Match Report: Alpha-Mike 2/17/2008

Last Sunday I shot the Alpha-Mike match in Bulverde, TX. It took me a bit to get the video finished - I didn't have the scores on hand, and then had to go out of town for a funeral. I prefer to get these things up while they're still fresh in my head, but, as the prophet Jagger said... You can't always get what you want ;)

Ok - I won high overall at this match, and Open division. There were a total of 53 shooters, which is the biggest attendance at an Alpha-Mike match that I can recall seeing, though its probably not the biggest they've had. Nice turnout, though. Here's the video, and comments will follow...




The thing that always strikes me about Alpha-Mike is the setup... These guys generally can't get on the range until something like 0830 the morning of the match, which means that match setup is done on a very compressed time frame. Somehow they manage to get a full match set up and running in an hour and a half. Very impressive.

A few notes on the video... That last split on the first stage is an .11. The second split on the second stage is a .10. On the second one, I had trigger freeze, and then relaxed off the trigger and grip, which allowed the gun to rock on the 2nd shot and cause a 2nd actuation of the trigger... I didn't call either shot, unfortunately, and so the 4th shot on the target was required... The target (at 12 yards or so) had 2 As and 2 Cs - funnily enough, the two As were the 2nd and 3rd shots - the .10 split - as I called the other two shots as Cs....

On the third stage, that's definitely me jumping the clock, not a weird video artifact. You can see I reacted to the sound of shooting in the next bay over. That caused me some pause, as I partially expected Roy would stop me for creeping. My first shot was a 1.13, so it obviously affected my draw a bit - Roy figured that evened things out...

The classifier, Can You Count, is merciless in its punishment for tension. My second string was a 3.09 - a GM run, not quite 100%. The first one, though, was wracked with tension - a trigger freeze and a blown reload. The draws were sharp, however - a .78 and an .84. I'll take those ;)

The last stage was interesting - that last shot cost me .75 seconds. I'd called a hit on the target, and then visually saw there was no hit, so I made it up (to my benefit, thankfully). But, I walked away from the stage wondering what the heck had happened - I called a solid A on the target and it wasn't there. The video clearly shows the reason.... Hear the "tink", and see the wall rock? That last target was at a hard angle, and I wasn't quite fully as far into the doorway as I needed to be - I just barely edged the corner of the wall, and it spun the bullet off to who knows where...

All in all, a good match. I'm already seeing improvement from the work I've done since the Florida Open...

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Match Report: 2008 Florida Open

Wow, what an intense match. The 2008 Florida Open was shot over the weekend of February 8-10 at the Universal Shooting Academy, in Frostproof, FL. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, this match is the traditional season opener, and is known for its trademark stages where there aren't any no-shoots or hardcover targets, but the shots are generally long and sneaky difficult. This year was no different - in fact, there were a great many shots longer than 20 yards that really required a lot of focus to nail down correctly.

The end result is a match that can really leave you feeling beaten up as you're shooting it - until you go look at the results. You feel like you're shooting slow and sloppy, because you're either dropping points like a sieve, or you're taking forever and a day to break shots to insure A-zone hits. But you go look at the results and see that its not just you - everyone in the match is having that feeling, too, and seeing those results on their scoresheets, too. A strong mental game helps in this situation - you keep shooting your game, and just do your job.

In the end, I placed 5th, being edged out of 4th by Lesgar "Speedy" Murdock, from Jamaica, by about 80 match points. Lesgar is a nice guy who shot a great match. We were both a long way out of third place. Anyhow - here's the videos of my shooting - commentary, where appropriate, follows...

For more commentary on the 2008 Florida Open, hit the DR Performance Shooting main site!

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Coaching Testimonials

I put up several client testimonials from my training/coaching alter-ego, DR Performance. Check 'em out!

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ALSPPC USPSA match - 2/2/2008

Well, sorry folks, no video on this one. I got the range and found my camcorder battery totally flat... D'oh.

That's OK, though - not much to show you this time. I didn't really connect with my performance on Saturday. I could make excuses, etc, but heck, its not worth lying to either of us. Just wasn't a good match.

However - I got about 500 sharp rounds of practice in following the match, and honed in on a preferred setup on the new gun, and cleaned up many of the errors I made in the match. This is key - as I walked away from the day with positive thoughts and experiences in mind, and greater confidence than the match results would have given me...

Altering my sleep schedule is certainly at least partially responsible - for the Florida Open, I have to wake up about 4:30 Central time! Lack of sleep plays heck on my mental focus, unfortunately. But, I want and need to learn how to deal with that scenario, so... practice afterwards allowed me to focus with that sort of concentration level...

Anyhow - congrats on your match win, Don Hardy!

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