The LA State match has come and gone and I got 2nd ESP Expert. I was hoping to do well enough to get Division Champion and get my bump to Master but alas it did not happen. I shot pretty well but the ESP winner shot very well and had a good match, I just didn't have much for him. I finished 2nd about 2 seconds behind first in Expert class and the stage that killed my first place run was the very last stage I shot, stage 3. I had a good steady match and was shooting well all day concentrating on that front sight. I was working on just the front sight and letting the speed take care of it self and it was working well, even on the first stage I shot which was an El Prez but the 3 targets were all swingers. That was actually a great stage to start on, it made me start out really focusing on the sights and making my hits.
The rest of the stages were pretty good, nothing real tricky or carnival like just good stages that emphasized making your hits, but nothing tricky. There were two stages that had sliding targets, one of them had to targets and didn't move real fast and one of them had one targets that had some zip to it. I managed to get clean hits on all of them.
Where I lost the match was stage 3. It was actually one of the easiest stages, it had no movers or activators, just see the targets and shoot them. It was open squading and I was shooting with 3 other guys. The stage before number 3 that we as a group shot was one I had already shot so I just waited for them, I think that was my mistake. When we got to my last stage I was kinda "cold" and knowing that it was the last stage, not very difficult and that I had a real good match up until then I kinda just shut it down. I basically didn't focus on shooting the stage like I did the other 8 stages and that was the critical error. There was a wall that was about 15+ yards long with 3 windows to shoot from with 8 targets. Not all the targets were visible from every window but they were only about 10 or yards, maybe 15 yard shots. I managed to shoot it not slow but not fast but I dropped 16 points, about 1/3 of my points for the entire match points of 45. I pretty much knew when I was done that stage that I had probably given the match away.
My Lessons Learned are pretty simple.......STAY FOCUSED FOR THE ENTIRE MATCH. Don't be deceived by "easy" looking stages and assume you can just coast through them, they are the ones that will really hurt when you mess them up since others will not. I had been struggling with my shooting a little bit before the match and worked with one of our local Master class shooters. With his help I was able to get back on track and learn how to focus on the front sight and let the rest take care of it self. I learned how that if you make your hits, even it seems a little slower it is most likely smoother, faster, and you don't loose time from points down. I still need to work on this a few other things but I will practicing and hopefully do a little better at Coastal Bend next month.
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