The class was scheduled to run from 1pm to 4pm, and when I showed up on the range around 12:30 to begin setting up I was a little nonplussed.
All of the 7 bays on the North Range already had the little orange highway cones marked "In Use" place at the entry door to the covered bays, indicating that it was not available to anyone else. In recent months this class had been held in Bay 4, which shares an overhead covering with Bay 5 except that there was a plywood wall inside the 3-walls-with-a-roof steel construction, and a concrete barrier forming an eight-foot high wall between the shooting bays. Mac, the USPSA/Action Pistol director of the club was not easily found; but I talked to a couple of guys who had driven onto the range immediately before me and they said they had asked around and bays 5, 6 and 7 were reserved for a match and bay 4 was reserved for a class.
Bays 5, 6 and 7 were semi-set up for some sort of Action Shooting match, and there was someone (Jim P. who is a USPSA shooter of my acquaintance) using Bay 4.
The other bays were either being used by people practicing, or reserved for a "Introduction to Pistol Shooting" or "NRA Basic Pistol" class.
I talked to a revolver shooter who had taken my Intro class a few months ago, and he told me that the "match" for which 3 bays were reserved was an ICORE (Revolver) match.
The two guys who had arrived at the match just before me said that one of them had just bought a new pistol (Springfield XD) and they wanted to function test the pistol.
Since the 3 bays were not completely set up for the match (the target stands and sticks were in place, but the cardboard targets were not yet mounted), I invited the 2 shooters to use the plate rack set up in bay 5 to test their pistol, and I hung around while I was changing boots and putting on my gear. It was almost 1pm when the ICORE shooters showed up, and by then the 2 shooters had sighted in their laser sight and were convinced that the XD would work for me. They were very good about sweeping up their brass and leaving the bay clean for the match.
Then I went back to Bay 4 and informed Jim P. that I needed the bay to set up for a class. He wanted to know if I would be off the range soon, and I sadly informed him that the class would take three hours. I hated to boot him off the range so arbitrarily, but I had a schedule to keep and I needed to set up the stage props for the class.
By then my class members had begun to show up. I had six participants at one time, but one of them (Donald) had originally arrived for the ICORE match. He was reluctant to drop out, and I tried to make it clear to him that there was no penalty involved; he was welcome to come to the December class, or any later class. Bummer: he had already read the manual, and completed the test. (I still have his test; I'll bring it along for the class when he can make the time for it. This is one of the problems which arise when a club is so active that there is no alternative but to schedule two attractive events on the same day, in the same time period.
Eventually we sorted ourselves out. I asked a couple of the guys to pick up a Bianchi Barricade from the rack on Bay 7, and then took a few more guys to the Prop Room on Bay 6 to pick up our props.For this course, we needed a 3'x3' steel starting box, 3 target stands, six sticks, and three cardboard "Metric Targets". Besides the Bianchi Barricade, we needed a U.S. Popper and a Pepper Popper, plus a 'stand' for each. We also needed the Army Surplus Locking Container with included stapler (our out of staples, we ended up using my stapler), timer (the battery was low, we ended up using my timer), brown target-tapes, and various consumables associated with setting up a stage. I also grabbed two more Metric Targets as demonstration aids, which I used to (1) demonstrate and mark out the scoring zones and their scoring values for both Major Power and Minor Power, and (2) a separate target where the participants entered their names with a black Sharpie Pen to simulate the squad shooting order.
After a short wait while the last participant was guided onto the range and through the coded gate, we ended up with three shooters: Shawn, Clint, Brendon, Andrew and Wil.
We also had two observers: Aaron-1, whom I didn't know and was just there to observe his friends, and Aaron-2, who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to steer friends and acquaintances to the Introduction to USPSA course over the past year.
Aaron-1 helped move the Bianchi Barricade from Bay 7 to Bay 4.
Aaron-2 helped as a 'demonstrator' for most of the stages. My training technique is the classic "Tell you, Show you, Let you, Critique you" style.
First, we explain each training exercuse.
Second, the demonstrator goes through the course of fire being sure to make each movement slow and easy to follow.
Third, each participant performs the functions being presented in the exercise.
Fourth, we discuss the events illustrated by each participant. Emphasis on the 'good things'; mention of the alternate approaches elected on each run; finally, discussion of 'errors' demonstrated, and why they are less than optimal.
Aaron-2 has helped me in this capacity in previous classes, and I was pleased that he showed up at this class because he is conscientious and talented. On one stage, when we presented two cardboard targets partially obscured by a No-Shoot, he put his first shot into the no-shoot. I'm not yet convinced that he didn't deliberately mis-place the shot, but it offered an excellent teaching opportunity to illustrate why it is a bad idea to hit a no-shoot, why it is a good idea to make up such an error, and why it is common not to notice that a shot has gone wide of the intended targets.
Shooting in Inclement Weather:
It's not unusual for a match day in Oregon to be marred by bad weather. Either Rain or Snow can make it more difficult to compete.
Today was an excellent example. Although the morning was almost Indian Summer clear, it was not warm. But during the oral presentation (the first hour of the 3-hour class) a severe rainstorm hovered over the ARPC range for about 20 minutes. I announced that we were going to extend the 'classroom discussion' for a while, in hopes that the rain would relent later. And I pointed out that we had deliberately declined to mount the cardboard targets so we didn't have to get wet, and the targets didn't have to get too wet to paste tape over the bullet holes in the targets. And I also mentioned that in an actual match, we wouldn't have this luxury.
When we could no longer put off the Live Fire Exercise, the rain was still heavy, so we decided to just shoot the stages and temporarily ignore the scoring-and-pasting efforts which are part of a 'real match'. I also avoided the small-step-at-a-time approach which had typified previous classes. We went right to a modified exercise which taught proper responses to range commands, mandatory reloads between targets, and indexing between targets.
The guys didn't seem to have any problems with the rapid transitions, which implies that I have been codding earlier classes.
In this class, we finished the basic scenarios in an hour with 5 participants.
Since we had an hour left in the allotted class schedule, we went into more advanced technicues.
First we set up a two-string stage. With two IPSC targets and two steel targets, we described a stage where the two paper targets would be engaged using one-hand (defined strong-hand or weak-hand), and then a second string in which the two steel targets are engaged one-handed using the other hand.
After a short discussion, all participants chose to engage the cardboard targets with their weak hand.
The second string (two steel targets) were universally engaged with the strong hand. After all, the targets were smaller, thus more difficult to hit.
Surprisingly, most participants elected to engage the US Popper first, rather than the larger Pepper Popper ... both steel targets were set the same distance away, at the same distance as the IPSC targets.
When we discussed this, it was after we realized that participants (most of whom had handguns most commonly used in Production Division) were just as comfortable using the much more difficult Double-Action mode as the Single-Action mode -- even Clint, who was competing with a Beretta 92, with the absolutely awful double-action trigger. (I didn't try the gun ... Beretta may have made some improvements since I last tried a Beretta 92 a couple of years ago.)
No criticism here. Everyone did an excellent job. The possible exception was Wil, who shot the stage AFTER I pointed out that I would have shot the bigger Pepper Popper first. He tried it that way and took 3 shots to take down the Pepper Popper, then got the smaller U.S. Popper on the first shot -- strong hand.
I asked him why it took him 3 shots to knock down the Pepper Popper, and he admitted that he was shooting too fast. That's a remarkable admission, considering that Wil had no problems at all hitting his targets during the rest of the live-fire exercises.
We still had a half-hour to shoot, so the class found a plywood board which had six very small ports through which they could shoot. I regret that I didn't use my camera to illustrate the challenge. We set up the two steel targets, and three IPSC targets. The rain had stopped by then, so we included the necessity to score and tape the paper targets, besides resetting the steel. The object of the exercise was to engage each of the 5 targets through a different port. I should mention that the participants set up the vision barrier with ports so that they would have to engage targets through ports which were ALL below waist level. This was an excellent test of their ability to engage targets from an 'uncomfortable' position.
One student even went prone, then proped himself up in a semi-push-up position with his weak-hand, and fired strong-hand-only through the lowest port. He did fine on it, but I pointed out that he had mud smeared on his hand when he finished -- and transferred much of it to the slide of his pistol when he unloaded. I encouraged everyone to be certain to clear slippery mud from their equipment after shooting a stage, because that could negatively affect subsequent stage performance.
That took us to the 4pm quitting time. A few participants were willing to continue, but a couple wanted to go to the Main Range bench-rest facilities to try out a new AR rifle. So we returned the props to the appropriate storage area, exchanged emails, and everyone went their separate ways.
All in all, this was another positive experience for me. I enjoy meeting new shooters, and try to not only teach them the many ways in which they can avoid violating safety restrictions, but also let them see that USPSA competition is not only free-style, but challenging and fun.
Before I released the class, I asked for a show of hands of those who didn't have fun during the class. Nobody raised their hands. I asked Aaron-1, who was only an observer, and he said "Hey, I was just watching and *_I_* had fun today.
That's the way it should be.
I love this game.
PS:
Speaking of "shooting in Inclement Weather", I include this video from the January, 2007, ARPC match. Lots of white-painted steel targets. which do NOT show up well against a background of snow ... especially while the snow is still falling!
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