Match Review from RRRC

Since I’ll be missing this week’s podcast due to 1) being in Virginia and 2) being replaced by the awesome Humble Mechanic, I couldn’t help wrapping up my thoughts on the RRRC USPSA match this weekend.

Before we roll the tape, a little back story: three weeks ago, I shot the Sir Walter Gun Club USPSA match in Creedmoor, NC and sucked. Bad. The culmination of it all was the classifier stage where I was so focused on seeing my hits that I forgot to shoot a few targets. Instead of going the speed I was capable of and knowing where my shots were going, I was rushing to go the speed I thought I should be going and hoping my alfas and charlies were there. Instead I got no shoots and mikes.

This pissed me off.

During the match, this was a bad thing because, despite knowing that shooting is first and foremost a mental game, I was psyching myself out. By the last stage, I didn’t even care anymore. And something amazing happened: I relaxed and shot a good stage, because I wasn’t stupidly tense about performing to a certain level.

After the match, being pissed off had the effect of making me really re-evaluate my shooting and what my goals were. That very evening, I started my challenge to dry fire every day from then until the North Carolina Section USPSA match 26 days later. On Day 20, the weekend before the big one, I shot a match for the first time since getting pissed/inspired. And this is what happened:

Without exaggeration, the best USPSA match I’ve ever shot.

And all of this from nothing more than 15 minutes a day of draws, reloads, and transitions. No fancy props or drills. Just me, a free timer app on my smartphone, and the gun.

I was shooting a lot of matches because shooting matches is fun and practice isn’t. But what’s even more fun, is practicing and then winning matches.