That was the first and last time I was #1 at the match.
I had only about 80 rounds of 10mm ammunition to feed the STI Edge GeekGun, so I didnt expect to compete in all the stages. As it turned out, I could only shoot 3 stages before I ended my personal match experience with only eight rounds remaining. The other 3 of 6 stages, I just worked as Range Officer for the squad. I didn't really mind, though. The important thing was being at the match actually participating, and allowing myself to just let the cares of the week float away while I enjoyed the thrill of "Gunsmoke In The Morning".
(Match Scores may be found here.)
As it turned out, I was squadded with the few members of "The Usual Suspects" who still competed on a semi-regular basis: The Hobo Brasser, Whitefish, and Higgie. AJ and KJ no longer show up at matches, Norm and Harold the Barbarian were also conspicuous by their absence. SWMBO is of course, not physically able to shoot because DAMN she has to wear the Oxygen Tank on her back and hasn't the strength to move smartly between shooting locations.
So this was All About Me, and I was content to shoot a few stages, work the rest, and enjoy the company of friends.
Match Director Mike McCarter was his usual devious self; he designed some stages which challenged each and every shooter to steer clear of the Rocks and Shoals of tiny steel targets, targets at long distances, and targets bordered by white "Penalty/No-Shoot" targets. I, personally, tripped up on every challenge, even though I only shot half of the stages.
One of the most challenging stages was "Thinking 3's".
This stage was rigidly constrained by vision barriers which offered the competitor to engage targets at any of five shooting locations. The bad part was that only a few targets were clearly visible from each shooting location. The Good News was that, perhaps due to an oversight or an error in stage construction, it was marginally possible for all targets to be engaged from three shooting locations ... the three the most-uprange .
The bad news was that if you lost track of what targets you had engaged, you were forced to move to more than three shooting locations. Also, the far-right target could be engaged from the near left shooting location, but it was a test of both balance and luck to actually hit the target from that location.
Also, just to make it "more fun", Mac set up the stage so that you had to over-extend your to engage the target. I fell into that trap, because I was so severely off-balance in attempting to engage this target, I was only able to actually hit the target on one of the three shots I attempted.
I realize this sounds terribly obtuse. Fortunately, I have a video showing three shooters on this stage, in cluding one who neglected to shoot is plan. It's worthwhile to note that al three outshot me.
Here's how it looked:
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UPDATE: 13-OCT-2009
Evil Bill found a way to shoot the stage from TWO boxes, not three. It appears that the far-left target array, AND the near-left target array (behind stacked barrels) could be engaged from the center shooting location.
What a great way to game the stage!
In the actual event, the need to do multiple reloads (Evil Bill was shooting Single Stack Division ... no more than 8 rounds per magazine) may have slightly undermined the advantage of engaging the last two targets from the center, especially if only D-zone hits were possible. We can't see what the targets looked like from there.
But the point is that it was possible to engage the with a limited amount of movement, and the rest of us (at least in the two squads that I watched) never even noticed the possibility.
That's what makes this sport great. Almost 70 people walked through that stage, and shot it, without noticing that there was a way to minimize movement.
When I teach the Introduction to USPSA class (shooter certification), I emphasize that there are two ways to shoot a stage quickly: strive for accuracy, taken enough time to hit the targets without having to waste time making up misses; and eliminating time spent in unnecessary movement. Evil Bill is one competitor who has obviously learned this lesson well.
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UPDATE: 14-OCT-2009
Is this The Blog From Hell? I can't go a day without posting another video version of this stage.
I love it!
"Yawn" chipped in with a comment asserting that he visited FOUR of the five possible shooting locations on this stage, and did just fine thank-you-very-much. And it's true, he did. (Video below, see the comments for the link.)
This video included all of the stages in the match. He often videos as many of the stages as he can and then posts them all together on YouTube, for which we-thank-him-very-much.
Looking at the video, you can see that Yawn has identified his shooting strength is speed in movement. Those who claim that "experience and treachery will beat youth and enthusiasm every time" are referred to another viewing of the video.
Not only does he move quickly and expeditiously from one shooting position to another, he has obviously scoped out every stage so he knows exactly where to go and when, for the most efficient solution to the shooting problem. Note that he performs beyond his15-months shooting experience in such matters of knowing when to reload without loss of time. (True, it doesn't always work out perfectly, but it saves him time more often than it does not -- and who among us can claim to perform more reliably?)
As a side note, I think it's a matter of integrity and honesty that he also includes the full video of his first stage, "Ba-da-Bing" in which he suffered an embarrassing "Failure To Feed" jam. Stuff happens to all of us, and I suspect that he cleared the jam as quickly as possible; there was a small glitch with his reload, but he covered most of it by doing a reload on the move between shooting ports. Jams do tend to rattle us for a few seconds, because when you are wired into your plan, it takes a while to get back into The Zone.
Here are the stages in the order he shot them, and the high-points of his performance:
- Ba-da-Bing - recovery from a jam
- Thinking 3's - quick movement
- Guard Run - literally thinking outside the box and ammo management
- Drum Line - masterly performance on a Memory Stage; great prior planning, and an excellent reload
- 4 Bill Drill - great courage on a sucky Classifier stage
- Double Up - excellent example of "Driving The Gun"
Oh, and when you watch this video, turn your speakers UP. The background scoring reminds me of the introductory scene in "Zulu" (one of the finest reenactments of a military action ever filmed).
Not bad for "C" Limited.
Someone should mention this, so I will: Yawn was StatsMaster at the match. He did all the sign up, all the EZScore crap, and all the data entry of the scores. And he drove around the range picking up the stage score-sheets. He shot the stages between sessions of statistical work. Not all of us can switch from desk-work to performance shooting so seamlessly.
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