[JDBraddy]

Hi Everyone,

I've been shooting local matches on the weekend for about two years now. I started using my old Colt Goldcup, and joined every club, and bought a membership at every range in town, and in the past couple years, I bought a bunch of equipment for different divisions, three gun, IDPA, steel, and various other games, including an AR Carbine, Rem-1100, a used Caspian Open gun in .38-SC, and most recently a new SV sight tracker, and of course all the holster rigs, accessories, and goodies to go with each of them. Now I've got all this fancy equipment, and I'm still a D-class shooter.

After doing a bit of searching, and reading, I've decided it time I learn to shoot better. I've spent the past couple weeks considering what I want my goals to be, wich wasn't easy, because I have so many options, and so many areas I need to improve.

I've decided the biggest detrement to both my performance, and the enjoyment of my shooting is my obesity.



I'm 40 years old, six feet tall, and weigh 428 lbs. My weight has begun to affect my health, as I'm diabetic, hypertensive, and no longer have the endurance or agility to be as active as I'd like to be. My Ideal weight is 170-180 lbs, and I don't think that's a realistic goal for me at this point. I need something shorter term, and more achievable. So for now, my goal is to get below 400lbs by the end of the year, then re-assess.

Now, I think one of my biggest problems is I eat out too much, probably two meals a day, every day, so To accomplish my goal, I've decided to reduce my meal portions, and limit my dining out at resteraunts, by pre-planning and preparing at least three evening meals at home each week, packing a lunch to take to work with me each day, and limit my stopping for breakfast taco's each morning, to no more than once each week.

Exercise is another important component. I have a nice treadmill, and a home gym, that have been collecting dust in my garage for the better part of ten years now. I drug them out, carried them upstairs, dusted them off, maintenanced, lubricated, and re-assembled them in a previously unused guest room with a ceiling fan, television, and radio. I spent 40min walking on the treadmill today, and plan to start doing so at least three days each week. I still need to organize an upper and lower body weightlifting program using the home gym, but am not quite sure where to start on that yet.



Next, I need to work on my shooting skills specificly. I've decided to stop trying to do everything, and concentrate on Limited for the time being. I have the equipment, a nice new SV sight tracker, Six mags, CR-Speed holster rig, Dillon 550, Timer, etc.... so for the next year or so, the only equipment I should need is more reloading components. I've never really done dryfire practice, and my only live fire practice has been local matches on the weekend.



I've decided to try making dryfire practice part of my workout routine. Perhapse after I workout on the treadmill or home gym. I have Burkette's first three video's, and have ordered Andersons book. As I wait for it, I printed out a diagram of a USPSA target and used it as a template to cut some minature targets out of scrap cardboard. I used a ruler and a finishing nail to perferate an "A-zone" and used a loop of masking tape on the back to make them stick to the wall wherever I want them. It didn't cost me a dime, works great anywhere, is easy to put up and take down, and doesn't leave any marks on the wall.



Hopefully, posting here a couple times a week, will help to hold me accountable for participating and making progress. There are two USPSA matches in town this weekend, one Saturday morning, and another Sunday morning, so I've loaded up about 500rnds of .40, and plan on shooting in both. Any suggestions or advice are welcome.

[Paul Burtchell]

Great post. I know you have the entire forums support.

You also have every ingredient for success. Written short and long term goals & a plan to achieve them. PLUS posting in a public forum for the world to see is definite motivation. You are a brave dude

Remember: "Improvement, not perfection".

Do it !!

This post has been edited by baerburtchell: 23 August 2008 - 04:33 AM

[waynewal]

Good for you! Keep on plan and keep on track.

One place I have gone to is the Bookstore! Book: Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman ... a REAL doctor. While he preaches real vegetarianism, adding much more raw vegetables to your diet (I am doing the same) WILL help. He claims he has gotten people off insulin. See his website! (I have NO financial or any other relationship to this group)
http://www.drfuhrman.com.

Your shooting drills are great ! Keep them up!

Sincerely,

Wayne

[JDBraddy]

Well folks, this was definately an exciting weekend! There where two local club matches scheduled, and I decided to shoot both. Inclement weather this weekend left both central Texas ranges a sloppy, muddy, mess. Sweltering 90+ degree heat and 90-100% humidity, accented with 20lbs of tacky cleachy mud caked to the bottom of each shoe, made just going down range to tape more of a workout than my treadmill, and staying hydrated near impossible.

The first match Saturday got a very late start as two bays where swamped with standing water, and others almost destroyed by the storms the previous evening, straw had to be laid down on all the remaining bays just to get downrange to staple up targets. The decision was made to pospone the official match untill next weekend, but a majority of shooters decided to stay and shoot the four remaining stages as a free practice match. This took the pressure off some of the top shooters, who graciously took the opportunity to coach some of the clubs more aspiring shooters like myself, and I'd like to extend a special thanks to USPSA Grand Master David Weers who spent the entire day, literally teaching a free class, helping other shooters identify their problem areas, and walking them back through stages showing them how to do it right. I watched him work with shooters, running stages they had been having trouble with over and over three or four times, untill some where able to cut their time on a stage by more than half, and learned a lot myself in the process. Afterward, some of us met for lunch and wound up talking and discussing what we had learned almost untill dark!Honestly, I wish the club could have days like that more often!

More storms that evening left me doubtfull that the other match would be held at all, and I got a late start that morning, but arrived just before the shooters meeting, to find a nice big turnout. Again, many top shooters had come from surrounding area, to include two GM's, two Masters, an many A-class shooters. Despite the additional rain, the soil at this range was sandier, and drained more quickly, so the mud while slick, wasn't nearly as bad as the day before, and there was a bit of a brease, so even though it was as hot and humid as the previous day, the heat didn't feel quite as oppressive. Then I managed to get myself DQ'd on the first target set, of the first stage, for breaking the 180! The stage was an intended 180 trap, and I fell for it. I was pretty bummed out, but stayed and scored for my squad the rest of the match. I'm glad I did actually, I couldn't have asked for better company than the folks I was squadded with. Later in the day I learned I wasn't the only one DQ'd on that target set, in fact there where several including a visiting Master class shooter who did the exact same thing I did, so knowing that helps me to not feel quite so bad about it.

So, what did I learn?
1) Those really serious guys are a lot more fun, and have a lot to share, when the pressure is off!
2) I need better shoes, the comfortable slick soled loafers I wear to work, just don't cut it in the mud!
3) Some fundamentals I need to work on, including visual patientce, and calling my shots.
4) Some great stage analysis tips that I need to sit down and think about, and learn to do independantly.
5) Some economy of motion tips I need to think about some more, and practice.

Not a bad weekend all in all!
JDBraddy

[XRe]

JDBraddy, on Aug 25 2008, 12:22 AM, said:

in fact there where several including a visiting Master class

Uh.... that would be a visiting Grand Master class shooter...

Something about the way that array was set in the bay made it very odd - I wasn't able to figure it out exactly what it was, but it left you feeling like you were further uprange than you really were, and like you were not really on the 180. Either way, it was real easy to get ahead of yourself on that stage....

[JDBraddy]

This past week, I didn't meet my goals again, I only used the Treadmill twice, but did added three sets of 12 reps each, of:

Benchpress to work my Pec's,
Military press to work my anterior deltoids,
Vertical rowing to work my Biceps, lats and posterior deltoids,
Wide-bar chinups and behind the head pull-ups to work my lats, trapezius, and medial deltoids.

I also dryfired for a while about three nights this week, I wasn't sure what to practice, so just to start with something, I set the par-time on my timer to two seconds, and practiced draw, aquire sights, and drop the hammer on the first shot.
Then I set my par time to six seconds, and practiced doing an "El-Presidente, starting with the gun empty, draw and dryfire two shots on each of three targets, then depressing the mag release, inserting a mag, and two more imaginary rounds to each of the three targets.

Having shot open for a while, then swiched back and forth, I noticed shooting the match this weekend, I'm having a hard time going back to focusing on the fron sight, I want to use a target focus, and use the red fiber-optic front, like the red-dot on a C-More, wich works fine for close targets, but I'm all over the place out past ten yards. I had a couple misses I shouldn't have had, and hit hardcover on blacked out targets, that I shouldn't have. I also got warned about my 180 again this week while trying to reload while backing up. Considering I got DQ'd last week and warned again this week, I really gotta work on that !!!!!

This post has been edited by JDBraddy: 31 August 2008 - 11:53 AM

[JDBraddy]

Well, I have haven't lost any more weight since I started working out, but I am feeling a little better, and don't tire as easily. I do think I'm starting to see some slight improvment in my shooting since I've been dry-firing and practicing. I think I shot pretty well at the River City match today. My times wheren't noticably better, but I definately dropped fewer points, and had fewer penalties than I usually do, and things just seemed to go more smoothly. In fact on some stages my raw points where higher than the M and GM class shooters who won the stages, of course my times where 40-45 seconds on stages they where shooting in 17-19 seconds.
JDBraddy

[JDBraddy]

Question: I've long heard the better shooters using terms like "Calling your shots" or "seeing the sights" in an attempt to describe some mythical heightened state of awareness, in wich they see the front sight rise and fall in recoil as if in slow motion, and they can remember in detail the sight picture as each shot was fired. They often describe the first time this happenes as some sort of epiphany, or turning point in their shooting performance. I think it might have happened to me, for the first time today during a long string of steel that included a plate rack. About the second or third shot in the string, I became acutely aware of the front sight, and it seemed to move almost in slow motion as my cadance progressively accelerated. It was my best run of the day, I knocked down tweleve peices of steel in just over 14 seconds without a single miss, and remeber in detail the sight picture as each shot broke, except for the first couple shots of course. I didn't feel at all rushed, but for me, the time was fast! I tried several times to repeat this on later stages, and it didn't happen. Does this eventually just start to happen with increasing frequency, or is it something that one must learn to control or make happen?

[Paul Burtchell]

You can't make it happen or try to make it happen. Trying and thinking will take your awareness away from what is happening in the present tense. You are starting to "see" more. Just be aware and keep turning up your vision. Kinda felt like you were watching a movie of yourself, huh? Cool stuff when it's all working.

Brian Enos, Flexmoney and others have written some excellent threads on this. You may want to try a search under Vision or Awareness. Better yet, buy and read Brians book.

Now you know what it's like

This post has been edited by baerburtchell: 15 November 2008 - 08:57 PM

[JDBraddy]

Did much better than my usual on the league stage this weekend, was actually competative with some of the B-class shooters, but there's still room for improvment, so I spent about 400 rounds this afternoon doing drills and shooting plate racks, and it did start to happen some more. Where I normally draw and fire my first shot to knock down a single plate in about 2.3 seconds, my time was getting down around 1.5 seconds fairly regularly, and where my time to draw and clean a plate rack at ten yards has usually been between 7 and 8 seconds, for a while today, I had quite a few consectutive runs where I was drawing and cleaning the entire plate rack in under 5 seconds. That is like some major mo-jo for me! Sure hope whatever this is continues.