2009 Area 3 Stages for review

[JoshF]

I just wanted to throw this up for everyone to critique if you want

I shot this match with a little different strategy than in the past. I tried to make deliberate shots but keep my foot speed up. Yes, I know, you are saying "that's what you ALWAYS do". Well in this one I would say I was running about 75% on shooting speed and 90% on movement. Typically I try for 90/90 and often creep JUST over that and drop a shot or clip a no-shoot. This match I had neither and 6 D's total.

This strategy turned out pretty well this match. I ended up 1st B and 8th overall with a 79%. Now I have to decide if I want to continue this for Nationals or try and go 90/90 again which might turn out better if I practice a bit

Thanks and let me know what you think..

Edited August 17, 2009 by JoshF

[Jesse Tischauser]

I just wanted to throw this up for everyone to review and critique if you want

I shot this match with a little different strategy than in the past. I tried to make deliberate shots but keep my foot speed up. Yes, I know, you are saying "that's what you ALWAYS do". Well in this one I would say I was running about 75% on shooting speed and 90% on movement. Typically I try for 90/90 and often creep JUST over that and drop a shot or clip a no-shoot. This match I had neither and 6 D's total.

This strategy turned out pretty well this match. I ended up 1st B and 8th overall with a 79%. Now I have to decide if I want to continue this for Nationals or try and go 90/90 again which might turn out better if I practice a bit

Enjoy and let me know what you think..

Good shooting man!

[DUKE]

That is some solid shooting Josh.

[rr4406pak]

Which Limited gun are you shooting (Brand, pistolsmith, mods, etc.)?

[Zerwas]

Josh,

Very good shooting.

A couple of things come to mind though...

#1-be sure to avoid punching the pistol all the way thru a port when you don't need too. This will slow you down. No problem doing this if it is your last position of a stage, however.

#2-that was a funky way you went into the prone position on stage 1. Did you do that for a reason? It seemed to slow you down as it appeared you had a tough time aquiring the sites after laying on your left side.

#3-start to move a little sooner on the targets you have the ability to move on (such as stage 3). You began to move, but just not as quickly as you could have.

#4-be sure to look all your reloads in. A couple of times I saw you barely looked down at the pistol during some of the reloads.

You did a great job on the steel plate rack. Your movement between positions looked quick. Keep up the hard work!

[Matt P.]

Also,

say goodbye to B Class. you are now an A class shooter.

A3 was a level 3 this year and you won your class and are over 75%

Great job!

[JoshF]

Zerwas and Matt thanks for the feedback guys. It's exactly what I was looking for.

Zerwas... Stage 1 I can only explain by saying I talked to some others who shot it and that evolved into some less then ideal ideas in my head.. Stage 1, 8, 9 is a good example of why I should always stick with what's comfortable to me unless there is a drastic advantage and even then I usually come out better doing what makes sense to me. The other items including reloads and movement I just need to practice on. Practice would have made a huge difference no doubt. Definately going to try and get in some good practice before Nationals.

Duke, thanks!

440. I shoot a Dan Bedell gun. The gun is basically as I received it with some maintenance and springs... It just runs and runs and runs... I love it. Hopefully I can get him to build me another soon as I really need a backup.

Edited August 18, 2009 by JoshF

[rr4406pak]

Also,

say goodbye to B Class. you are now an A class shooter.

A3 was a level 3 this year and you won your class and are over 75%

Great job!

So if you win your class at a Level III match you automatically get bumped up?

[Matt P.]

if you finish in the higher class so, for Josh because I think he finished at 79%, he would then be an "A" class which starts at 75%

[JoshF]

if you finish in the higher class so, for Josh because I think he finished at 79%, he would then be an "A" class which starts at 75%

Yeah, you have to have a sufficient number of GM's... Not exactly sure how many that is but we had three this time. Also you have to finish high enough percentage wise. I actually won B Limited in the 2008 Area 3 but it was only a 72% overall so I didn't get kicked up (good thing). Now I feel I'm ready to play with the "A" kids so the kick up was nice. Funny thing is even if they didn't kick me up my next few classifiers to post would have kicked me up anyways so it all sort of came together. The only kicker is I'm thinking the bump will happen pre-nationals... not sure on that as USPSA hasn't updated the classifications yet. Next step is Master and I'm looking to ramp up my shooting/practice pretty drastically over the next year to make that happen. I've came about as far as I can with minimal/no dryfireing and limited practice.

[steel1212]

If you have enough GMs the percent of finish will count towards your classifier I don't think its an automatic bump. Also, I think Area matchs count regardless of how many GMs are there as I know my SS counted from Area 6 this year.

[Matt P.]

Josh,

For the life of me I was trying to find the criteria. I thought A3 last year was a level II. I know it was a level III this year which means your match percentage is going to go against your classifiers and the GM thing is out of the window?

If someone knows those rules, please chime in!

Also, I know that something must have happened with the A3 reporting and/or paying of activity credits because the last update before nationals just happened and I didn't see any A3 updates. You will be bumped to A class because of your placement in your class and your overall match percentage.

[JakeMartens]

if you finish in the higher class so, for Josh because I think he finished at 79%, he would then be an "A" class which starts at 75%

Not necessarily. I can't explain it, but it doesn't happen automatically (or at all from what I have seen) I won B class at A5 at a 77%,

Theo Carter won A class at A5 91%

the Limited HAO at Area 6 was a master class, still is, and he beat 8 GM's

Sorry for the hijack, back on topic

Josh,

I watched your video a couple of times and as one of the B class shooters you beat (pretty badly!!) it is exactly what you said, smooth and steady. I compared your stages to mine and then looked at and compared the overall results and for the most part we were within a few 1 seconds of each other here and there. I bombed stage 5, stage 4 and stage 8. But the biggest difference I see is that for the most part you were very smooth, flowed and stayed consistant, got your hits and didn't rush anything. While I had some mental mistakes, and some just down right dumb stuff going on!!

Anyway you looked good, nice shooting, looking forward to next time

You going to Fall Classic?

[steel1212]

if you finish in the higher class so, for Josh because I think he finished at 79%, he would then be an "A" class which starts at 75%

Not necessarily. I can't explain it, but it doesn't happen automatically (or at all from what I have seen) I won B class at A5 at a 77%,

Theo Carter won A class at A5 91%

the Limited HAO at Area 6 was a master class, still is, and he beat 8 GM's

Sorry for the hijack, back on topic

Josh,

I watched your video a couple of times and as one of the B class shooters you beat (pretty badly!!) it is exactly what you said, smooth and steady. I compared your stages to mine and then looked at and compared the overall results and for the most part we were within a few 1 seconds of each other here and there. I bombed stage 5, stage 4 and stage 8. But the biggest difference I see is that for the most part you were very smooth, flowed and stayed consistant, got your hits and didn't rush anything. While I had some mental mistakes, and some just down right dumb stuff going on!!

Anyway you looked good, nice shooting, looking forward to next time

You going to Fall Classic?

That is how I almost won B class there a few years ago, looking at the plaque now, I wasn't blazing fast just smooth. I had 1 NS as my only penalty for the entire match....lost B by 8 points.

[JoshF]

I looked through the rule book and found the seciton referring to Match finishes.

"Winning first or second in class at an Area Championship or Major Tournament AND shooting into the next higher class

may result in promotion (except to Grand Master); winning High Overall in an

Area Championship may promote you to Grand Master class. In addition, if you

score 95% or higher at a USPSA national championship, you will be immediately

moved to Grand Master class for that division."

Looks like a lot of vague items in there. I swear it use to say a certain amount of GM's were required in class for the percentage finish to be valid. Can't find any other details though.

I just checked and looks like they did miss my Area % in this update as well as some classifiers I shot earlier this month. Looks like I'm going into Nationals as a "B" for one last hoorah before "A" class.

[CHA-LEE]

Stage 10 – Looks solid, shooting a little slow.

Stage 11 – Shooting a little slow. When you move from the left side to the port you pull the gun back and poke it back out through the port. Every time you pull the gun out and poke it back out you lose at least half a second. Keep the gun extended and drive it to the next target. There is no reason to poke the gun though the port on that stage.

Stage 12 – Nice draw to first shot. You could have been slowly moving to the right as you engaged the steel and open paper to move you over to the plate rack. If you are going to take your time getting your hits at least throw some movement in there to offset the slower shooting. When you move from the first shooting position to the second you move completely to the second position, plant, then raise the gun to shoot. The gun should be up and ready to engage the target as soon as you settle into the shooting position. Same thing with the last shooting position. I also see that you tend to move then stand up in the shooting position. Always stay low until the shooting is done.

Stage 1 – You seem to be shooting all of the close targets at the same metered speed. You should be able to turn up and down the speed based on the shot difficulty. The rest of the stage looks good. Nice shooting on the move backing up to the prone position. Others have already commented on the prone section.

Stage 2 – Not much can be seen here with you not being in the frame. At the start, why not move forward during the draw? You have to move to the port anyway right? If you can combine a step along with the draw you are still doing a couple things at once and saving some time and needing one less step. It also looks like you shot the activating popper first then waited for the swinger stuff to come out. You could have saved a paper target in between them to engage to save some time.

Stage 3 – At the start you could have started moving backwards as soon as you finished with the furthest inside target to the right. Then take small steps backwards and to the right as you engaged the rest of the left side targets. Pretty much the same way as you did the right side targets as you were advancing.

Stage 4 – Once again, don’t dig deep into the ports if you don’t have to. Pulling the gun back and poking it back out wastes time.

Stage 5 – More of the same, lots of pulling the gun back and poking it back out. Also lots of standing up while shooting. Stay low and aggressive through the whole stage run. At the final shooting position you engage the targets from extreme right to left dipping low between the sides. You could have probably saved some time by doing the extreme left and right sides first then finish on the low targets in front of you. Its harder and slower to reacquire targets from high to low and low to high. The same goes for switching up your shooting speed. Take your time on the left and right stuff and then turn up the throttle on the low ones at the end.

Stage 6 – Same situation with the poking in and out and not staying low. Some time loss here with not being more aggressive with your left to right transitions.

Stage 7 – Hard to see whats going on here past the first two shooting positions. But With those low open targets, why not get moving right away as you are engaging them? Standing there to engage them is just killing time. Then your movement up to the third shooting position seems a little half hearted. You could have really hauled ass there. The sooner you are at the next shooting position the sooner the stage is over.

Stage 8 – There is no need to poke through those ports. Given the lighting conditions you could have had a better sight picture if your gun was behind the port because it looked like your gun was in the shadow of the wall when you had it poked through. The easier the sights are to see, the faster you can call your shots.

Stage 9 – Nice engagement on the first string of targets. When moving from right to left you could have moved more aggressively if you broke your grip apart and really dug in for a couple of strides. In the final shooting position. Could you have lowered yourself down before engaging the last two targets? If you could lower yourself as you were engaging the third to last target then all you would have to do is swing to the left and finish up the last two low ones. As you did it, your lowering time was added to your stage run.