more. I am asking *Why*? It often helps to look at a specific example, Area 4 is one. And yes, I didn't attend...

--Detlef

[benos]

Detlef,

The Area 3 and 4 matches, in those years, were the place to be. One observation - Both gave away a boatload of prizes and cash. Boatloads of cash and prizes attract the big dogs who are trying to eke out a living by shooting. The big dogs presence attracts the lesser dogs who, maybe, hope to have a chance to see or study the big dogs in action, just be part of the excitement of shooting with/against the big dogs, and maybe take home some of the cash or prizes themselves. I know that is a simplistic or one-sided answer; but over the years, I observed MANY matches, including those two, slowly die as the cash went away.

be

[Rufus The Bum]

Our IDPA membership is slowly dwindling away, but our USPSA membership is steady, but not growing. We are lucky enough to have a large Air Force Base in town and get a few new members now and then. I have tried beyond measure to get the Security Policeman to come out and shoot, but they won't. Why is this? I think it's because they are taught that their limited training makes them lethal or something. I had the unfortunate pleasure of being confronted by a 4 foot 2 female security policeman on the flightline recently, she commenced to telling me how they are trained to carry and use lethal weapons without hesitation blah blah blah, I grinned and said "yes maám you are" I think that attitude is why they don't shoot, they already think they are better. As far as us normal folks go, I think it comes down to each clubs attitude towards new members, make them feel welcome and they will come back. Make them feel like they are interfering with the good shooters, then they won't come back.

[THS]

Rufus,

I know MANY Military Police types, and I think they stay away for several reasons. The biggest is pride. I talked to Ernie Langdon many years ago when he was a Marine Sergeant at our tier 2 school for people going overseas in hostile billets known as High Risk Personnel course, (HRP for short). Ernie was THE MAN at HRP, and was pretty arrogant about it. Then he decides to come to a IPSC shoot on our unit facility one weekend in '94 I think. By his own admission, he expected to crush everyone there. Diddn't happen! Not even close. Last year at the Summer Blast he told me that was an eye-opener for him. He was the best in our top level school, and realized he needed to look outside the box to get better. He used it to improve; most simply choose not to see where they fit in the big picture.

Most of the MP's I see think they are the cat's butt already, and feel intimidated by competition.

Most are doing a job, one they got picked for, and most could give a damn about firearms beyond that.

Most do not own gear, nor do they have a place to store guns and or ammo.

Most get less that 300 rounds PER YEAR from our uncle for training.

I wish I could get MP's and other LEO's too, to get involved.

Tom

[kimel]

I agree Tom. I have talked to many of the LEOs in the area and I am continually surprised that the majority of them fire less in a year than I do in a single practice session. I have even invited them to come out and shoot with me at practice, I will supply the ammo but have had no takers yet. Why? I finally had one admit that they were afraid to get their butt kicked. I guess it is easier to try and preserve the mythos that cops are good shots and hope they don't get proven wrong than to actually work on being a good shot.

The majority of LEOs these days are simply not interested in firearms. Their guns are just tools that they hope they never have to use. I suspect that many are actually a bit anti-gun.

While there are lots of LEOs that shoot IPSC/IDPA I think the majority do not and are not interested.

And people wonder why there is this enormous interest in concealed weapons permits.

NO! I am not trashing LEOs. I have relatives that are/were LEOs and I take my hat off to them for doing the job that they do. I couldn't do it and I am grateful that they can. I DO respect the LE community, probably more than most.

One place that I think we CAN mine successfuly are college/university campuses. Keep in mind that most campuses forbid their students from posessing firearms in their dorm rooms. Where I work, students can store their firearms at the campus police dept. This can make it real tough for them to retrieve them Sunday morning before a match. So, we may have to help by loaning them guns or holding their guns overnight so they can have them at the match.

Have any clubs tried an outreach program on a college/university campus?

How about colleges that have a Criminal Justice program? Those students might be realllll interested in getting their feet wet with firearms training and use. How about ROTC units? It would seem that there would be a lot of potential 3-gun folks in those.

Yeah, most college students don't have a lot of bucks. So, we help them out a bit by loaning them guns on match day and maybe providing them some ammo. They are also youthful and full of energy and can certainly help out with the grunt work on the range.

Or are we MAFGs afraid of getting OUR butts kicked by the younger generation?

Maybe USPSA needs a new category "MAFG" so we don't have to compete head-to-head with the younger crowd.

[Dowter]

One place that I think we CAN mine successfuly are college/university campuses.

I came up with that idea too awhile ago. For a demographic that likes "Extreme Sports" IPSC would seem like an easy sell. Albeit caution would be necessary in courting a group that is also into danger. (We like exreme safety )

This reminds me of another trend that I noticed. The black hole in membership between the ages of 18-28. I'm 30 and I'm one of the youngsters among the adults. There is also some kids there (under 18) but they're there because of their dads.

I'm not sure what to with the 18-20 group since they are adults BUT can't legally buy a handgun. (at least not in my state). But I think that we can get those college juniors and seniors interested in the sport.

One last idea from me.

Instead of the USPSA trying to mount massive ad campaigns to promote the USPSA why don't they invest some time and money in creating programs that teach individual clubs to go out and recruit new members. I think that a potential shooter would be more impressed by a person from his community than a commercial on TV. You know, grass roots stuff.

[grassy knoll]

my experience is a bit different, Canada we have a few clubs looking at IDPA but we just don't have the culture for it, IPSC is growing in numbers and I am glad that we lose a few members sometimes, the sport isn't for everybody.

[John Thompson]

An LE perspective from an actual LE trainer:

It is very true that most cops are led to believe or at least allowed to beleive that they have all the training that they need. However; this isn't the whole reason. Another is that the gun symbolizes the job and when off duty the last thing some guys need is to be walking around holding that symbol and never being able to get away. That is why I don't shoot the gun that I carry.(I hate being bugged about that) Another reason is the ego thing and also just having different priorities in life. We have paintball matches with other PD's and while eveyone has a really good time it's rare that anyone goes twice.

[shred]

I've posted a few times the broad demographics of IPSC shooters:

"Kids" - Brought by their parents, they do well until they discover girls, cars and college.

"Pre-Kids" - Done with school, got a job, have disposable income and looking for something to do. Once they start having kids, they tend to drift away for a while until the kids are old enough for them to be

"Post-Kids" - Done with raising kids (sometimes they'll bring 'em), looking for something to do.

I'm not sure there's a large population of college students with the disposable income and free time to get into IPSC-- Certainly any dry-fire in any dorm around here would get you booted in a hurry.

And it's definately true that it takes a certain mindset to stick with IPSC-- we naturally think that cop-type people would want to do this because they carry guns all day long, but many of them no more want to play with guns than construction workers want to do cabinetry on weekends.