OK, so come critique me again

[A62335]

Been playing this game for almost a year now, so I think I've got most of the "basics" down, and my mental game has improved tremendously. Could you guys go to my YouTube page, link in my signature below, and critique the videos from the May 3rd match? My draw could still be quicker, and I need to reload higher in front of my face, those two things I know and work on at home in dryfire. What else can you guys point out?

Thanks,

Jeremy

[CHA-LEE]

Here is my attempt…..

Piles of Bullets – Did the stage description mandate that you could not put any magazines on your belt? If not why not pick up your extra magazine and put it on your belt after loading your gun? That way you could advance towards your next shooting position as you are shooting. When you move from barrel to barrel you are not going very fast. Since you spent all that time shooting at the barrel you should be booking it to the next shooting position all out. If you are stuck with picking up your mags off the barrel why break down your run towards the next barrel to engage targets on the move? Book it to the next barrel and plant in one shooting position for all targets if you can, you will be able to shoot faster and more accurately that way. As you did it you were shuffling around as you shot. Obviously we could not see the angles of the shots but if I was shooting that stage I would have stayed behind the barrel and shot all of the targets from one shooting position instead of shuffling around.

There are many different ways to tackle the mags on barrel stage scenario, if you give us a better stage description with the limitations that will help with breaking down what can or can’t be done.

No Mikes – On your first string when switching from the strong hand to weak and that looked a little clunky. Then as you shoot weak hand only your strong hand is flapping in the breeze. You need to keep your free swinging hand tight against your body somewhere. This will make you more stable.

When you reload between your strings you have the gun really low at belly level. Perform ALL of your mag changes up high where you would be doing them during a stage run. Its easier to burn in the correct way of doing it if you do it in the same place every time you put a mag in the gun.

When you go into the kneeling position, you wait until your all the way down before you draw the gun. You should draw the gun as soon as you hear the buzzer and start to go down for the kneel. That way the gun is out and on target by the time you are all the way down. As you did it you built in extra draw time after you were done with the kneeling process.

Flying Inverted – On the tone you snap your head around to the targets good, but you are shuffling your feet around to find your final stance. In your other shooting video’s I see that you use a stance that puts your right rear foot quite a bit further back than the left. With this stance its very hard to keep from shuffling your feet around when you spin to the right (gun side). I use a very right foot back stance when shooting and have found that if I turn to the left (non gun side) my feet seem to fall right into place with no shuffling needed and once I get turned around my stance is solid and I am ready to shoot fast and accurate. Try going to the left on your turn draws to see if it works out better. Just keep in mind that it is a LOT easier to break the 180 if you draw the gun too soon. I use the extra time to get an absolute solid grip on the gun before pulling it out of the holster.

Your box to box movement needs work. You need to start moving towards the next box on the last couple of shots in the first shooting box. Kind of like falling out of the box. Then before you enter the next box the gun should be up and on target ready to shoot so as soon as you enter the box you can be shooting. As you did it you waited to get into the box then raised the gun and started shooting.

CM99-12 Reshoot – Its hard to tell from the vantage point but why is your weak and going far to the right to meet up with the gun/strong hand? You should be able to “meet” the strong hand to build the grip further out in the draw. As you did it there is a little pause where you are trying to get both hands to meet up close to your right side. When you rebuild your grip after the reload it seems to take a little too long on getting the gun back out and on target. Do some dry fire practice with rebuilding your grip from the reload position. The gun should punch out quickly and your grip should be pretty much automatic keeping up with the extending of the arms.

[A62335]

Awesome, that is exactly what I am looking for.

As for not picking up the mags, it was deemed a "forbidden action", all reloads had to come off the barrels. My reason for slowing down at the second barrel was I wanted to engage the targets on the left side while on the move, so by the time I got to the barrel I could reload and engage the targets on the right. Didn't work out because I missed 1 steel and had to do a reload in order to engage the last target on the left, the had to reload again in order to have enough rounds to engage the targets on the right.

Also, I do still need to work on my strong hand/weak hand skills, thats the worst part of my "game" right now. I had planned on drawing before I kneeled, but we all know what happens to our game plan when the buzzer goes off

Thanks for the tip on turning to the left, I will try that in my dryfire drills. I go to the right simply because I do not want to even come close to breaking the 180, but I think I am comfortable enough with my gun handling that I can switch to going to the left.

Thanks again, I have lots of things to think about and practice now.

Edited May 5, 2009 by A62335

[CHA-LEE]

A62335> For the Piles of Bullets stage, since you had to get mags off of the barrel it would have made more sense to run fast to the barrels and then plant your feet to engage the targets. You could have mixed it up a little bit by saving the targets at the far end walls until you got to the next barrel. Closer targets can be shot faster and more accurately. It looked like a cool stage with a lot of options on how to shoot it. Those are the fun ones because it really shows peoples creativity. I think I will setup a stage like that in practice and run through it a couple of times to see which way is faster for me. Actually shooting in each condition is really the only way of knowing which way is best for both time and quality of hits.

[A62335]

Cha-Lee: Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate it.

Anyone else see any glaring things I can work on?

[Jake Di Vita]

#1 and more glaring thing is you need to get way more aggresive.

[A62335]

Could you elaborate on that a little?

[Ron Ankeny]

#1 and more glaring thing is you need to get way more aggressive.

That's exactly what I am seeing. It's time to develop some speed and a passion. Shift things up a gear. The notion of shooting accurately and being smooth will in and of itself build speed is a fairy tale.

[A62335]

Ahh, roger that. I think that will be my goal at the next match, to force myself out of my comfort zone as far as physically moving around the course.

[Jake Di Vita]

That and all around getting deeper into the gun.

Shooting should NOT be a comfortable activity. It should be very uncomfortable. This is an athletic endeavor - treat it like one.

[A62335]

Understood. I'll report back with a new set of videos after the next match.

To all: I sincerely appreciate your comments, thank you very much.

[CHA-LEE]

"Shooting should NOT be a comfortable activity. It should be very uncomfortable. This is an athletic endeavor - treat it like one."

Jake Di Vita> This statement ROCKS!!! and is so true. The guys I see shoot every week that complain about being stuck in C & B class fall into the leasurly stroll through the COF shooting approch. You have to attack it, and earn every tenth of a second saved after the buzzer goes off.