Rob D

[Rob D]

Let me first say THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU to Brian and everybody else on the forums. I'm a total beginner and these forums have been such a huge source of help for me. You guys are awesome and I sincerely appreciate your willingness to stop and answer my questions and lend advice. Thankyou Brian for hosting this amazing site. The first 3 or 4 months I spent practicing were largely unproductive because I didn't really know what to practice or even how to go about making progress as a shooter. I have a long way to go, but now I know where to find the answers when I do hit a road block. You guys rock.

I shot my first club match back in April, and have since fallen in love with this sport. I've been shooting as many matches as I can afford, and doing as much live fire practice as I can afford paired with daily dry fire practice.

I just got my initial classification last month after switching divisions a few times(thanks to a SS with some feeding issues). Right now, I'm a C class Production shooter at about 55%.

My Goal right now is to have my B card by March '09 and then continue on toward A in the 09 season. I also want to shoot at least 3 major matches this year to get a feel for the pressure of performing at a big match. I'm shooting production because it's what I can afford right now, but I want to move up to limited once I get my A card in production. Those open guns look like a blast, but I don't see that kind of spare change anywhere in my near future. Definitely down the road though.

Here's my training program right now:

Dryfire

30-60 minutes of dryfire AT LEAST 5 days a week. I'm using Repitition and Refinement for this, but I haven't been able to practice any of the movement drills because I haven't had the space for it. I plan to start doing box drills in my yard, holding a bottle of water or something similar to simulate holding my gun without scaring the piss out of the neighbors. Here's an example of what I'll do for a dry fire workout:

• 50 Sight Picture Confirmations at 5 yard (starting .2 above par and moving back down)
  
• 50 Burkett Reloads
  
• 30ish Sight Picture Confirmations at 10 yards
  
• 30ish SPC from Surrender
  
• 30ish SPC from turn and draw
  
• 30 6 reload 6's
  
• 30 El Prez's
  

That's about the right amount of work, but the drills vary daily.

Live Fire

I try to go out at least once a week, but my finances are tight and I don't always have the cash for ammo. I'm 23 and working a counter job to save up the cash to finish up my degree right now, so spare money is rare, but shooting is my main priority right now with the exception of paying off the bursar, so I try to do as much as I can afford. I hit the range at least 4 times a month, but some weeks I end up shooting matches instead of practicing. Here's an example of what I do during live fire practice. I usually go through 200 rounds in a practice session.

• Start with some draw and fire without the timer to get warmed up
  
• 5-6 Bill Drills
  
• 40-50 rounds practicing transitions(set up two targets and do A-B-A under the timer)
  
• 40-50 rounds doing box to box drills(I shoot 1 shot, run, shoot another, run, etc. try to use as little ammo for as much running as possible)
  
• Once I start getting towards the end of my ammo I use my last 3 or 4 mags to shoot five shot groups at increasing distances, starting at 10 yards and moving out to about 40. I don't worry about time on these, just practicing to keep up my accuracy.
  

Reading

I'm currently about 2/3 of the way through Brian's book and about half way through Robin Taylor's The Glock in Competition (I shoot a 34). I also soak up as much information as I can through these forums.

Matches

I shoot at least 2 club matches a month, sometimes 3 if I can get the days off work. I shot the OK Sectional in september, that was the closest thing to a Major I've ever shot, but like I said, I want to shoot 3 major matches in 2009. I'm starting off with the Double Tap Championship, and I definitely want to shoot nationals(I went to watch this year, which was a blast, but I didn't feel ready to shoot), so that leaves me one more major match. I'm also going to try picking up a second job or doing some contract work in my free time to fund more matches and practice sessions.

So there you have it. I'm hoping to expand my live-fire practice once I get the funding, and I'm going to start doing movement drills at home this week as I am realizing I can shave several seconds off of every stage with more than 1 position just by learning to stomp the gas and the brakes instead of trotting from one position to the next.

[Rob D]

Barricades have been eating my lunch at matches for the last several months. I had the day off yesterday and decided to do something about it. Here's the view from my living room:

I spent about 30 minutes working on barricade drills last night. I'm doing El prez, but shooting from one side of the barricade, then reloading and shooting from the other. I think making myself put the gun on all three targets from each side is really pushing my flexibility. The cause for my barricade troubles was pretty apparent this morning when I woke up with both my sides aching. Apparently those muscles haven't been up to snuff. I'm hoping that strengthening them will give me a much more stable shooting platform when leaning to either side.

Aside from the barricade, I'm working on compartmentalizing my reloads. I was reading the singlestack reload thread, and read about the technique that involves bringing the magwell to the place where you front sight was immediately before the reload so that you can use almost a clapping motion to bring the gun down onto the mag as you set your weak-hand grip. I realized that all I've ever heard about how to reload only involved getting the mag up to the magwell quickly. Besides that thread, I've never heard or read anything about how to insert the mag and get the gun back on target as much as possible. I think this technique will make my reloads a lot quicker. They're not THAT slow when I'm standing still but the motions get all fuddled when I try to move and I often end up trotting around the stage wasting time. I got to the part in Brian's book where he talks about getting the reload done by the 1st or 2nd step so that you can focus on running when reloading between positions. This will probably help me a great deal too, as my thought on this topic before was "well as long as the mag is in the gun by the time I get to the position I'm not wasting any time." I'm going to work some reload-movement drills into my live fire routine to practice this.

I'm also really trying to work on becoming aware of any tension in my body before the buzzer goes off. I'm trying to completely relax and be totally at ease at the buzzer. I think focusing on my breathing is helping. Just having a consistent breathing pattern at the start has made me a lot more comfortable with the buzzer. I've taken the advice of some others on the board and started a slow steady inhale at "stand by." I then continue inhaling after the buzzer until my gun is on target then I stop breathing until I've finished shooting the position.

Tons of work to do, but I have plenty time. I wanted to go out and shoot today, but the weather here is pretty nasty so I'm going to save my ammo for a nicer day.

[atbarr]

Rob, you must be single.

A.T.

[Rob D]

Rob, you must be single.

A.T.

Ha ha, yeah. There are definitely benefits to it.

[Rob D]

I drove down to the Oklahoma City Gun club and shot their club match yesterday. The stages were a little tricky this week, and my performance wasn't without screw-ups, but I did pretty well overall. All the movement drills I've been doing are paying off. My times were noticeably faster than they usually are. Focusing on where I plant my right foot when I set up on targets made it a lot easier to note positions in the walk through, then get into them while running the stage. I've always had to do a lot of foot shuffling in the past, and I think I'm really improving on this. I'm also working on stomping the gas/brakes when moving between positions. There were several low ports on yesterday's stages and I did a lot better on them then I have in the past. I think the barricade dryfire drills are making me more stable in awkward shooting positions where I would have been trembling or wobbling a month ago.

So that's what I did right yesterday. I also had 2 mikes and a no shooter >_<. The mikes were both total surprises and were both on the last target for the stage. I think I might be getting excited and not following through on my last shot? I have no idea on this one. I'll just have to make sure I see the sights lift on every shot including the last one. The no-shoot was on the Classifier "Cash and Carry." I pulled the shot about an inch to the left of the A zone that was lined up between two NS targets.

So I'm speeding up, which is awesome, but my accuracy declined a little bit. That's not a huge surprise since I haven't been getting out to the range as much as I usually do lately because of cold weather/holidays/etc. I did go to my grandparents for Christmas a week ago. They live on 40 acres and I got a couple hundred rounds of 9mm white box for Christmas, so I got in a pretty good practice session that day, but there was only a place to put up a single target, so I didn't get to practice transitions at all.

I'll be shooting another match next sunday, and I'm really going to focus on dry fire all week. Like I said in my last post, I really want to get my B card by march and I don't think that's unattainable since I'm sitting at about 56% right now. My dad got some video of my yesterday, I'll post it for critique as soon as I can get my hands on it.

Other than that, I'm going to keep practicing the hell out of my weaknesses. They seem to multiply as I learn more about the sport, but more stuff to improve on means more improvement can take place right?

Edit: Here's the video.

The Youtube caption says I won the stage, but I didn't. My dad just got this stage mixed up with the one that I did win.

Edited January 5, 2009 by Rob D

[betterment]

Do you use the dog to represent moving steel? (very much kidding)

Looks like a nice dry fire area...certainly better than mine.

Phil

[Rob D]

Do you use the dog to represent moving steel? (very much kidding)

Nah, he sits there and heckles me while I practice. It helps with mental toughness

[Rob D]

Lots of dryfire this week. I didn't get a chance to get out to the range because of work, but I'm shooting a club match in Tulsa tomorrow. I've been focusing on my reloads all week after realizing that I've been spending way more time on my draw than anything else. This has resulted in my draw being a lot cleaner, smoother, and more efficient than anything else I do in the stage. I'm glad my draw has gotten as good as it has, but it's left other areas of my shooting in need of work. I think I'm going to ease up on the draw drills a little and focus more on reloads, transitions, and movement.

I started using a new drill this week. I have two targets about 10 feet apart on my wall. I start on one side of the room with the gun on one target, then when the buzzer goes off I reload while entering the box on the other side of the room and put the sights on the second target. It's kind of a half-assed box to box drill, but I don't have a lot of space and it's helping me learn to use my peripheral vision to enter boxes instead of having to look at where my feet are going every time.

Another drill that I started using is a draw and single transition. Buzzer goes off, I draw and break one shot on a target then transition to another target (hopefully) before the par timer goes off. It's a short and sweet drill, but I get to feel a real trigger break with every shot, and I get to practice transitioning quickly after the initial shot.

I'm excited about tomorrow. My times have been dropping pretty steadily, and I'm getting a lot better at moving around stages. The fact that I'm getting into much better physical shape is helping with that. My Dad and I also just sent in our registration for the double tap championship so I'm psyched about that. It will be our first major match. Let me know if you guys have any tips or tricks I should know about before going to a major. My dad wanted to shoot all 13 stages on friday, but I talked him into doing the saturday and sunday shoot since we've never shot more than 8 stages in a day and I didn't want to be exhausted for the last 5 after paying entry, gas, hotel, etc. I'm really excited about this match and can't wait for the stages to show up online.

[Rob D]

Shot a great match at Oil Capital Rod and Gun club in Tulsa, OK sunday. I choked on the classifier (plugged a no-shoot and reloaded when totally useless), but other than that one I stage I had a pretty solid performance. There was one stage with 4 paper targets and 4 corresponding shooting boxes that were basically bill drills at various distances starting at about 25 yards (I'm guessing) and moving in to about 8 yards for the closest one. On the furthest target, I told myself I'd take my time and make hits on every shot, and I actually did. 6 alpha on the furthest target and 6 alpha on the closest. I dropped a charlie or two on the other two, but I was psyched to see such consistent hits at that distance and under the clock. There was also at least 10-12 yards of movement between each box as you sort of had to zig-zag back and forth across the bay for each box, and all my work on movement drills helped a lot. I'm definitely seeing steady improvement and I'm getting to the point where my match performances are much more consistent than they have been.

Now I just can't wait to see the results.

[Rob D]

I had a couple of down weeks after last months matches, and I didn't get nearly as much practice as I should have. The weather here has been horrible lately so I haven't had much chance to live fire, but there's really no excuse for not dry firing. I got good dry fire sessions last thursday and friday because I had matches on saturday and sunday.

Saturday I shot fairly well, but I had some mikes and no shoots. My trigger control was noticeably worse than it has been, probably because of the lack of live fire practice for a few weeks. I've got a couple hundred rounds left over from the weekend so I'm going to be sure to spend a day on the range next week. The movement drills I've been doing are definitely paying off. I've shaved a lot of the non-shooting time out of my runs. My reloads are also getting a lot better. The reload/box to box drill I started doing has made my moving reloads MUCH smoother, but I still have a long way to go.

Sunday I shot 3 very good stags and 3 pretty bad stages. On one of the stages my last shot was at a full size pepper popper, I called the shot dead center and stopped shooting. The popper rocked back like it was going to fall, then rocked forward and stopped. I had already dropped the mag out of my gun(stupid) and I made the mistake of fire the last round in the tube at the popper AND I MISSED(DOH!) So not only did I add 5-10 seconds to my time, but I didn't even get the make up points for the shot. I've always shot strictly with competition in mind, so I've never really practiced stopping and checking around me before holstering my gun or unloading. I'm thinking it's probably just as valuable a practice for competition, even if the occasions on which that type of make up shot is useful are very rare.

For good news, all my classifiers were pretty solid this weekend, which is a change of pace. Lately I've been running field courses really well because of all the movement I'm practicing, but my classifiers have sucked since I got my initial classification. I assume it's because I felt pressured since I set the goal of moving to B class by march. I'm not going to get my hopes up, but if the classifier calculator is on I will probably be moving up this month. I was hoping to be in the running for high C production at the double tap championship, but I'm glad to be making progress as a shooter.

I'm going to build myself some airsoft targets for my garage on friday. I've got an idea for an airsoft IPSC target that will be cheap and easy to use. I'll post some pics and let you guys know how they work out. Anybody know a cheap way to build a plate rack?

[Rob D]

Spent an hour at the range yesterday. I'm trying to find a place to practice where I have more consistent access, but when my dad is free he has permission to use a really nice private range with a 50 yard bay, steel plates, and covered shooting benches. I'm used to practicing in a big field with a hill, so it was a nice change of pace. It had been a while since I had actually set up multiple paper targets. Started with some draws, then a few El Prez's to work on turns and transitions. I'm shooting right around 8 seconds for a clean el prez. We didn't do them long enough for me to get a chance to really turn up the gas. From there we worked on some movement drills and timed some reloads. The box to box drills felt sloppy and I think I'm going to start working on a more consistent way of entering boxes.

We also spent a few magazine shooting plates at 50 yards to test our new 147gr loads. I want to put several hundred of them through my gun before DTC just to make sure. I also need to chrono them still, but we didn't have time yesterday. My dad was shooting on his lunch break so we only had about an hour, and I left with about 150rds and the feeling of an unscratched itch. I'm off Sunday and will get some practice in. I'm pumped about DTC and really want to work hard between now and then, although I don't want to get so excited that I feel pressured about the match. I'm trying to keep that in mind, but it's hard not to.

[Rob D]

I shot two matches last weekend. Both performances were decent, but not impressive by any means. I feel like my trigger control is slipping because of my lack of range time. My gun handling is getting fast from all the dry fire, but when I have to start breaking shots things are starting to get a little sloppy. I've got two practice sessions planned for next week, and the week after to prepare for Double Tap.

I didn't make B class this month like I thought I would, which is good and bad news. My 65% classifier bumped an old 66% off the books, so I've got to shoot another one or two in the 60's to get to B. I don't see that being a problem at all. I'm excited about getting a better shot at High C for the double tap. I haven't shot long stages that much, so I have no idea whether I'll be up to the task or not, but I'll definitely have a better chance than I would have if I had been moved to B class.

My movement has gotten MUCH fast in the last few months. I've learned to stomp the gas and the breaks, but I feel like I still have a lot to learn about keeping things smooth. I'm still wobbly when I get into many positions. My dad signed he, myself, and my brother up for a competitions class with TDSA Tulsa the first weekend of April. We'll be learning from Jay Mackey. I'm hoping this class gets me a good start in pushing toward A class.

After seeing all the ports in the DTC stages, I'm going to build a long plywood wall with holes in it for airsoft practice. I feel like ports have been a weakness of mine since I never get to practice with them and only get to deal with them at matches. I'm hoping for a productive week on the range, and I can't wait until DTC!!!

[Rob D]

DTC was a blast. I decided to install a new tru-grip on my gun before the match. I was amazed at how much more aggressive the texture was. I guess I had just forgotten what it was supposed to feel like, but my old grip was so worn down and full of dead skin that it wasn't helping much of anything. I didn't have a single mis-grip on my gun the whole weekend, which is something I've been having a lot of lately.

Saturday was FREEZING with 17mph winds that were gusting around 35mph. I had never shot in that kind of cold before and spent too much time trying to stay warm instead of focusing on my shooting. I'll definitely bring warmer clothes next year. My match started off with a string of stupid mistakes. I was the first shooter on my squad's first stage (stage 3). I shot the whole thing pretty well then after showing clear, the RO let me know that I completely ignored the two small plates that had been in the corners of the stage. I didn't even notice them on the walk through. That cost me quite a bit. During the next stage, after my first reload my gun went "bang, bang, bang, click." because I had forgotten to reload that mag from the stage before. That pretty much set the tone for saturday. I shot horribly. Sunday I came out and did a much better job. I don't know if it was because I had settled down from being so excited about my first major or because the weather was more like what I am used to shooting in, but I shot some good stages.

Here's some video of me from DTC:

Stage 1

Stage 2

Here's another video of me shooting the OKC Gun Club match the first saturday in March

I had fun blasting away at close targets all weekend, but I really only remember 2 paper targets that actually required a front sight focus. I was just a little bored with all the blasting and no aiming. I tend to enjoy stages that punish guys who wont take their time and hit difficult shots. This match did make me aware of some serious weaknesses in my shooting though. I need to work on running my trigger at full speed. I do bill drills, but apparently I need to do a lot more of them. My reloads weren't ideal either. I told myself I would be dry firing for at least an hour every night the week prior to the match to really get myself into shape, but the Saturday before I had a date and it went well so I ended up spending a lot of my time with a girl instead of my gun. Guess I'll have to start getting up before work to dry fire. I short-stroked my trigger a couple of times too. Other than that, my main goal for the next few weeks is to work hard on moving between positions and getting into/out of them more efficiently. I have a competition class coming up next weekend with TDSA Tulsa, and I'm hoping that really helps me with movement.

Edited March 30, 2009 by Rob D

[Front Man]

I am probably the worst shooter on the Forum but I'd work on Transitions.

Cheers!

FM

[Rob D]

I took Tulsa Defensive Shooting Academy's Competition Pistol course last weekend. It was a great class and I learned a lot. The class was taught mostly by local GM Jay Mackey and his son Jay Mackey Jr. Both of them had lots of knowledge to impart, and it was awesome to be able to pick the brain of a GM shooter. I think the most significant improvements I'm going to see from this class are going to be better times entering boxes, leaving boxes, and moving between boxes. Jay had a lot to teach about setting up your feet according to where you're going not where you're shooting. I've always tried to square up on the array I'm about to engage at the make ready command, but it's much more advantageous in most cases to set up to exit the box, then just turn your shoulders toward the array you're shooting (especially if it's a really easy one). I also learned a lot about shooting into and out of positions. Aside from that we did a lot of weak hand/strong hand drills. I also learned faster ways to get out of chairs, pick my gun up from tables, and do a weak hand reload (in the odd event that I ever need to). We also learned and practiced going to prone, kneeling, modified prone, and some other positions. Another very helpful lesson was on how to shoot while moving laterally. I've always practiced the heel to toe method when moving forward and backwards, but Jay taught us to position our feet almost perpendicular to one another and then cross step while moving laterally. this really seemed to help my stability while moving this way.

I learned a ton about shooting, and a lot of the things I learned were things that I was completely ignorant of before taking the class, so I feel like I have a lot of ground to gain over the next few months as I can practice these techniques in dryfire and commit them to muscle memory. Jay wants me to push for Master by the end of the year as a goal, and I'm excited about that too. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but I'm up to it, and I feel like I now know what I need to practice to get there.

[Rob D]

Went out to the range yesterday for the first time since taking the TDSA competition pistol class. Maybe this is just a side effect of firing 1000 rounds in a weekend then waiting a week and letting things sink in, but I was amazed at how natural everything felt yesterday.

I am getting consistent draws from 10 yards at about 1.25, and I am breaking a second within 5 yards(mostly .95ish). That's not any faster than I've shot before, but I was much more consistent and it seemed easy compared to having to push myself for those times a few months ago.

I shot a few bill drills. Most were around 2.6, but I shot one at 2.37 which is smoking fast for me!! I don't remember how many months it's been, but I was psyched when I broke 3 seconds for a bill drill. Now 2 seconds is almost within striking distance.

I also hit a "Draw-1-Reload-1" in 2.67 which is well below my dry-fire par time of 3 seconds. I think I actually make myself get a better sight picture in dry-fire because I second guess whether I saw the hit or not, whereas in livefire the trigger breaks when the sights are there, at least when I'm not doing anything to screw myself up.

Great day at the range! I'm walking (and dry-firing) on air today. It also felt really good because I smoked my dad on every drill. Usually he beats me a time or two, but he's practicing for IDPA right now.

[Rob D]

Got my B card yesterday. It took a couple months longer than I expected, but I learned plenty in the meantime. I haven't been able to shoot as much as I would like over the last few weeks, but I'm getting in some good airsoft and dry fire practice. I've started really pushing myself to stay low while practicing. I'm making myself stay low and keep my knees bent through my entire dry-fire sessions. I'm trying to condition myself to stay in a low athletic stance the entire time I'm shooting without thinking about it, so I'm maintaining the stance even between drills. It looks pretty funny when you duck walk over to the refrigerator to get a soda.

I also got the 3GM dvd from a forum member last week. It's got some awesome tips, and I like how each GM has his own way of performing each action. Anyway, I'm training for the Pro-Am over the next few weeks. I hope to really burn in some quality movement techniques in that time. See you guys at the range!

[Rob D]

After taking it fairly easy on dry fire for a few weeks, I've gotten back into the swing of thing. I had the OKC Gun Club match yesterday, and I've got the USSA Pro-Am coming up this weekending, so it's high time I get my training into gear. Actually, I probably should have gotten it into gear about 3 months ago to be in peak shape for these matches.

Anyway, I'm still losing weight, and I've been doing a lot of squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc to build my legs. I'm naturally very heaving in the chest/belly and have tiny legs, so I've been top heavy and off balance in awkward shooting positions. I'm trying to address that by increasing my leg strength and size while losing the excess fat in my upper body. I can tell a big difference in how I'm able to move vs how I was able to move 6 months ago.

My trigger control was a little sloppy yesterday because I hadn't actually put rounds down range in almost a month. I did manage to win production division, but there were a lot of new shooters and not a lot of experienced ones shooting production. I dropped way too many points throughout the match. I shot the first 5 stages without any kind of meltdown, then my dad told me we needed to leave ASAP because he had some plans that night, so we had to ask the guys in the group ahead to let us shoot with them on the next two stages. Like the awesome guys they are, they rushed us through so I could at least get scores for those stages, but they weren't pretty with no walk-through and no prep time. Classifier calc says I shot a 68% on close quarter standards yesterday, which is a nice step up from my current 61%.

I'm pumped for the pro-am. Let the dry fire monotony begin.

EDIT** I think this picture is fitting for the occasion.

Edited June 7, 2009 by Rob D

[Rob D]

Shot the pro-am this morning. Great match. I didn't shoot amazingly well, but I kept up with my squad which was a good day for me. The 50 yard poppers ate my lunch. Luckily, I got a reshoot because the timer was accidentally left on the par time for open division. I had a little better luck the second time. I also got the chance to meet Nick Santiago, his Dad, and Adrien Sorah. It was awesome to run into some Benos.com guys at the match, and to get to talk shooting which I rarely get to discuss with anyone since(as far as I know) I'm the only shooter for about 50 miles in any direction from my home town. Great match, good to meet you guys!

[High Lord Gomer]

Got my B card yesterday. It took a couple months longer than I expected,...

(late) Congratulations!! You're making good progress! (better than mine)

[Rob D]

Got my B card yesterday. It took a couple months longer than I expected,...

(late) Congratulations!! You're making good progress! (better than mine)

Thanks Mike!

[Rob D]

I did a lot of dry-fire this past week and shot a pretty good match yesterday. I got 2nd in production this month. I won last month because the competition was pretty thin, but this month Lance Jensen decided to come down and show us noobs how to shoot production. I was psyched to finish 2nd to Lance.

I'm starting to notice my overall awareness during the CoF increasing. During my first 5-6 months shooting, my mind seemed to go blank every time the buzzer went off. Only the simplest of concepts and goals could be executed successfully while trying to shoot quickly. A few months later I learned to plan and visualize a stage, then run it accordingly. I'm still learning to do this well, but even during the first 6-8 months of learning that skill, my mind would go completely blank if I messed up my plan in any way. If I missed a piece of steel and had to make an extra reload, my plan was going out the window and there was no telling what I was going to shoot.

Yesterday I had sort of a eureka moment involving match awareness. On one stage, my plan required me to shoot 11(5 paper, 1 steel) shots from one position. I planned to run the gun dry and then reload from slidelock while getting to the next position. I missed the steel on my first shot, and without a hiccup, hit the 4th paper, reloaded, and took the 5th paper target while backing out of the position since it was wide open. I was able to make a quick, deliberate, and time-conscious choice to reload at a strategic point and doing so allowed me to make the best out of what would have turned into a disaster 6 months ago. On the next stage, I adapted my plan mid run to include taking two targets while moving into a position instead of once I got there. I was moving toward them, the gun was up and the sights were already there, so I let the rounds go and made good hits.

I feel like I'm starting to develop an intuitive shooting sense. Instead of programming and running plan X perfectly, I'm adapting and improvising as visual cues let me know I should. I think this is going to be a pretty big breakthrough in my shooting. I think my practice on fundementals and my match experience are starting to merge, and I'm coming out of it as a somewhat well-rounded and competent shooter. Woohooo for practice.

Here are a couple videos from the match:

- I shot this stage really well. I was happy to watch the video afterward and see that I'm starting to flow more from target to target.

- This was my worst stage of the match. It would have been pretty decent, but on the second port, I spent 5-7 shots shooting at one pepper popper. The lesson: When twisted at a weird angle that's hard to hold steady, don't waste a whole mag missing at one piece of steel just to save a few tenths of a second to keep from adjusting your stance. Adjust your feet and knock it over.

In dry-fire, I'm still practicing staying low. I still have a lot to learn on this, but the practice is helping. Other than that I'm just doing my normal Steve Anderson drills. My hits were pretty sloppy yesterday. That happens when I don't make time to get out to the range and life-fire practice between matches. My trigger control gets sloppy, but that's an easy fix. I need to make a more deliberate effort to get this done.

Other than that, I got accepted to RO for the Area 4 Chapionship in October. I'm psyched about shooting the match, and ROing is going to make it possible. My dad and I are going to Arkansas to get NROI certified next weekend, so I'm excited about that as well.

Happy shooting guys! I'm going to keep pushing for A class.

[Rob D]

Got up at 3:30AM Saturday morning and drove to Glendale, AR to attend a NROI Seminar. Pending my test results(I think I'm good) I'll be RO Certified. I enjoyed the class, and I feel like it really solidified my understanding of the rules. I'm hoping that understanding the rules and underscoring scoring in greater depth will make me a better competitor as well as a capable RO. I'm psyched about being a RO at Area 4.

[Rob D]

Awful match today. Shot at OKC gun club. It was mostly because I had a meltdown early in the day, and didn't shoot many of the stages well. There were a couple of decent stages, but the rest were really simple "Stand in Box A, Shoot array 1" type stages with multiple strings. It made for a long and boring match. There was one stage that could have actually been in a level 3 match, and I burned it down, which made me happy.

I need to work on my visual patience more. Apparently I'm not seeing the sights the way I need to a lot of the time. Guess you have to have a bad match now and then to know when you have a good one, but I'm glad this one is over and can't wait to shake it off.

[Rob D]

Shot my first Steel Challenge match that day after the awful match described above. I came in 2nd in the Centerfire/Irons division behind an A-class IPSC shooter the usually beats the piss out of my at matches, and he only beat me by 3 seconds! I'm definitely going to start shooting more steal because I had a blast. It was nice to get to blow a run, stop to think about what I did wrong, then fix it on the next run. In USPSA I never get the chance to get revenge on stages.

I've been getting a lot more life-fire practice than usual, and I am starting to see some improvement in areas that I haven't noticed much before. I did my fastest bill drill ever at 2.26 seconds. I'm shooting hard-cast lead bullets, and by the time the sixth bullet was out of the barrel, I couldn't even see the target because of all the smoke. I thought that was pretty cool

I'm keeping up with my dryfire too. I want to be in tip top condition for Area4 so I can shoot the best possible match I have in me. I was reading a thread earlier in which steve anderson said he likes to practice movement drills without the gun so he can focus on footwork. I'm going to try that out tonight. I've been pinning a beach towell across a doorway at various heights and doing dry fire drills where I have to shoot under it to strengthen my legs. I've also been squatting/deadlifting at the gym to try to make them stronger. In the crappy video a few posts above, I spent almost a whole mag shooting at one piece of steel because my right leg was trembling from shooting out of an awkward/squatting position. This should be a simple(although time consuming) fix.

My dad got a new digital video camera, so I'm going to start bringing that with me to every match so I(and hopefully you guys) can more effectively critique my performance. I feel like I'm starting to get the basic skills that I need to be a well-rounded shooter, but I still have plenty of weaknesses that need to be polished off.

I'm going to southern, CA next weekend for my cousins wedding so my dad and I are going to shoot a match a SWPL. I'm excited to get to shoot in a different part of the country with a different group of guys, and I'm also excited because my cousin is coming out. He's a cop in Pamona, CA but he's never shot a match so I think he'll have a lot of fun.