I like the number two, maybe it's a good thing, because today the number two doesn't have great connotations, rather it's a reminder of something that I'd like to forget about. It's also an admission that sometimes things change, no matter how much you don't want them to change, they change. Maybe it's a symbol that I'm starting to grow up because instead of whining and wishing things had not changed, I'm accepting it, and going to deal with it.
I was going thru a few things, and I realized that it's been just about 2 years since I've shot a match that I've been entirely proud of. No mikes, was competitive on my stages, and had a top 10 overall match finish. Let's say that one more time, "two years." That's not exactly something I'm proud of, but it's definitely a reality that I need to deal with, and I need to adjust my thinking.
When we moved to Texas, life changed, I'm on the road more, and I don't always bring my gear with me to practice at a hotel, (especially since I've had my truck broken into twice). Lauren hit an age where she started her own activities, first soccer, now swimming and softball, and that's 3-4 nights a week, and truth is I enjoy being "dad", and doing all those things with her. I can say that the range is further, is outdoors, that I don't have my practice partners, and that I'm not holding myself accountable, or that it's frustrating to me that I'm not catching mistakes in practice. Last year on the 2011, at some point I let my strong hand thumb come off the safety, and end up below it, and to compensate I screwed up my entire grip, I rode the slide, and caused the gun to not go into battery. That's not a mistake I would have made a few years ago, and if I did, the people I practice with would have caught it.
In addition, I caught the 3-Gun bug, and that introduced me to two brand new guns, ones that if I want to be proficient with, I need to practice with as well. When you add it all up, my commitment level just could not handle all of that, and that's why I've been agonizing writing this for a couple of months. I knew I needed to outline my goals for 2016, and break them up so I could start work towards them, and start to measure my progress, but I also knew that I could not set a goal without being realistic about the time I wanted to invest in achieving the goal. If I set the bar too high, I'd start off right, and burn out or lose interest in a couple of weeks, and then struggle all year and be unhappy.
I'm back on the stationary bike and on the bowflex, I'm eating more sensibly, so I know I can get on the long road back, but I also know that I've got to want it. I told Lauren the other day that if she can dream it, she can do it. It's just a matter of wanting it bad enough to work for it. I need to listen to a little bit of that myself.
USPSA 2016
Single Stack is going to be an adventure, but I'm looking forward to it. I've done some reasonable dry fire, but I think I'm still 60-90 days of good work from getting fully back into "game shape." Could I do it faster if I put more time in? Probably, but I know I can't invest the time that I was able to in the past. The goal is 3-days a week of dry fire for 20 minutes a session. The first 30 days is really going to drill back to when I started working with Les, and try to scrape off all the rust on my fundamentals. Trigger control, transitions, splits, and most importantly accuracy are going to be a focus. My draw, get it fundamentally perfect, where 99% of the time I'm getting the gun out, and getting my sights all the time, I'm not going to race for a 1 second draw, I'm going to start with the 2 second par time, and start working it down from there. Same approach on reloads, I'm not going to get a 1 second reload, not where I am at now. My reloads got sloppy shooting Limited, and Single Stack it's going to matter a lot more again, so I'm going to start with the 2 second reload, and start working it down from there again.
I know the goals sound modest, and if I brush the rust off faster, great, but fundamental skills are the foundation of improvement, and without them I don't have a prayer. Once I get both those skills in the 1.5 area, then I'll feel that I'm at least back to where I was skill level just about 2 years ago. That's not the top of the world, and it's not where I wanted to be last year, but it's a start. Once I'm there, I'll add more movement, wider transitions, swingers, strong and weak hand, and other skills that I know are all part of the bigger picture, but are things that I have struggled on. Accuracy is more important than ever shooting Single Stack Minor, so I'm going to put a heavy emphasis on that, and I'll grade my own matches more than ever on my percentage of points shot, and number of Alpha's, so I suspect that will be the single biggest focus for the entire year.
So, 3 dry fire, and a single range trip, 200 rounds a week is about what I can manage. Now that I belong to 2 ranges, really no excuse, but this is reasonable, and at least I have a list of things I worked on when I started training with Les to fall back on, and get me thru the first 60-90 days. I need that to build some confidence, and once I hit that mark, I'll work on the next part, but one step at a time.
3-Gun
This one is a little bit more tricky. I'm excited to shoot the new 6" Hayes Custom Guns' 2011, but there are so many components to 3-Gun that I just need more time shooting the sport. There is no doubt at all that I love shooting shotgun, but a big part of the match isn't just how you shoot a shotgun, it's how you load it. As I understand it, top notch guys reload 8 rounds in about 4 second, the last time I had myself on the timer I reloaded 8 rounds in 12 seconds. Since reloading practice is fairly easy, I'm going to do this a 2-3 times a week, 10-15 minutes, and my long term goal is to get my reload down to 6 seconds for 8 rounds, and I'll start to be satisfied when I'm about 8 seconds. Reason being, I'm not looking for match wins, but I need to be able to reload with the pack, and not lose time.
Other than, I'll have to learn things like how to load if a stage calls for multiple kinds of round, and I'll head out to the range and shoot a round of clays or trap once a month. I have a couple of customers who enjoy it, so I can do it as a "work" thing every now and then, but it's something I'm new to, and weak at, so I just need to experience more.
Rifle I enjoy, but surprisingly it's my weakest gun in 3-Gun. Short range stuff I can run some excellent splits, but I need to know my dope, and know my reticle. Long range stuff is something I'm weak at, and only way I'm going to get better is to do it. I've arranged some one on one "lessons" with a local shooter who kills long range so I can sort some parts out. Breathing, trigger pull, basically put the entire thing together. In terms of dry fire, I can work on shouldering the gun properly, so I have great cheek weld, and no matter one power or six power, I see well with both eyes open. I need to work on shooting from strange positions, prone, hunched over, and I need to find out little things like which size mag's work best for me when I'm prone, that give me the right height. So dry fire rifle, probably something I'll do every other week for 10-15 minutes, just those little things. In terms of live fire, I'd like to run long range once a month, maybe 50-75 rounds, nothing serious, just enough to increase my level of comfort, and probably once a month in the bay just to work on sharpening those skills a bit.
Ignore my chicken winging the rifle (and taking one extra shot at all the paper because I was so frazzled about hitting paper..) but I thought I ran the shotgun pretty well. That was a 3-Gun Nation Classifier, 3GN 22 Classifier 06-14 "Finale 4" my time on the run gave me a 65.1%. No, I'm not saying that is great, but for a guy who is relatively new, it was not horrible. In the Practical Division, I was 11th of 20 shooters, by far my best stage, and even I think see where I could have cut 4-5 seconds from my time. (3 extra rifle shots, being slow to ground rifle and shotgun...) my point is that I can do this. That would have been a USPSA "B" type run, and that's about where I think I could or should be shooting.
Come Fallen Brethren in October, I'd like to finish in the Top 100 overall, with everything that went wrong in 2015 there, that would be a huge jump, but I also think with a year of competing under my belt, and putting in some reasonable time into practice, that the jump is definitely a reasonable one.
Closing
Considering what I said were my limitations, I think I've set some reasonable goals, where if I'm patient and consistent with my work I can do it. I don't think I'm asking too much from my practice sessions, I'm asking about an hour a week in dry fire, maybe a hair more, and 4 range sessions a month, 3 at Austin Rifle Club, and 1 at Copperhead Creek. I've got amazing gear, I spent the winter stocking up on reloading supplies, I've got absolutely no excuse. Very simply if I can't handle this minimal amount of time investment, then I'll deserve the worst.
I have eight major matches this year: Xtreme Bullets (3-Gun), Cowtown Classic (USPSA), 3-Gun Nation SW Regional, Double Tap (USPSA), Texas Open (USPSA), Shooter's Source (3-Gun), Oilfield Classic (USPSA) and finally Fallen Brethren (3-Gun), that's a very solid balance between them all. It's also a big investment in time and money to attend all these matches (Have I ever mentioned that I love living in Texas because all these matches are here?) While I know I'll struggle early in the year, I'll use my experiences as learning experiences, and I genuinely believe that if I stick with my practice goal, I'll show slow, but steady improvement thru the year, and should peak, and have my best matches at the end of the season.
I'll come back to this throughout the year, and as things get going, I'll get back to blogging more. Putting my thoughts and experiences down somehow helps me absorb them, or I come back later and read them and gain a different perspective which I find valuable. Until then.......
I'm not going to be that guy......
