Breaking Down on Long Stages

This weekend, I was able to shoot a steel only USPSA based match for the first time in four or five years. The stages are longer, target rich, and with a 17+1 gun, I had some reloads - both speed and emergency. The first two stages were short and I shot them really well. The last two stages were longer and I noticed the same phenomena in both.

I'd draw and would burn down the targets with the first magazine. Like quick, 100% hits at my potential. However, after I reloaded and began to move from position to position, my hits went down dramatically. The most obvious was a stage where the last four targets were four full size Peppers Poppers at 10 yards. I had reloaded prior to entering the shooting box and missed the first Poppper two times in a row, after burning down the eleven previous targets that were much smaller. My guess, from watching video, is that I'm not getting a proper firing grip back on the gun after my reloads and I'm struggling to enter the shooting box in a solid shooting position.

Assuming that these are my problems, what does the group suggest for improvement?

Possibly overconfidence, not seeing what you need to see, mentally dismissing the target because it's so big, you can't possibly miss..

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Originally Posted by John Hearne

This weekend, I was able to shoot a steel only USPSA based match for the first time in four or five years. The stages are longer, target rich, and with a 17+1 gun, I had some reloads - both speed and emergency. The first two stages were short and I shot them really well. The last two stages were longer and I noticed the same phenomena in both.

I'd draw and would burn down the targets with the first magazine. Like quick, 100% hits at my potential. However, after I reloaded and began to move from position to position, my hits went down dramatically. The most obvious was a stage where the last four targets were four full size Peppers Poppers at 10 yards. I had reloaded prior to entering the shooting box and missed the first Poppper two times in a row, after burning down the eleven previous targets that were much smaller. My guess, from watching video, is that I'm not getting a proper firing grip back on the gun after my reloads and I'm struggling to enter the shooting box in a solid shooting position.

Assuming that these are my problems, what does the group suggest for improvement?

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I'd actually suggest that this isn't a technical issue that's failing you, it's a stage planning issue. With super long field courses, a lot of time people will only successfully "program" their run up to the first mag change, and after that happens they're flying by the seat of their pants. Since the brain then has to focus on the stage plan of "where do I go next what do I shoot next shit I missed that steel I need to make it up how many rounds do I have left fuck I'm at slidelock" it starts to defocus on the fundamentals, so you end up missing more shit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Hearne

This weekend, I was able to shoot a steel only USPSA based match for the first time in four or five years. The stages are longer, target rich, and with a 17+1 gun, I had some reloads - both speed and emergency. The first two stages were short and I shot them really well. The last two stages were longer and I noticed the same phenomena in both.

I'd draw and would burn down the targets with the first magazine. Like quick, 100% hits at my potential. However, after I reloaded and began to move from position to position, my hits went down dramatically. The most obvious was a stage where the last four targets were four full size Peppers Poppers at 10 yards. I had reloaded prior to entering the shooting box and missed the first Poppper two times in a row, after burning down the eleven previous targets that were much smaller. My guess, from watching video, is that I'm not getting a proper firing grip back on the gun after my reloads and I'm struggling to enter the shooting box in a solid shooting position.

Assuming that these are my problems, what does the group suggest for improvement?

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Practice that. Have two sets of targets in a room. Shoot one set, reload on move and dry fire on second set to time which will induce stress.

I think it's either what Caleb said, or you had a conscious thought about your shooting on the first array and it got inside your head. If it's not something like that, I would stop thinking about it. Some things are systematic and will cause recurring problems over and over, but everyone has a range of potential performance and sometime it just happens that we goof. My general rule is that if I see a trend across many stages, or if I make the same mistake 2-3 matches in a row, I'll make a deliberate effort to address it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Hearne

My guess, from watching video, is that I'm not getting a proper firing grip back on the gun after my reloads and I'm struggling to enter the shooting box in a solid shooting position.

Assuming that these are my problems, what does the group suggest for improvement?

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Position entries and exits are an area of low hanging fruit for a lot of shooters. Some potentially useful stuff:

-Have the gun up in your eye target line as you’re completing the move and coming into position; Full grip, ready to fire.

-Have the load done early enough that it doesn’t limit your ability to do the above.

-Think about the process of coming into position as a smooth deceleration, as opposed to a skittered stop from full speed.

-Evaluate and visualize the minutiae of your footwork to assist coming into position as smoothly as possible with the requisite stability to achieve what you need marksmanship-wise.

-Generally, “shoot sooner” rather than faster.

-Have the patience to “see what you need to see” in concert with all the above.
Note: It may not be a 100% stable sight picture. On the other hand, it may be. ;-)


It’s pretty easy to set up a couple shooting boxes in your backyard and work on this stuff dry with a blue gun or whatever. Couple boxes, a few yards apart and a target. Work the movement forward and backward, laterally, add a load in between, etc. Your imagination is really the only limiting factor. As you progress, work on it live with a timer, and look at the data empirically. The timer doesn’t lie. What feels fast doesn’t always correlate with what is.

Anyway, just some ideas.

T

Good thread, and good advice so far! What you're experiencing is common. Willpower/focus/stamina, whatever you want to call it, declines rapidly when you're doing something as demanding as USPSA. It takes practice and experience to shoot as well at the end of a long course as at the beginning, and to keep focused throughout a long match.

It's easy to just keep pulling the trigger, but let the rest slide. Your fatigued mind begins assuming that pulling the trigger will result in a hit, because that's what you've been doing for a while.

I recommend doing long-course dryfire sessions without trigger presses. Set up a bunch of targets, visualize the sequence 10 times. Then on the beep, look at the center of the A zone or the very center of the steel, move your sights to each target and stabilize. No trigger presses. Change the order of target engagement, rinse, repeat.

Watch out for a tendency to sweep through targets. If you do that, it's a FAIL. This drill is: 1) eyes to center of scoring region, 2) sights to center of scoring region, 3) stabilize sights as much as needed, 4) eyes to center of scoring region of next target, etc.

If you think your fundamentals are falling apart on longer stages, you are probably dedicating too much mental energy to “seeing” your way through the stage while shooting it.

I can only speak from experience. The biggest aid to my scores in longer field courses (the most important courses of each match, points-wise) was developing visualization skills.

Safe gun handling and the fundamentals need to be at a place of unconscious competence first. If you’re doing just fine on short courses, classifiers, and in initial positions, you are probably more than competent enough to score well. However, if you don’t have the course memorized and visualized prior to shooting it, you will inevitably fall apart. Your brain will be actively searching for targets, fault lines, obstructions, and the 180. If you’re burning mental energy on that, the fundamental parts of shooting can fall by the wayside.

There are lots of good recommendations in this thread. If I can chip in at all, I recommend (i) learning to interpret stage diagrams if they’re available, (ii) consciously utilizing all available walkthrough time, (iii) creating a mental plan for working through the shooting positions and target positions in digestible chunks, and (iv)running through those chunks over and over again in your head, imagining actually shooting them, until you can close your eyes and “shoot” the whole stage. Visualization drills and memory drills (e.g. memorizing poetry or songs) help a lot. Ignoring other shooters’ runs helps a lot. Experience builds better stage plans, not mimicry.

By the time I hear “make ready,” I want my body on borderline autopilot. I want my eyes to see targets exactly where they are supposed to be with a fiber optic right where it’s supposed to be. That way, the only things to which I need to pay attention are calling shots, correcting equipment errors/malfunctions, and keeping the gun up going into positions.