Match meltdown

[Cowtown44]

I've been shooting pistols for about a year now. Lately, I'm been spending more quality time at the range (I think) working on "the fundamentals" and also a fire bit of time at home working on reloads, wall drills, case on front sight drills, using the shot timer to acclimate and using the SIRT. I've was pretty happy with my progress until............I competed in yesterday's USPSA match, my second match.

Things came completely unstuck. I was a walking example of everything that one can do wrong with a pistol... flinch/anticipation, trigger jerk, poor front sight focus, death grip with strong hand, etc.

Do you guys have any suggestions for a USPSA beginner for bringing my acceptable range skills to the competition box?

[JV_]

Was it a case of the shot timer jitter ... making you lose 20 IQ points?

Do you calm yourself down before signalling that you're ready?

[jetfire]

Do you guys have any suggestions for a USPSA beginner for bringing my acceptable range skills to the competition box?

The best thing you can do is leave your expectations of performance in the car. You may be good shooting from a static position in a range, but USPSA is (obviously) a different animal. If you can successfully go to any club level match with the attitude "I'm going to shoot to the best of my ability and not worry about anything else" then you'll be in good shape.

[JHC]

In my limited experience - perhaps 30-40 competitions total spanning many years with lengthy gaps without matches - competing more often was the best antidote to the match jitters leading to complete pooped the bed stages. Any other training with an audience prepared to critique and or show you up may have a similiar effect of getting acclimated to delivering on demand.

[Cowtown44]

JV, I do try to calm myself down prior to my turn. I don't do taping/brassing starting when I'm in the deep hole, try to visualize what I'm going to do (ideally), breathe deeply, etc. I think it's the surge of epinephrine when the buzzer goes off that throws me off. I try to think of it as a start button instead of a timer.

Caleb, good advice. Now, I just need to bring to life.

Also, I think I'm going to throw in some running into my range practice to get my heart and respiratory rates up while I'm trying to perform.

[jetfire]

I used to get hella bad jitters before it'd be my turn to shoot during club matches. The best cure I found as mentioned above was to shoot as many matches as possible. Then I started shooting bigger matches, state and national championships. After a while, there's not as much adrenaline during "make ready" as their once was.

[SecondsCount]

One thing that helps me is that I put the idea of competition out of my head and concentrate on having a good time. Shooting is fun after all.

[JodyH]

JV, I do try to calm myself down prior to my turn. I don't do taping/brassing starting when I'm in the deep hole, try to visualize what I'm going to do (ideally), breathe deeply,

Stop thinking about it so much. All your preparations are just getting you more and more jacked up for the buzzer.
For your second match you should spend more time socializing, taping, resetting targets and less time on stage planning and visualization.
Have more fun and fewer thoughts about competing and you'll shoot better.

[JHC]

Another thing which is sort of a cop out for "competition" is I generally don't really walk the course to try and figure out how to game it just right. Now that is really important for really good match performance but since my interests are martial, I generally try to leave my mind uncluttered about where in a stage I'll reload etc and just "fight" the stage as it presents itself. I just have a sense that removing that planning out of the equation also settled some nerves. YMMV.

[NGCSUGrad09]

Slow yourself down. Time pressure is self induced.