[JThompson]

Had a bit of a stage design issue on a stage for the Sunday match. I guess I got a bit carried away with the design... the shooters were howling and nobody, I mean nobody shoot it clean. I really didn't care about how hard it was, the problem was everyone stacked up on the stage. To many long shots and a T-Star that many have not even seen before made for a long day. I thought I might get lynched by the end of the day. This was further complicated by the short fast stages the others had setup. I didn't have a chance to confer with them before and this didn't help matters any.

Live and learn....

JT

My day was a comedy of errors too. I recently removed a bunch of my left side grip, I had it built up, and didn't remove my extended mag release. First stage, bang bang bang... plop, mag falls out from weak hand contact. Cost me a stage win. I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake because I left it on and did the same thing on the next stage. I finally go to the safe area and remove the offending piece of metal and send it into the trees. I get to the next stage and crack a joke about the thing. I show the RO it's gone and we laugh. I then make ready and the buzzer goes. I shoot two very close targets, but don't see the dot, I guess I use it more than I thought on the close ones because I know something isn't right. I get to the second array and fire a shot thinking where the hell is my dot? I never have issues finding it and then it hits me, I never turned it on. This was a 10sec stage, so stopping to turn it on would have been a killer. My hits were a little sloppy, but on the paper. There were 5-6 NS leaving tight shots, but I managed to finsih the stage getting all my hits and no NS. I was over a second slower than I should have been, but not bad for the screw up.

I think I let the people bitching and stuff get in my head, there's something I have to work on too. Anyway, hope you got a smile out of my ineptitude.

J

This post has been edited by JThompson: 28 July 2009 - 09:42 AM

[SA Friday]

These are the main struggles I see with most every match. Was this stage too hard, will this order bottle-neck the shooters? Life as a MD.

The third one I run into, and see others run into is the "crap this looked good on paper, but doesn't work in real-life" stages. This happens every once and a while with stages I'm trying something different.

[JThompson]

SA Friday, on Jul 28 2009, 11:35 AM, said:

These are the main struggles I see with most every match. Was this stage too hard, will this order bottle-neck the shooters? Life as a MD.

The third one I run into, and see others run into is the "crap this looked good on paper, but doesn't work in real-life" stages. This happens every once and a while with stages I'm trying something different.

It's a struggle when you don't want the cookie cutter look with different target presentations. I'd rather take a chance on a miss or a great stage than the status quo. I should have picked up on this one though... I set the whole thing up by my self and I think I was a little too tire to see the forest through the trees at the end.

[SA Friday]

We have the other MD's from the other clubs walk through each other's stages before the match looking for issues. We all have different stage designs, and it really helps to have other experienced MD's and RM's take a look before kicking the match off. I've had my fair share of stages that just sucked because I was trying to break the cookie cutter mold. Then again, I've had some that just shined because of this.

I learned more from the stages that sucked than I ever did from the stages that were enjoyed.

[JThompson]

SA Friday, on Jul 28 2009, 11:58 AM, said:

We have the other MD's from the other clubs walk through each other's stages before the match looking for issues. We all have different stage designs, and it really helps to have other experienced MD's and RM's take a look before kicking the match off. I've had my fair share of stages that just sucked because I was trying to break the cookie cutter mold. Then again, I've had some that just shined because of this.

I learned more from the stages that sucked than I ever did from the stages that were enjoyed.

I learned a lot on that one... while I can't say it won't happen again, I think it highly unlikely it will any time soon.

[Flexmoney]

Where is that thread where we were talking about shooting with not sights on the gun...and you ask "WHY?"

BTW, make sure to cover the bases of 5.1.8 when doing a change to your gun (prior approval by RM).




Lots of good lessons in this one. Thanks for sharing.


(I try to make myself look at working the match as just another "distraction from the shooting"...and not let it distract me.)

[calishootr]

At our matches we try for an even 'flow' if you will, we only have 3 bays but we put on 6 stages per match, so you try hard now to get a bay that stacks everyone up ie. a long maybe complicated stage coupled with a short one, will still bottle things up if the other two bays have basic and simple stages to them, stages with strings are death to us, because of the 2 stages per bay, back when i first started shooting this silly sport(we didnt have hi-caps or dots) someone said somthing that stuck with me on stage design....do what ever you want as long as you can get a shooter up tothe line,shoot the course, and score and reset forthe next shooter in 5 minutes or less

[matt2ace]

I run the matches for my club (DCPA) where are only have 3 pits. We run 6 stages with 2 per pit (1 long, 1 short). We focus on estimated clear times for each stage and pit to assure that we don't stack up squads.

From your description, it was not the difficulty of the stage you designed (so what if nobody shot it clean), it was the complexity of the stage that drove a long clear time, resulting in the backup.

[JThompson]

Flexmoney, on Jul 28 2009, 02:19 PM, said:

Where is that thread where we were talking about shooting with not sights on the gun...and you ask "WHY?"

BTW, make sure to cover the bases of 5.1.8 when doing a change to your gun (prior approval by RM).




Lots of good lessons in this one. Thanks for sharing.


(I try to make myself look at working the match as just another "distraction from the shooting"...and not let it distract me.)

While it "feels" as though I've been doing this a long time... I've packed a lot of shooting and learning in, but I have only been shooting the sport for under 2yrs. What I don't know, and have yet to master, well exceeds what I do know. Distractions are still a constant battle for me. I have come a long way in that time, but "I have miles to go before I sleep."

JT

[JThompson]

calishootr, on Jul 28 2009, 06:23 PM, said:

At our matches we try for an even 'flow' if you will, we only have 3 bays but we put on 6 stages per match, so you try hard now to get a bay that stacks everyone up ie. a long maybe complicated stage coupled with a short one, will still bottle things up if the other two bays have basic and simple stages to them, stages with strings are death to us, because of the 2 stages per bay, back when i first started shooting this silly sport(we didnt have hi-caps or dots) someone said somthing that stuck with me on stage design....do what ever you want as long as you can get a shooter up tothe line,shoot the course, and score and reset forthe next shooter in 5 minutes or less

Both you and Matt hit it on the head and I usually take this into account, but I was remiss on this one...

JT

[gino_aki]

Coupla things I've learned...

Long shots: Make them short shots from someplace else, L, L-10, R, P, and SS shooters will thank you, O shooters will like the challenge if it saves them time.
Stage stacking: If possible, group the short fast burners together (i.e. shoot Stage 1, reload and holster, shoot Stage 2) so as to balance the times spent at each stage/stages.
Distractions when MDing/RMing: Accept the fact that you ARE NOT going to be able to focus 100% on the match and your shooting at the same time. I'm assuming you're going to lean towards putting on a great match, so for that day your shooting probably will suffer. Sometimes I'll shoot a different division if I'm running the match so I won't get all caught up in not performing to my usual middle of the pack placement.
Thinking outside the fault lines: New things don't have to be super-innovative...crossing up peoples' thinking by say having the swinger be the no shoot in front of the shoot target can be enough to get them mumbling to themselves.

[matt2ace]

Balancing stage design and clear times is a real art. It took me almost 2 years at DCPA before I really
had a good handle on balancing both factors and I had 5+ years of stage design experience when I came
to DCPA. Range layout varies so much between clubs.....what works at one, may not even be allowed
at others.

One thing that helps is to have other experienced stage designers from your club review the stages you design.

This post has been edited by matt2ace: 31 July 2009 - 07:46 AM

[JThompson]

Good points guys...

Thanks,

JT