[doc540]

practiced moving and shooting (trifocals make seeing the front sight a real challenge...for some reason my weak right eye tries to take over)

weak hand, strong hand

why in the world can I shoot better with my weak hand than my strong hand??? I shot a 1", 3 shot group with my left hand.

20yd barricade - 15 yd kneeling (as best I could at an indoor range)

After talking to Virgil Tripp and a pm from DT, I "tuned" a couple of non-performing mag's....they cycled perfectly

And don't worry, DT, I'm not even taking the .38 Super's with me tomorrow. I'll have 4 mag's to work with.

Any other advice for "the night before at match"?

[bbbean]

doc540, on Nov 6 2009, 05:00 PM, said:

Any other advice for "the night before at match"?

1) It's just a match. Don't over-hype yourself.
2) As someone said in another thread - shoot like Grandma drives - go slow and hit stuff! Don't push yourself any faster than you can shoot.
3) Get your gear together tonight, do some dryfire practice, and then forget about th ematch for a while.
4) Get a good night's sleep.
5) Eat a light breakfast in the morning, drink the same amount of caffeine you do on a normal morning, and get to the match early enough to help with setup, visit with the other shooters, and generally get relaxed and comfortable with the range.
6) Take the attitude that you are simply laying down a baseline to measure your future performance by. If you have a good day, super. If the wheels fall off, just note that you now have lots of room for improvement. Remember that Max Michel zeroed a stage at the nationals!
7) Learn from the more advanced shooters, but don't try to keep up with them on your first time out. Pay more attention to their stage strategy, grip, and stance than you do to their speed.

[Classic_jon]

I second the above! Awsome advice bbbean!

[JimmyZip]

Indeed! That is sound advice that I need to follow more. (The part about not trying to keep up with the other shooters ) Shooting your speed will keep you accurate and insure you have a match that is a true representation of where you are. You willl hit as well as you can, you will move as well as you can. If you try and rush or go fast the wheels will fall off! I learned this from my last match.

JZ

[fourtrax]

Really good advice bbbean, sound and simple.

[Sarge]

All of the above is excellent and I am new so it still works for me. I would like to stress the part about getting ready tonight. I do as much as I can the night before any match no matter if it is local or my first state match which I shot in October. Go over the list until you have no doubts about having everything. I even lay my clothes out and put everything in my truck. (It's in the garage) I double up on ammo so I never worry about stages being added late or whatever. Then I relax the rest of the night, like I am right now talking to you all.

[bbbean]

Classic_jon, on Nov 6 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

I second the above! Awsome advice bbbean!

Thanks. Now if I can just take my own advice tomorrow's match should go great!

[spanky]

bbbean, on Nov 6 2009, 05:07 PM, said:

doc540, on Nov 6 2009, 05:00 PM, said:

Any other advice for "the night before at match"?

1) It's just a match. Don't over-hype yourself.
2) As someone said in another thread - shoot like Grandma drives - go slow and hit stuff! Don't push yourself any faster than you can shoot.
3) Get your gear together tonight, do some dryfire practice, and then forget about th ematch for a while.
4) Get a good night's sleep.
5) Eat a light breakfast in the morning, drink the same amount of caffeine you do on a normal morning, and get to the match early enough to help with setup, visit with the other shooters, and generally get relaxed and comfortable with the range.
6) Take the attitude that you are simply laying down a baseline to measure your future performance by. If you have a good day, super. If the wheels fall off, just note that you now have lots of room for improvement. Remember that Max Michel zeroed a stage at the nationals!
7) Learn from the more advanced shooters, but don't try to keep up with them on your first time out. Pay more attention to their stage strategy, grip, and stance than you do to their speed.

+1.

Very good post.

[HRider]

Excellent advice. I would also like to add have fun, even if the wheels fall off.
Seriously, if the match starts going bad for you, try to remain positive. One of the most fun matches that I have ever been to was a 3 gun section match a couple of years ago where two friends and myself had so much go wrong that it was unbelievable. I mean from the start things went bad, like the elevator getting stuck in the match hotel, raised the gate on my Expedition and an ammo can full of rifle ammo rolled out and landed corner first on my big toe , my buddies shotgun went manually operated on him, the other fellas' rifle had the gas key loosen up (but only enough that it wouldn't cycle when it was hot, after nine or ten rounds), and one of them went minor at the chrono (it was cold that morning). I know that there were more things that happened, but I can't remember them now. We laughed all weekend at each other and wondering what would happen next
Hurley

[AlamoShooter]

yes But we want to know how Doc did at his shoot,

and the left hand thing is that =your left hand is more patient with the shot than you right hand

[Duane Thomas]

When I started doing a lot of one-hand only practice, I also noticed that initially I was more accurate LHO than RHO when shooting fast - which puzzled me since you'd think it would be other way around. With practice I've seriously improved the right hand - but that doesn't really answer the question of why the original difference in performance.

I think the reason we tend to be, to start with anyway, more accurate LHO at speed (assuming we're right handed, natch) is that we do most of our shooting with a two-hand grip thus we're accustomed to using the support hand to reinforce and stabilize the master hand, and, to a certain extent, mask errors in trigger control and minimize the effects of flinching. Take away the "mask" effect of the support hand, suddenly all the mistakes we're making with the master hand become much more evident, and cost us much more in the way of accuracy. The support (left) hand, by contrast, doesn't have all those bad habits built up.

So, if we follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion, we could have to say that few things could possibly improve our two-handed shooting more than becoming really good at shooting with the master hand only.

[Sam]

Duane, I shoot more accurately LHO than RHO. I'm right handed.



I remember several years ago totally trashing a standards stage at AREA 1. After that I decided that I was NOT GOING TO HAVE A WEAK HAND.

[Duane Thomas]

I despise the terms "weak hand" and "strong hand" since they reinforce us to accept inferior performance from one of our hands. Greg Hamilton at InSights Training Center uses the terms "my strong hand" and "my other strong hand". He may well have a point. I haven't quite gone that far, I just use "right hand" and "left hand" or ""master hand" and "support hand". Maybe there's something to be said for "my strong hand" and "my other strong hand" though.

[Houngan]

doc540, on Nov 6 2009, 06:00 PM, said:

why in the world can I shoot better with my weak hand than my strong hand??? I shot a 1", 3 shot group with my left hand.

Attention, attention, attention. Because your weak hand feels funny, you pay attention to the sights. You need to do that all the time.

It's like a lesson that can't be taught, but everyone must learn. You really, honestly can see the sights on every shot even while moving as fast as you can, and it's no slower. It sounds crazy, I know, but it's true.

H.

[Sam]

Quote

It's like a lesson that can't be taught, but everyone must learn. You really, honestly can see the sights on every shot even while moving as fast as you can, and it's no slower. It sounds crazy, I know, but it's true.

Man, you just made my day, H !!! +1,000