2008 - the year in review

Looking back, I think I could've at least partially predicted my 2008 season. Coming out of a pretty good 2007 season, I achieved a life long goal... making Grand Master in USPSA's Open division. It was the culmination of a lot of investment (hard work, money, mental energy, you name it). Achieving that goal comes pretty easily to some folks, less easily to others. My improvement was gradual, but actually hitting that milestone felt pretty big to me. And... I didn't have a strong sense of what came next. I knew that put me in a position to be a little stagnant - I was OK with that, and gave myself permission to simply enjoy the achievement, without too much pressure to go beat the world in the next season.

So, I went out into the 2008 season with a goal to attend more major matches, and to really learn what it was going to take for me to win at the upper levels of this sport. The lessons - some big, some subtle - were many. I had a few failures along the way, but countered with a few successes. The matches - and the season as a whole - were something of a roller coaster.

Hit the DR Performance Shooting main site for some thoughts on how the season went...

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Long time coming...

Yeah, unfortunately, the blog has been dormant a while. When you start thinking about all the things you'd like to see and do in your life, make sure one of them is "free time"! Otherwise, you start getting what you asked for... in spades... and you have no notion of this "free time" thing anymore!

So, what's on tap? I should have Area 2 video up today, along with a match review. I may add in some thoughts on the 2008 Open Nationals, with a few stages of video, but due to a camera operator accident, I taped over a lot of that footage... Trust me, you're not really missing anything, in all honesty.

I'll also be adding some new training class dates and student testimonials to the DR Performance Shooting site. Stay tuned!

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Are you a gunsmith?

I mean, really... Are you? I'm not. I'm fairly handy with tools - even the dreaded Dremel. I can read plans and specs, and I have a pretty mechanical mind, so I can grasp how most of our competition guns actually work internally. But when it comes to taking a set of parts and making a properly working, accurate, reliable firearm out of them, I know better than to delude myself about my abilities.

What's had me curious lately is the seeming large number of folks who think they are gunsmiths... Oh, they don't run around telling people that they're gunsmiths or anything like that... What they do seem to do, though, is to decide how a gun should be built, and then they go tell some 'smith to do it their way.

Hit the DR Performance Shooting main site for some thoughts on building guns, the insanity we impose upon our gunsmiths, and the side effects we can introduce in doing so...

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Why a shooting blog?

With all the various shooting related resources out there, why would I want to fire up yet another one - one that I have to maintain, and put effort into? There's no simple, short answer. But, if you'll read along, I'll try to highlight what I'm doing here, and what I hope to get across to you, faithful reader, on this little blog journey...

2007 saw a lot of progress in my shooting, without a doubt. While my results at the Nationals don't appear to show it, 2007 was really something of a landmark year for me. I knocked out several big goals, and opened the doors for several others. As I'm moving into preparations for the 2008 season, it seems like a good time to go Web 2.0 with the shooting thing, too.

As much as I enjoy sharing my knowledge and skills over in the Benoverse, I wanted a place where I could make notes, share ideas, show my progress, and, of course, shamelessly promote myself - without the (necessary) clutter that a forum brings with it.

My objective and intentions for this blog are to share with you some of the things that work for me with my shooting - drills, exercise, nutrition, mental management, etc - and also serve as a sort of electronic notepad for me on ideas and innovations, random thoughts, and the all important results. Comments are welcome, via the blog or via email, take your pick.

I'm planning on using the principle of "public nakedness as a form of motivation" along the way - don't expect some lightweight, cheap, flimsy content (though, undoubtedly, there'll be some of that). You may not like the answers, or the questions, I touch upon along the way - but maybe it'll get you thinking and moving, and if so, then maybe I've done my job....

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