j1b Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 OK - Rant mode on - because I am frustrated and pissed. First match today. Well - First match in a long ass time. First stage was simple - a little classifier, 12 rounds on hardcover targets. I shot it in 45 seconds. Did I say 4-5 seconds???? No - I said 45 seconds. I've shot about 1000 rounds through my heater in the past week, making sure it was working properly and then making sure I was working properly. No issues - at all. First stage at the match - major malfunction. It sucked. Second stage go any better? Hell no - there were these sticks you had to go around acting like turnstyles - they had clays on them, if you knocked one off you got a procedural, guess what I did? Ok - third (freakin') stage - a lot of steel. Hard stage, no doubt. I clean the first row of poppers, move on to some paper, and some circle plates hidden behind no-shoot circle plates. I suck it up again. Had a miss on the paper, and missed a steel (lost it behind the no-shoot plate) so two misses, bunch of missed shots though so I was slow to boot Last stage - alas - a good stage. Clean, crisp, unsucky. Probably not competitive but at that stage in the game who gave a shjt - Ross Carter said "There's the guy I used to know" So now I'm pissed and put out. Got a speeding ticket coming home - that was a nice capper on the match as well. Reflection is an interesting thing - the match was fun, but it was complex - which is what makes IPSC what it is - I always like the straight forward stuff, just shoot and see what happens. I have a friend that suggested I go to an IDPA match in Barryville soon - he mentioned it to me the other day when I was talking to him about getting back into shooting - I wonder if my experience today, and this subtle hint from my friend, and the general bad karma that has surrounded me today indicates that maybe I should be shooting - but maybe I should be shooting IDPA. I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. A disjointed post - and I apologize, but I can find no excuses for today other than my own miserable performance, and that my friends is simply a hard pill to swallow. It's what I HATE to do - which is why its in the forum. Thanks for letting me bitch! JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Jack, Great Rant. You got it out of the way ---- the crappy match ---- it'll only be up from here. If you still feel this way after the next match ---- well there's always IDPA. They're not going anywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9x23 Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 snip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDean Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Damn, welcome back. Remember, if this was easy, everybody would have achieved GM status (like you have). Don't worry about those circus-stages either. You know the ones with stupid clay birds (on sticks, on the ground...whatever). Those were designed to keep the people who can't shoot within 20 percent of the people who can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 <sympathetic whine mode on> Well, j1b, now you know how I feel when I screw up just three or four measly shots (out of a possible 96 per night)--or have just one 'bad' (in your words, "sucky") target altogether (out of eight for the night) and suddenly find myself down just enough points to be hopelessly unable to make it back up--and have to live with myself for four to seven weeks while I know I've blown the entire match and perhaps the season... all because of just one (or maybe two) bad shots or bad targets. The kind of shooting we do here is rather unforgiving. A couple of flyers and you're dead--for the night. One bad target in a night and you may've lost your momentum for the run of the season. This gets damn' hard to take. It can also be frustrating for a few of us B-grade (and C-grade) shooters to be clumped together with a huge preponderance of A-grade shooters and have to shoot around all this goofy jockeying for position and be outclassed hopelessly but having to be judged in the same class WITH these folks. It can be a little wrenching, quite frankly. The Lewis System be damned. It doesn't really work very well. It tends to exaggerate the few errors we DO make as B-grade folks, and doesn't place people accurately. Just MY two kopecks. <whine mode off> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 Nik You're right - I just had to complain. IDPA may not be the solution - we'll find out. Although I do like the acronym (I Don't Practice Anymore) John- Funny - I was crying when I wrote the post (different reason though) You're right - it is all in my head. I wanted to feel like I could do this again, I wanted to PROOVE I could do this again - clearly it'll take a bit more than that. The A game is there - just need it to come out. TDean - you just made me feel good. The little things are just that - little. I should have done better - but I didn't and that is that. It was a poor performance, I am a person who should be able to handle this stuff better, and hopefully I will next time. The clay pigeon stage was actually a pretty neat stage, I just needed to pay better attention to the details. I am caught in that quandry between a newbie, and a very not newbie. I guess its like lifting weights. When you take time off from lifting generally your muscle strength is around 90% of what it was (depending on time off) but its your tendons that need to catch up. I'm the same way - I got all the tools, just need to make them fit. Sig Lady - Sorry for the bad vernacular - ('bad' vs 'Sucky') Bad didn't seem to do justice to my performance - so I came up with something a little more appropriate (descriptively, not grammatically) I'm still pissed - but I appreciate the comments! JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twix Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 J1B, didn't realize you were GM, but hey thanks for letting us know the human side. That's how I shoot most of my matches (three bad stages, one good to give me hope to come back).Recently I tried a couple new variations, shoot the first stage well, blow the rest. And my favorite, shoot one stage and DQ! That's ok I still need the experience RO'ing. Suction=motivation. Tom B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 Tom Probably more appropriate to say I WAS a GM. That was a long time ago. I did just pick up my IDPA gun - just to see what it felt like. God you gotta love single stacks. Plus - this gun is just cool. It is set up precisely the way I want a .45 built. I even had the shop build a 38 Super sister for it. One good thing about that .45 (as I was playing I remembered this) it was the heater I last shot in a "major" match - and that was probably one of the best 'major' matches I had ever shot . . . I'm tellin' ya - signs . . . signs . . . everywhere there's signs!!! JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 Quickly - I do want to make sure that my assessment of my performance is in no manner reflective of the match or the people that set it up. I should have done this first - because I don't want to mislead anyone. The match was great. Great stages, great people! Ross Carter's club is excellent - I was very pleased to see him doing well. They don't make em' any better than Ross! I can't say enough good about it, so much so that I feel guilty about selfishly highlighting myself and not the great match. My rant was just that - a rant over my sorry performance. I don't want it to reflect negatively on the people running the match or on the match itself. It couldn't have been better. I've set up a few matches in my day. I know how hard it is to please everyone - I don't want anyone at the club I shot at today feeling like I left with a negative feeling. I was simply dissappointed in myself. If I hurt anyone's feelings I humbly offer my apologies! Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDean Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 If I hurt anyone's feelings I humbly offer my apologies! You hurt my feelings by claiming to suck! As a true GM in the art of sucking at IPSC, I can't allow people to so casually claim to actually suck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eerw Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Jack..sorry to hear your return was so frustrating..I remember coming back last year and shooting after leaving for 5 years...the first couple of matches were kind of tough..because I could remember shooting at the M-level.. Well .at least you can figure..it can only get better.. I'm looking forward to seeing you out at matches again...hope to see ya sometime soon. Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted August 11, 2003 Author Share Posted August 11, 2003 OK Rhino - that was funny (but I did suck) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9x23 Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 snip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Neill Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Jack, Being that it was your first match after a considerable lay-off, could it be that you focused on burning down the stages instead of merely shooting? You and I both know you have the ability, just let it happen and don't try to force it. Hang in there and shoot, don't try to force anything. Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
38supPat Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 I agree withy Guy, I suspect you were expecting too much from yourself in your first match back and are comparing the score against what you believe you were capable of before. You don't have to prove anything to any of the rest of us...our opinions just don't matter. Besides WE know what you are capable of. Just chalk it up as a bad day,... FIDO. Today I sucked too, I couldn't put a good run together no matter what I did. I couldn't get grip, the car wouldn't rotate, nothing went right...I wasn't happy with the set up of my suspension, my tires wouldn't grip and my gearing was incorrect for the course. I was not happy! Then before my final run I just sort of sat back, looked at it a bit more objectionably, decided.."hey, maybe I just suck" and went out with a clear mind, all the anxieties about the car set up were put out of my mind, and I cut 2 sec off my last scoring run...and moved up from 4th to 2nd in class. Bottom line: Theres nothing wrong with sucking once in awhile, it just shows us that we still have some room to learn...and it can only get better from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Jack...you're tearing me up me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Anderson Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 Hey Jack... What were your expectations going in? What was in yer noggin at LAMR? SA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 J1B, So what didn't you see that you really needed to? This is a big problem for me. Sometimes I get so caught up in the technical aspects, that I forget how to shoot during a stage, that is, I forget I need to see every shot and KNOW where it went. If you remember what you didn't see last time, then you can fix it the next time. This is a good way for me to recover from stage crashes. If it were easy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest qstick Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 This is a big problem for me. Sometimes I get so caught up in the technical aspects, that I forget how to shoot during a stage, that is, I forget I need to see every shot and KNOW where it went.]This is something that I have been working hard on overcoming. On one stage this weekend, I got so caught up with executing my perfect plan that I forgot that I have to watch the front sight too. The stage ended with 6 easy steel poppers that took 11 shots with an extra reload... On a positive note, it just gives me something else to work out during fryfire practice. Zach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shooter Grrl Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 I hear ya JB! We all, I think, at some point feel this way. Try living with it for more than 5 years, then we'll talk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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