[Lanzo]

Okay boys...and maybe some girls ...this is my first attempt at becoming a internet celebrity. I put a few stages up from the 2009 USPSA Alabama Sectional Championship. Be prepared to be unimpressed! I'm rated a "C" shooter and this was my second major. I did win the class though. 33 out of 105 or something like that overall. I finished 7th overall on the stage 4 run. Had a few issues at the start of 2, had some kind of brain fart in the middle of 3, and 5 was just rough. I put that one up because I liked the transitions.

Anyway...I just thought it would be fun to put some stuff up and have everyone pick apart my shooting. Lots of room for improvement. If your B or A open watch out...i'm coming!

2 -- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tb2x5J8yOgw
3 -- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=l9j2Ef-L_qQ
4 -- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=_9RTrtT1QsU
5 -- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=xKhf8mvOtEM

Side note...I know I look retarded in the movies. I need to stand up straighter or something!

--Lanzo

[Loves2Shoot]

1. Look at all the hesitations, they take time.
2. Misses take time, poor hits cost time.
3. Even if you are shooting open you need to practice your reloads.
4. Jams take time.
5. Move fast when not shooting, move slow when shooting.

Good luck and keep slingin' lead.

[mlmiller1]

That looks really good. I have a couple of thoughts for you, though. Take them for what they may be worth. On your stand & draws, both times you squat as you draw. That costs you a little time. If you want to squat, do it before the buzzer goes off.

On both stages where you wind up leaning around a wall or barrel to get to the targets over on the left side, you are off balance. That is not a bad thing but try going into those positions first, then transition to the other targets while you are backing away. Does that make sense? Shoot coming out instead of going in. You gotta get all the way in, you gotta get set up so you don't fall over but it is really hard to come off that lean & move away fast. Big uppper body folks have to work with what we got. I have short legs & a long body so off balance is way easy to get into but hard to get out of & especially hard to get out of fast. That may not work for you but it is something to try, anyway.

Great shooting, though. Looked like you were having fun which is what it is about.

MLM

[Dreamgirl]

They were too serious.Hope they could do better than that.

[SharonAnne9x23]

you are a bum, no good, washed up and should take up knitting.*


*this same advice was given to a young shooter from Arizona named Rob just before the 1986 World Shoot started. Please follow this advice the same way he did

[norbs007]

Looks good actually, as you shoot more you'll discover how to refine your skills. Your transitions are quick and you seem to have no problem picking up your dot. Good point on squating and leaning down to the gun. You should only be raising the gun up for sight alignment. Keep up the good shooting, have fun and be safe; you won't stay in C class very long.

[jkrispies]

The thing that stands out to me: take bigger steps. In the first video, look at how many steps you took moving from the starting box to the left most shooting position-- there were probably three or four baby steps, where two big ones could have cut your movement time in half. In the second video, you looked much better in this regard. The third video you looked good when you were running the longer distances, but could have done better over the shorter jaunts. In the fourth video you looked good, all things considered the array.

In the fourth video (maybe the others, too, but I noticed it more in the 4th), watch your body during the draw: you draw the gun and then adjust your body to the first target. That's two movements (1 = draw, 2 = twisting body) where one should have been employed. Extra movement = extra time. Were you ordered to face a certain direction at the buzzer? If not, adjust your stance, so that you can draw directly to the first target with as little body adjustment as possible.

fyi, Even if your natural point of aim is on a different target than the first one you're shooting at, you can already have your body twisted prior to the buzzer. Okay, now I'm confusing myself with this bad explanation... Here's an example. If you're familiar with the steel challenge, there's a stage called 5 to Go. In that stage, there's five pieces of steel spread a fair distance apart so you have to twist your body from far left on T1 to far right on T5. For this stage, I'll position my body so that my natural point of aim is on T3 (in the middle, where the most difficult shots are), but then I'll twist my body to T1 so that when the buzzer sounds, I can draw directly to T1 without having to move my body at, just my arms-- because I've already positioned myself properly prior to the buzzer. I hope I'm making sense...

[Flexmoney]

Lanzo, on May 8 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

2 -- http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tb2x5J8yOgw

I only looked at your first video, Stage 2...

- Your draw was painfully slow. It hurt me to watch it. In fact, I think I need a drink.
- Your gun jammed. Whatever caused that...gun, ammo, mags, springs...needs fixed.

- Why stand there and shoot from the start position in the first place? In the time it took you to draw that gun, you could have already been into the far left position. Those were the targets to start on (most likely).

- Your third, fourth and fifth position...what you might call the window...you wasted about a years worth of time there, with all the shifting around.

- The last target that you took from the left window...you could have got that target sooner, or later. (You can clearly see it from the middle/start position.) I assume that the stage was somewhat of a mirror image on both sides? If so, that target (last of the left window), the middle target (which you took from the start position), and the target that you reloaded too...all of those could have been taken from the same spot.


Just so you don't feel bad...your youtube link lead me to videos of TonyM and JohnG shooting that stage. They looked like a couple of blind hound dogs, humping the bumper of a 1984 Buick Skylark.

Here is how to shoot that stage:

- On the beep, draw the gun as you bust over to the far left array, knock out the free Alphas on those close targets.
- Setup a bit deeper and to the right for the targets in the left window. You want get them without all that shifting around.
- When you leave the left window on that far left target (this might be another position), you should be able to snap transition right to the two steel poppers in the middle array (start position), then snap right on to the far right target in the right window.
- Repeat the above for the right window and the far right array.

The reload could have been about anywhere....after the first (far left) array, where you did it, one target later than when you did it, just before the far right array... I'd have to be there to feel where it was most comfortable.

(If you watch TonyM and JohnG's videos, you can see where they took some targets moving into positions and also moving out of positions. I'm not sure if that is within your skill level yet or not. But, take note of it.)

[JThompson]

What the others said... also get your finger out of that trigger guard when clearing jams... Lest someone have to post a cow in a tiara.

One more thing.... your grip is 95 percent strong hand. I can tell from the contact with the gun. You need to get more of a weak hand grip.

This post has been edited by JThompson: 09 May 2009 - 02:13 PM

[Aristotle]

Haven't read all of the responses, but one thing I see is keeping the gun up. Especially when I am coming to a shooting location I try to get my gun indexed already. Also need to work on your draw speed and reloads. Lots of fundamentals to work on during dry fire. Do it to the point of effortlessness.

[TM262]

Flexmoney, on May 9 2009, 05:05 PM, said:

Just so you don't feel bad...your youtube link lead me to videos of TonyM and JohnG shooting that stage. They looked like a couple of blind hound dogs, humping the bumper of a 1984 Buick Skylark.

Just so you know, that was the best thing that ever happened to that Buick Skylark!

[Singlestack]

TM262, on May 9 2009, 08:11 PM, said:

Flexmoney, on May 9 2009, 05:05 PM, said:

Just so you don't feel bad...your youtube link lead me to videos of TonyM and JohnG shooting that stage. They looked like a couple of blind hound dogs, humping the bumper of a 1984 Buick Skylark.

Just so you know, that was the best thing that ever happened to that Buick Skylark!

Hell Yeah!

[boz1911]

Singlestack, on May 9 2009, 05:21 PM, said:

TM262, on May 9 2009, 08:11 PM, said:

Flexmoney, on May 9 2009, 05:05 PM, said:

Just so you don't feel bad...your youtube link lead me to videos of TonyM and JohnG shooting that stage. They looked like a couple of blind hound dogs, humping the bumper of a 1984 Buick Skylark.

Just so you know, that was the best thing that ever happened to that Buick Skylark!

Hell Yeah!

[Flexmoney]

You guys obviously LOVE CARS.

[Flexmoney]

Lanzo,

I hope my ribbing didn't run you off.

- All joking aside, my number one suggestion would be to get your system (which includes you, gun, mags, ammo) up and running 100%. You ought to be able to measure how many matches you have between failures, instead of how many failures per match. (Tony, yours too.)


- My number two suggestion is nearly a rule with me (though nothing is absolute). I try to never stand still during the draw stroke. I want to use that time to get moving. Just like I don't want to do a standing reload, I don't want to do a standing draw.

[Singlestack]

In this case the only place you could engage the poppers was from exactly where you started. You think it is better to run away and then come back to the exact same place?

I'm with you on the standing draw. In this instance though the poppers were set back far enough and spread out enough so that the only place you could see both was from the start position. Coming across the stage it was hard to hit the exact spot without hunting and pecking. I walked it both ways.

[Flexmoney]

Singlestack, on May 13 2009, 05:06 PM, said:

In this case the only place you could engage the poppers was from exactly where you started. You think it is better to run away and then come back to the exact same place?

Yes.

On your video, as you come out of the left window...you are in perfect position to transition directly to those middle poppers (you have already came back to that exact same place).

A transition to that popper would be much faster than a standing draw to it.

Even if you missed your spot, you still would have about a lean and a half worth of extra time to make it up.

(Now, that changes if you can count on a draw to an Alpha in about 0.75 seconds...but that is a whole different level. If you have that in your bag-o-tricks, then you ought to be touring the Steel Challenge matches and giving Max, KC and BJ a run for their money.)


------------

John, was that stage symmetrical? Were the targets in the right window real close to a mirror image of the targets in the left window? The far left and far right arrays looked identical?

[Singlestack]

Flexmoney, on May 13 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

John, was that stage symmetrical? Were the targets in the right window real close to a mirror image of the targets in the left window? The far left and far right arrays looked identical?

IIRC it was.

[TM262]

Face it John, we are blind and we can't hunt.

This post has been edited by TM262: 13 May 2009 - 03:14 PM

[boz1911]

Flexmoney, on May 13 2009, 02:34 PM, said:

Singlestack, on May 13 2009, 05:06 PM, said:

In this case the only place you could engage the poppers was from exactly where you started. You think it is better to run away and then come back to the exact same place?

Yes.

On your video, as you come out of the left window...you are in perfect position to transition directly to those middle poppers (you have already came back to that exact same place).

A transition to that popper would be much faster than a standing draw to it.

Even if you missed your spot, you still would have about a lean and a half worth of extra time to make it up.

(Now, that changes if you can count on a draw to an Alpha in about 0.75 seconds...but that is a whole different level. If you have that in your bag-o-tricks, then you ought to be touring the Steel Challenge matches and giving Max, KC and BJ a run for their money.)


------------

John, was that stage symmetrical? Were the targets in the right window real close to a mirror image of the targets in the left window? The far left and far right arrays looked identical?

Flex, you are correct, transitioning back to those poppers was faster. Personally I drew as I moved to the port on the left, shot left to right dropping back a step to pick up the far left targets. This gave me an extra step to reload before picking up the two center poppers. Even being conservative, as this was our first stage, my big ass finished in 15.89.

I talked with GM Clint Upchurch (a future super GM by the way) about stage strategy the night before and he expressed the same feelings you have about moving on the draw...

[Flexmoney]

boz1911, on May 13 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

...I drew as I moved to the port on the left, shot left to right dropping back a step to pick up the far left targets. This gave me an extra step to reload before picking up the two center poppers.

That looked like it might be a good target to draw to. It was in plain view.

That is why I was asking if it was symmetrical. When going to the right, most seemed happy to hit the window and then the far right array. Curious they didn't do so on the left side.


--------------------


BTW, I don't mean to suggest that there is a "right" way to shoot any particular stage. Often, it comes down to execution. Comfort is important too. We won't shoot something real well if it doesn't feel comfortable to us.

[Lanzo]

Flexmoney, on May 13 2009, 04:07 PM, said:

Lanzo,

I hope my ribbing didn't run you off.

- All joking aside, my number one suggestion would be to get your system (which includes you, gun, mags, ammo) up and running 100%. You ought to be able to measure how many matches you have between failures, instead of how many failures per match. (Tony, yours too.)


- My number two suggestion is nearly a rule with me (though nothing is absolute). I try to never stand still during the draw stroke. I want to use that time to get moving. Just like I don't want to do a standing reload, I don't want to do a standing draw.

FLEX,

No man. You're good. I'm not tiffed at all. Just been busy with work and what not. If I can handle the guys I shoot with every weekend your slim pickin's

Appreciate the comments from everyone...including you Flex. I've got a ways to go, but right now i'm mostly concerned with just having fun with it. I'm headed to a long Army school soon that will put me 3 months (if I make it straight through) off a gun/real exercise program so I am going to come back much worse. Hopefully I don't taper off too much, but the lack of a legitimate exercise/nutrition plan is going to hurt me pretty bad. I don't even get time to practice really right now (mostly my own fault I guess...you can always find time for something if you want it bad enough), but I don't worry about it to much because I know I'll have so much time off the gun I'll probably lose whatver I gain in the next couple months.

I've been shooting less than a year (my first match was maybe 8 months ago or so), open for only a few months (less than 3), and I'd say i'm pretty happy with where I am. RIght at Top half in Area 6...first major ever...(2nd in C class by less than 1 percent), Top 1/3 ( 33 out 105), 1st C class at AL state with several GM's present. The video of me on stage 3 was a 7th overall time. I was less than a second off the GM that got fiurst I think. I've got a couple really good classifiers where I was bookin it (one M and one 2 percent off M...that was my first classifier ever with an open gun...actually...my first time ever shooting a match with and just shooting an open gun period. I just picked it up and rolled with it. I had never shot it before that weekend. EVen my gear was combined from like three other people and the belt wouldn't fit so we had to put small velcro strips around it to hold it up).

The only thing I need to really figure out is how to find a way over taking a break in the middle of a match. I hate it...always shoot worse when I come back.

Once I get back i'm going to RIP my way through the ranks of this forum!

[NoShootRanger]

Don't worry about the time away from shooting dude, just go get that Tab!! After you return and shoot a couple of matches you will be back where you were when you left, it's only taken a few months to get to where you're at so It won't take much to get it back. But I will say that you will have to play catch up with ME!

[Lanzo]

NoShootRanger, on May 14 2009, 07:52 PM, said:

Don't worry about the time away from shooting dude, just go get that Tab!! After you return and shoot a couple of matches you will be back where you were when you left, it's only taken a few months to get to where you're at so It won't take much to get it back. But I will say that you will have to play catch up with ME!

Riiiiiiiight. I'm gonna come back and still be able to catch your turd butt. I'll practice leaning around tree with a rucksack on just so I can come back and spank you!

I wonder if that would help keep me awake

--Lanzo

[IronEqualizer]

Criticize my shooting ok...ok....YOU SUCK!!!! How's that. Oh and that draw As for the guys you shoot with....... we will be just be glad to get all our gear back while you are away.

AL