Major Match Thoughts

Major Match Thoughts


Heading home from Ohio today, and talking to with Linda who had just shot her first major match, I realized a lot of things that I'd learned from when I shot my first major last year, and today. I also realized that most of what I learned had to do with approach to the match. No longer was I just showing up and shooting stages, I had an entire routine down in order to try to have the best performance possible. Granted I did not shoot the way I wanted to, but that's on me, and it's fixable, I put myself in a place where I could be successful.

It's almost impossible to explain to someone who has never done this, why on earth I would take a day off work, drive 6 plus hours each way, spend a couple of nights in a hotel, and 9.5 hours at a range, to shoot for 3.5 minutes. It sounds almost nuts right? People think it's easy to do, hell, last year I figured it would be easy, but shooting ten stages is not just a test of your shooting skills, it's a test of your mental and physical ability. Without being there, I don't think I can explain to someone what you are going thru.

The day before the match, we drove in, and spent close to 3 hours walking all the stages. We'd left the house about 5 am, and spend close to 7 hours driving, losing an hour headed east. The idea was to get a solid plan in place for each stage, make sure it make's sense. This is not a club match where you show up, and spend 5-10 minutes on a stage, here you walk it multiple times, from many angles. Where are your reloads? How many steps is it one way versus another way? Where are the sight traps? Are the certain places you need to look out for a procedural? A good match, and Ohio was a good match, presented a shooter with multiple ways to shoot a field course, leaving you to make the right decisions for yourself. When you've got a stage figured out, you walk it again, committing it to memory, and then use the match book to diagram your plan. There is a point where even if I see something "better", I keep to my plan, just because it's what I've committed to memory.

Post range it's off to dinner. Some folks stay out late, have a few beers, and then a few more beers. Nothing wrong with that, I did it in the past, but this year I've stayed away from it. If I'm investing time and money, I want to get a good night of sleep, and more importantly I want to get back to the hotel to spend at least 45 minutes on dry fire. If I saw ports, I want to practice coming out of them, I want to practice the draws I will need for the match, reloads, and of course my sight picture. I also spent about 30 minutes going over my plans, this time I was able to describe the stage, my plan, my target order, and where my reloads were going to take place. For me, when I'm on a stage, then I'm just going by memory, I don't have to "think", I can just shoot, and I am remembering my solution, and this allows me to go much faster.

I was up again at 5am on match morning, quick shower, and some more dry fire, white wall practice. I want to "train" my mind and my eyes to forget about everything else other than my front sight. 6am breakfast, and then to the range by 7:15, spend 45 minutes loading up magazines, doing a last walk-thru, and spending some time meeting squad mates, and saying "hello", to other shooters that I know. The adrenaline is really starting to get me keyed up, and I'm focused on what I'm going to do for the day.

A little after the shooter meeting at 8 am, we are on the first stage, getting score sheets ready to go, and now I'm focused on the job at hand. While I'm watching other people, I'm running my plan in my head. The first stage has been traditionally tough for me. When I'm calm, I keep my focus on my sights, when I'm keyed up I go fast, and lose my sights, so a part of me is trying to stay calm, stay focused. In between shooting, I'm out there pasting for 8-9 shooters, and walking back and forth up the gravel bays. I'm pulling a wagon from stage to stage with my bag, Linda's bag, a cooler, and Lauren's bag. This goes on all morning long, brief moments of shooting, followed by what could be mind-numbing work pasting. It's easy to get too up, too down, not pay attention to stages and so on and so on.

The sun beats down, and I'm drinking a bottle of water at least every other stage to stay hydrated, I've not done that in the past and paid a serious price in cramping for days afterwards. You find that even though you put suntan lotion on, you forgot to put it on the backs of your legs, or your arms. Lunch comes around, and most matches want to feed you some big BBQ style lunch, that if you ate you'd be sound asleep or even more tired, so I spend the day grazing on trail mix, granola, beef jerky, water, and an occasional Gatorade.  Try doing that, and keeping your focus all day long, from 8:20 in the morning when you take your first shot, until 5:52 when you take your last shot. Bring your best to each and every stage. It's not as easy as it seems.

Sure, you can show up and shoot, and that may work for some folks. I'm just not one of them. If I'm investing money and time, I need to do this to put myself in the best place to succeed. No, I'm not in place where Match Wins are even things I'm thinking of, but I want to bring my best game every single time I shoot. A year ago it was fun to go, spend the day shooting, and that was enough fun for me. Now my competitive juices are flowing, I want to do better.