CHA-LEE's Tale

[Vanniek71]

Thanks Dom, appreciate it!

It may not be GM juice, but I bet it's worth a class bump at least!

Sorry for the thread jack CHA-LEE!

Edited July 14, 2015 by Vanniek71

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I went to Washington state with my wife for a family get together. We flew out on Thursday night and visited with the family on Friday and Saturday. We were in the Seattle area so I did some searching for local matches and there was one in Marysville on Sunday so I hauled my shooting gear with me on this trip.

The Marysville Rifle Club Practical Shooters match turned out to be a pretty big club match. They had 90+ shooters as it was one of their section qualifier matches and everyone wanted to get in on the fun. They had 7 challenging stages setup and they each had their own interesting challenge. The berms there are not what I am use to as they tend to be here or there with some in odd shapes. Most of the ranges were also completely surrounded or covered by tree’s which was way different than I am use to. The dreaded “Shadow Targets” were pretty much on every single stage so I knew up front that I would need to be extra patient in seeing my sights while shooting the stages. I also had to use the “Force” on a couple of stages to simply will hits onto the targets because seeing my sights was impossible. The lighting quality at this match was equivalent to an indoor match for most of the stages. They even had a rope wall where you had to hang off both sides of the wall and shoot strong/weak hand only on two different Texas stars. Needless to say, that stage was a significant challenge for a lot of shooters including me.

The weather was abnormally HOT that day in the low 90’s and being in the berms surrounded by tree’s pretty much killed any chance of a breeze. Much sweating and water dinking was had by all on my squad. I helped RO or score keep about half of the time during the match and it’s nice to help out when needed. My squad was great to shoot with and we busted our humps to get churned through all 7 stages as effectively as we could.

I shot an “ok” match overall. I had small time wasting issues on every stage and never really had a solid run on any of them. I was battling the issue of not being able to see my sights and this lead to a lot of extra shots and slower than normal shooting. The good news is that I didn’t have any misses or no shoots on the paper targets. All together I had 5 D’s for the match, but too many B’s & C’s. I was having a hard time seeing my sights on pretty much all of the stages at some point or another due to the lighting so I really can’t complain too much since I didn’t end up with any misses or no shoots. I was in 100% survival mode for this match with the primary goal in simply getting all of my hits. I accomplished that goal so that was nice. But I did waste a decent chunk of time on every stage over aiming on at least a couple of targets to ensure my hits would be there. Shooting Open at this match is a HUGE advantage from a sight seeing perspective alone. Maybe it’s time for me to move over to a Dot gun?

When the results were tallied I ended up 2^nd overall in Limited at 95% of Scott Pries. I have shot with Scott at major matches in prior years and know he is a solid shooter and a great guy. He hasn’t been attending many major matches lately due to being a Father getting in the way. I wish I could have given him more of a run for his money at this club match, but its wasn’t meant to be this time. Either way, it was fun doing some shooting at a new range I have never been to and making some new friends. Hopefully I can do it again some time in the future.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended a local club match at AGC. It was pretty hot that day, but at least there wasn’t much humidity. I kept well hydrated and was mentally and physically alert for the whole match. I shot pretty poorly that day though which was a bummer. On the first stage of the day I got sucked into “Trying” to shoot fast and it rewarded me with a miss and a no shoot. The third stage of the match had a funky shoot under a wall portion with pretty difficult shots. I tried shooting the under the wall targets from a crouched/hunched over position and was rewarded with 2 more misses. I don’t know why I keep trying to shoot like that when I know it doesn’t work due to my jacked up neck and strength loss in my arms. I am pretty much screwed from a recoil management perspective any time I have to hunch over and point the gun up above my normal standing arm position. The forth stage of the match I was a good run for me which was a house clearing style run & gun stage. Then the last stage of the match was a port to port type of affair which I felt that I shot solidly and in control but ended up with a miss with a hit about 3 inches into the hard cover on a damn “Shadow” target. Uncalled misses on “Shadow” targets drive me crazy.

After the match I was able to chrono some ammo since I recently switched from Flat Point to Round Nose 180gr bullets. This was the first match that I have shot with the 2011 and Round Nose 180gr bullets so it was a good test. They looked good on the chrono as well in the hot 95+ degree temp even after leaving the ammo out in the sun for a while. From an ammo perspective I should be good to go for the Area 3 match this coming weekend.

On Sunday I presented a Group Training class with some local shooters and it was a lot of fun. The weather was great in the morning then around lunch time some vicious rain clouds rolled in and lightening strikes were happening all around us. We bagged the targets and then headed to the range club house to have some lunch and wait out the storm. Lucky for us the bulk of the rain storm missed us by about a mile. We got a little bit of rain but not much compared to what we could see not too far off in the distance. We were really lucky for sure. After the rain storm passed the sun came back out and it was nice the rest of the day. Everyone in the class had fun and learned a lot. It’s fun to see the student’s light bulb go on when they figure out something new. Cool Stuff!!!

[CHA-LEE]

Ever since the Mile High Showdown I have been battling this unmotivated mental “Funk” associated with shooting. I think I am battling burnout along with not having clear performance goals to strive towards. Over the past several matches I have had the thought of “Why am I even here, this isn’t fun” at some point during the match. It’s hard to tell if this is due to the crappy heat/weather during the match or if I am second guessing my time invested verses return. I know I need to take some time off and regroup, but this is unfortunately a super busy Major Match time for me.

I have two options right now. The first is to embrace the “Suck” and grind through it and hope that the funk subsides on its own eventually. Or second, cancel all of my local and major matches for the next month to force some time off and face throwing away a significant chunk of $$$ in travel expenses that are not refundable. Right now, neither of these options sound or feel very appealing.

I need to put some more thought into this whole situation and make some changes if I expect to continue to enjoy this hobby/sport. I feel that it would be hard to diverge from the major match schedule I have already committed to for 2015. But 2016 may need a significant scale back in attending major matches and get back to enjoying the local shooting closer to home. I have learned the majority of “Major Match” lessons that need to be learned, so I don’t really need to push the envelope on attending a bunch of major matches every year. I just fear that my attitude about shooting is only going to get worse while in this mental burnout/funk. Not to mention battling these neck issues and physical strength loss resulting from it.

Edited July 27, 2015 by CHA-LEE

[BritinUSA]

Regarding the Major matches; My suggestion would be to pack all your gear, suitcases etc. the night before you are scheduled to travel. If, when you wake up you have that 'tingle' of excitement for the match then go. If you just don't feel it then don't go. Traveling / competing in a match when you just don't feel it is just pointless in my opinion and may just worsen your 'funk'.

At the end of the season (when its too cold to shoot), clean and store all your shooting stuff and don't touch it until next year. You'll either get the itch to compete or you won't, personally I would not force the issue. Take a break.

[eerw]

Sometimes you need the break. Sometimes pick up something else to shoot/ shooting sport. Another sport/ recreation even. Sometimes you come back, sometimes you dont.

[MarkCO]

I know a couple of high level shooters who went through the same kind of thing. Their almost universal comments are that if you are not having fun, quit for a while. Figure out what you miss, then go back and enjoy that. For a few, it was winning, for a few it was the people, for a few it was purely pushing themselves to a new goal. I heard two such stories from MGM junior camp instructors this past weekend.

[Husker95]

When it gets cold this winter Jarrod and I will take you ice fishing. I checked Wikipedia and ice fishing is the polar opposite of competitive shooting. That will break you out of this funk.......

[CHA-LEE]

Thanks for all of the great feedback guys. My last major match of 2015 is in the middle of October. If I am not out of this funk by then, I will take some time off then. There is a possibility that i will get replacement disk surgery around the end of the year as well, so that will force some time off as well.

[BeerBaron]

If a lot of the costs are locked in perhaps consider going to the match and shoot a different gun/division? Will take some of the pressure to perform off from limited and may rekindle some of the fun of enjoying a new experience, being in the moment etc. maybe go radical and borrow an open gun? Or dare i say it......revo? Ok maybe not that radical. Open or classic could be fun though.

[Nimitz]

depending on how much time you spend doing all the other stuff you do not directly involved with shooting a gun, like being a MD, maybe consider scaling back on some of that to see if some additional "free time' changes your attitude. Or simply take a break, that's the surest way to discover if you want to come back or not. Lastly, I think most people who are not goal oriented do not appreciate how important having goals to reach for are in staying motivated, especially when you've reached the upper levels of a sport. Might be time to do some soul searching to see if you can set some new goals that will excite you all over again -- it will also help you decide which activities to keep & which to start passing on so you can reach your new goal ...

the 3 month break I was forced into because of my wrist surgery allowed me to completely readdress all aspects of my shooting, including how I approach my training and my goals. Not a recommended first choice but it works ...

Edited August 2, 2015 by Nimitz

[PatJones]

I've got revolvers you can use, but I imagine open would suit you better.

[thermobollocks]

Should've seen the face he made when he shot mine.

I have no advice on how to make fun happen. I have fun even when I 'tard out and tank something badly. It's always enlightening to see the many ways that a person can screw up, and what better teacher than your own self?

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was the Area 3 match in Grand Island Nebraska. I drove out to this match with my buddy Trung and we got there on Friday afternoon to check out the stages. There were 14 fun and challenging stages at this match with a lot of running around and contorted shooting positions. I am not a fan of stages setup in a way that are biased to measure competitors “Foot Race” or “Yoga” skills but it is what it is. Every match has its flavor and style of stages and doing a bunch of running and shooting from funky positions is part of this matches style.

It was pretty hot and humid on Friday and much sweating was had while walking the stages to figure out the best stage plans. I was able to watch the Production super squad shoot a couple of stages and its always interesting to see them come up with unique stage plans to work around their 10 round mag limitations. With fairly solid stage plans for most of the stages we headed to the hotel to cool down and prepare for the start of the match on Saturday.

We were shooting on the PM/PM schedule so that allowed us to sleep in a little bit on Saturday then get to the range around 11 and check out the timing of a few activated targets and general spectating of the AM squads. The Saturday AM squad had an hour rain delay in the morning which put the whole match an hour behind schedule. Luckily it wasn’t mega hot on Saturday. It was still hot and humid but it was bearable. I wasn’t feeling “Normal” that day at the range as I felt run down and pretty lethargic. I thought it was due to the heat and humidity so I ground through it. By the end of the day I was feeling pretty miserable. I figured that getting back to the hotel and getting cooled down and cleaned up would help me out, but I kept feeling worse and worse. By the time we sat down for dinner I had a pounding headache and felt nauseous. I took one bit of my dinner and felt like I was going to be sick right then and there. I had to bail out of dinner with my friends early and head back to the hotel to lay down and deal with whatever was going on. On my way back to the hotel it dawned on me that I had changed my diabetes medicine the prior week and that lead me to getting mega dehydrated while at the range, even though I drank over a gallon of water. I loaded up on some aspirin for my headache and switched back to my old diabetes medicine. Then I forced down as much water as I could without it coming back up. Then I hit the sack for the night and got up several times to drink more water. Luckily the next morning I was feeling “Normal” again. I was lucky that it wasn’t super hot on Saturday at the range or I might have been dehydrated enough to warrant an ER visit mid match or right after. Scary stuff for sure. Changing up my diabetes medicine right before this hot outdoor match was a really stupid idea. I am lucky that I didn’t get into a real health emergency with this screw up.

From a shooting perspective, I had some pretty lack luster stage performances on Saturday due to feeling crappy and battling the “Shadow” targets of the PM shooting schedule. I racked up three misses on Saturday with two of them being uncalled because I couldn’t see my sights well enough to call the shots and tried to point shoot instead. Then another was an actual stage plan failure where I only shot at a target twice when it really needed 3 hits. This mixed in with slow and clunky movement through the stages sealed the deal on a pretty crappy day of shooting. On Sunday I was able to perform a lot better due to feeling “Normal” again, but still managed to rack up two more misses on the one shot per target stage. One miss was my last shot on the wobbly bridge that I called super marginal but was leaving already so I couldn’t make it up. Then the second miss was an uncalled mystery mike on the middle target right after the wobbly bridge. I shot the stage in a competitive time, but the two misses sunk the stage run. I was able to keep pace with Travis and Bob on most of the other stages on Saturday and even one the last stage of the match. I wish that I could have had this level of mental and physical awareness the day before but it is what it is.

My buddy Trung was able to get all of my stage runs on video and did a great job of filming. I have uploaded all of my videos onto my YouTube channel if you want to check them out.

When the results were posted I ended up 4^th in Limited at 90% of Travis. Travis was able to generate a solid 100 point lead over second place Bob Krogh and anther 40 points back was Ron Avery. Given that I had 5 Misses I was surprised to finish that high up in the Overall results. Both Travis and Bob shot clean matches and Ron only had 1 miss. The majority of my Deltas and Misses were Uncalled due to shadow targets and me only being able to see a dim fiber in my front sight and nothing else. Battling seeing my sights is getting REALLY old. It sucks to have my shooting hobbled by not being able to see my sights in less than optimal lighting conditions.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I headed up to Cody Wyoming to attend the Yellowstone Sectional match. I headed up there a couple of days early to do some training with my friend Rob Cook. We were able to get a lot of good training done on Friday and Saturday then had some fun riding ATV’s around his property and up in the mountains. It was a lot of fun to get away from the busy schedule of “Home” and take a leisure pace of doing things. This relaxing long weekend was exactly what I needed to disperse a lot of the “Burn Out” I have been feeling lately.

We got a chance to check out the stages on Friday while they were still being setup. Most of the stages didn’t have any targets stapled up but the walls and shooting areas were done so you could get the general understanding of how the stages should be shot. There were two pretty difficult memory style stages in the match and lucky for me, one of them was almost all steel, which was setup on Friday. Stage 1 was a sea of steel targets blocked by a bunch of barrels and a wide shooting area that had several low “ports” needed to engage the targets from. I spent a solid 30 – 45 minutes on this stage breaking it down effectively. It was a very confusing stage where you could see the same steel from many different positions. I felt sorry for the shooters who showed up the morning of the match and had their “5 minutes” to figure it out because they were basically screwed. The other memory stage was an all paper stage with a bunch of walls setup in a fanning away from you fashion. This stage required you to shuffle step a bunch to see all of the targets and once again you could see the same targets from many different positions. I focused on that stage first thing in the morning on Sunday after the targets were setup and it took a while to get it figured out.

The match had 8 total stages which were biased towards aiming hard and not blasting, so this was going to be a match of simply getting your hits. I was designated as one of the Squad RO’s since I am a certified CRO so I spent most of the day ROing shooters on my squad. I am glad that I put in the stage breakdown homework before the start of the match because I usually had to RO all the way up to my turn on most of the stages. Overall I shot the match with a “Fair” performance. ROing a ton did impact my performance, but I think my primary issue that day was due to arm fatigue from the ATVing the day before. We went on an ATV ride the day before that was a couple of hours long in some pretty bouncy terrain and my arms were pretty much wasted after the ride. That arm fatigue lingered into Sunday and it was an odd experience. While dry firing the stages before shooting them I literally was feeling like I had worn our arms to the point of not feeling comfortable with keeping them up and out while dry firing. This arm fatigue did negatively impact my recoil management so I ended up shooting several of the stages at a slower pace than normal because I had to wait for the sights to return and settle before breaking the next shot. It also lead to some poor hits or misses on a couple of stages where I tried pushing the shooting speed but the sights were all over the place while shooting. All told I racked up 4 misses 16 D’s!!! 16 D’s is absolutely retarded, but 11 of them were on the classifier that had some 50 yard targets and I was aiming too low and had nice groups right in the D zone. That was poor execution on my part as I know I have to aim higher on the far targets but simply forgot.

Regardless of my worn out arms, ROing most of the time or bucket load of misses and D’s, I had a lot of fun at the match. My squad was fun to shoot with and the weather was awesome. Much to my surprise I was able to finish HOA for the whole match (Take that you Dot Gun Cheaters) so that was cool. Hopefully I will be able to go up there again some time to shoot and relax.

[Nimitz]

Congrats on the win .... shooters having to RO on there own squad at a Sectional? Can't say that I've ever seen that around here in Florida?

[CHA-LEE]

It was a pretty small attendance match that could only be shot on one day due to range access limitations. Sure it would have been nice to have dedicated standing RO's on the stages, but it wasn't possible due to the schedule and range limitations. Some times we have to step up and make it happen or it won't happen at all especially in remote locations. This was one of those instances.

Faced with the choice of getting to Shoot but I have to RO, or not being able to shoot because I wouldn't RO, I would prefer to shoot verses not. This is a volunteer sport and we all need to step up and make it happen when the need arises.

[Nimitz]

I hear you and understand ... I've been to Rob's neck of the woods several times conducting dinosaur fossil hunting expeditions and 'remote' is certainly accurate ....

Even though I could probably 'bow out' as an RO at my monthly Steel Challenge match since I'm the MD I still RO to give others a break ... this was just the first time I'd heard of it at a level II or higher match ....

[Camazama]

I also attended the Greater Yellowstone Sectional this past weekend. I'm sorry I missed the chance to watch you shoot. I'll agree the stages were mentally difficult with a lot of near 180s and tight shots.

I actually liked the fanned out stage. I had it figured out that I could shoot from only 4 positions and hit 4 targets at each position. It made it easier to remember my game plan.

Hope you see you at another match.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was only able to shoot one local club match. This was the HPPS match on Saturday which is the match I help put on. As always it’s a long day with a lot of work, but there was a lot of help so it went pretty smooth. This was our section qualifier match so we had a larger attendance than normal at 60 shooters. We setup 6 fun and challenging stages to test the limits of everyone myself included.

My primary Limited gun has been having some accuracy issues so I switched over to my number 3 Limited blaster for this match. The Number 3 blaster needed some minor fitting and fiddling to get it match ready so I put some wrenching effort into it the week before. The number 3 blaster only had about 500 rounds on it since it was built so this match would be a good opportunity to get some more break in time on it. I was really happy with how the number 3 blaster ran though the match. It had zero functional issues and it feels and shoots exactly like the primary so there wasn’t anything “Different” to get use to while shooting it. The added bonus is that the rounds are actually hitting where I am aiming unlike the primary gun. After the match I shot some groups off a bag at 25 yards to see just how bad the accuracy was on the primary gun and it was making about a 6 inch group, where as the number 3 blaster was making a 1 inch group. The Primary blaster has turned into a scatter gun. Time to replace the barrel on that one. Instead of putting another bull barrel in it I am going to try a bushing barrel to see if it will change in the felt recoil. The fiddling never ends.

As for shooting the match, I had some ups and downs. It’s always hard to 100% focus on performing well when you run the match so I really don’t put much pressure on performing well. I shot the first stage of the match pretty good. Then on the second stage, which was the classifier, I shot well, but totally missed my reload which cost me about a second to recover. That was a bummer because it would have been a 100% classifier if I wouldn’t have botched the reload. The third stage was an unloaded start that I shot fairly decent but gave away a little time by missing the racking of the first round in the gun needing to double rack it to get it loaded. The fourth stage is where I really screwed the pooch. This stage had two swingers at the end of it with one swinger containing two different targets. There was enough time to engage both targets on one swing but you had to be on it right as it came out on the first past. There were four steel in the back, two of which activated the swingers and the best way to shoot it was big activator steel, small popper, right swinger, then big activator, small steel, left double swinger. I proceeded to miss the little steel in between the activator and swinger on both sides and made up the steel shot right after the miss, but this wasted time and I was behind schedule on both swingers. I ended up with a miss on each swinger. Then to top it off I had an uncalled miss on the first target I engaged at the start of the stage. Three misses on one stage = HORRIBLE. On the next stage I racked up another uncalled miss on a head shot blocked by no shoots so at that point I knew my chance of winning the match overall was over with. There is no way of hiding 4 misses against 60 other shooters and still coming out on top. The final stage of the match was a 40 round one shot per target all head shot stage. I knew that the only way I could make up time on others for this stage was to focus on aggressive transitions between targets while being visually patient enough to call every shot. This worked out well and I ended up with a solid stage run.

The match was challenging and fun but the two uncalled misses have me perplexed. Both targets were not in the shadows and I could see my sights decently while shooting the stages. The head shot miss may be from bouncing around while settling into the position, but the first target to engage miss was really strange. I do remember that I wanted to engage the targets aggressively so maybe I broke the second just to the right of the target as I was sweeping through it? I am not sure what happened with that one. But the good news is that my number 3 blaster ran like a champ and I had fun while shooting. The number 3 blaster is still uncoated so it needs to get coated but I want to put another couple thousand rounds through it before getting it coated to make sure that everything is broken in properly. I will keep using the number 3 blaster for the next month or so to get it broken in properly.

[d_striker]

How many rounds does Gun 1 have on it?

[CHA-LEE]

How many rounds does Gun 1 have on it?

That is a good question. I am horrible about keeping track of the rounds on guns after their initial break in time so I really don't know the total round count. If I had to guess it probably has 30 - 40 thousand on it.

[Richc2048]

That is a lot of rounds. That's bad ass!

[CHA-LEE]

I had my neurosurgery consult today. The doctor was very knowledgeable and honest in his feedback and suggestions. After reviewing my chart, scans and everything else he provided several different suggestions.

The first suggestion was to not do surgery and simply let it heal on its own for another 6 months to a year and then reassess the situation then. He basically said that if I am not in horrible pain and don’t see an increase in numbness and strength loss then it would make the most sense to simply let it be and see how much it will heal on its own.

If I wanted to go down the surgery path I gave two different options that were equally sucky. The first was to do a posterior discectomy on the disk affecting my left arm. Since they have to go in through the back of my neck to get to the disk rupture this is a far more intrusive surgery because they have to cut and dig through the muscle, ligaments, tendons and whatever else to get down into the disk to clean it out. This means that the recovery from this surgery would be dramatically longer and more painful than a Disk Fusion or Replacement where they go in through the front of your neck. The secondary drawback to this procedure is the high probability of a disk rupture reoccurrence which would put me back at square one. A third drawback to this surgery is that if it fails and they have to resort to removing the disk all together my only option would be a Fusion because the ligaments and muscles would probably be too damaged to support a functional joint long term if I got a disk replacement.

The second Surgery option was to remove the two bad disks and perform a fusion of the two levels of vertebra. He would not suggest that I get artificial disks at these two levels due to the evidence of ligament damage/degradation between these levels. Replacing the disks with artificial ones would solve the disk rupture issue but it would then put more stress on my damaged ligaments between the levels which could lead to congenital neck pain from the beat up ligaments years down the road. Getting a fusion done instead takes the damaged ligaments out of play all together because there will no longer be a moving “joint” but increases the chances of other disk issues above and below the fused portion.

The surgery options all pretty much suck from a long term prognosis perspective. The doctor did say that the disk damage I currently have would validly warrant surgery if I wanted to go down that path. But he said that if he were in my shoes since the pain, numbness, and strength loss are not getting worse he would wait it out and see how it is a year from now.

The good news is that I have gone through enough MRI, CAT Scan, X-Ray, and specialist review visits to warrant an immediate surgery if it were to blow out again putting me in mega pain. This is a huge relief as it has taken me several months to get to this point in the diagnosis of my neck situation. If I had to go through all of this crap again from scratch I might be heading down the surgery path to avoid being in pain for months before I can get it fixed.

[hvsmith]

I've had 2 surgeries, one from the back & one from the front. My only suggestion is to NEVER EVER go posterior, the difference cannot be quantified, from day one to 16 years later I still have the after-effects from going in through the back.