2018 Competitive Shooting Goals

Wolffy

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We are 1 month from the new year. What goals are you setting for yourself? What are you going to do to accomplish the goals? What matches are you planning on attending?
 
Does saving up cash to get a Limited gun count?

In the mean time, I want to atleast get to A class in PCC by February. I have two bad classifiers on my record now(gun issues when I first built it), so I feel confident in the goal. Reloads are my downfall running PCC classifiers so I've been focusing on those during dryfire. I am looking to add an extended mag release to help with these.
 
Does saving up cash to get a Limited gun count?

In the mean time, I want to atleast get to A class in PCC by February. I have two bad classifiers on my record now(gun issues when I first built it), so I feel confident in the goal. Reloads are my downfall running PCC classifiers so I've been focusing on those during dryfire. I am looking to add an extended mag release to help with these.


These are awesome, Odin Works ext mag release.

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Goal (again :rolleyes:) this year is to make IDPA master. Got really close in 2017, and made some big improvements. But couldn't quite shave the last few seconds off the classifier. Going to work on some bill drills to get my splits down, and maybe actually practice the classifier for once!

Also may try USPSA for the first time if I get a chance. Would love to see the difference in feel. I have a buddy who goes out to the Pitt County match once in a while. Might bum a ride off of him.

Edit: "to make IDPA master". "Making IPDA" isn't a thing, lol!
 
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I gave up on my goals. Nobody would let me shoot a match nekked so what's the point.


Funny-Fear-Quotes-When-you-are-prepared-for-something-scary.jpg
 
I gave up on my goals. Nobody would let me shoot a match nekked so what's the point.
We could practice neeked though, right?

2018
Limited A is really close (6% away), get halfway to M by this time next year

Taking a class this winter is a plan, probably with Bill D
Keeping a consistent dry fire schedule has helped big time

FROM 2017, Id say goal accomplished
“Goal-get to B class by the summer and A or dang close by this time 2017”
 
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Pretty much decided that by the end of 2018 I'll be capturing the very best shooting sports pictures being uploaded to the internet. No other goals until I make that happen.

You are well on your way. I’ve seen some excellent pictures from you already on the inet.


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Due to my health haven't been competing, took all last year off,I've had several procedures on my back and I hope it's under control enough to get back to shooting, want to shoot the full schedule this year, 2matches a month and practice on the off weeks, gonna take a lot of work to get back to where I was but I miss competition.
 
This is a tough one. I'm just starting Steel Challenge but the problem is I have no way to actually practice the stages. Don't have the steel or the proper space for it at my local range. This means I'll have to come up with some sort of approximation and that's just not the same. Setting goals is very difficult as a result.

The other thing is that the Rimfire discipline I like the most is changing ownership as of 1/1/2018. Therefore I have no idea where the World Championships will be held.

Hard to set a goal with regard to a Worlds finish when there's a strong possibility it will be held in California. Guess I'm in limbo for a couple more months until some matches get announced.
 
You can set up a scaled dry-fire pretty easily for steel challenge. Dry-fire will pay dividends in your ability to draw quickly, call shots, and transition between targets, which is what steel challenge pretty much boils down to.
 
I've only set one "achievement goal" in shooting and that was to make GM in 2016. As 2016 drew to a close I started compromising and trying to "just get in enough classifiers" thinking I could do it if I got lucky. That pressure and scarcity mindset crippled my progress and I almost burned out.

Took six weeks without touching a gun. Started shooting again in February 2017. With the pressure off, it was easy to just shoot without getting more tense as the year wore on, and I made GM in two months. So in retrospect I don't think setting that goal helped me, and if anything it pushed me to make short-term tradeoffs (shooting matches to get more bites at the apple instead of going to live fire practice) which set back my overall progression.

My approach to training now is to set "events" more than goals. My current "goal" is training for my first level 2 of 2018.

And even for that, I can't bring myself to set a placement ("Top 10") or percentage ("90% or better of the division winner") goal because there's no way to measure progress towards that. It's not like you inch up the leaderboards at Nationals in relation to your training going well or poorly. A match is just a checkup that you use to inform you training going forward.

So my attitude is to know what my schedule is and try to know how much heat there will be at each match and then use that to remind myself the challenge I have to overcome. That's what gets me to practice, and ultimately, isn't motivation the point of setting a goal in the first place?

Not a very helpful answer, but it's true.
 
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This means I'll have to come up with some sort of approximation and that's just not the same

This is actually secretly an advantage in my opinion. If you dry fire your perfect simulation of the stages and get used to the times you can usually run it in, you build up an expectation in your mind. But when things don't go exactly as expected on match day, then you'll start to doubt your training and your skill and the bad performance will be a negative feedback loop.

What I've found works for me is to not even establish any kind of expectation like that. I shoot USPSA primarily, so there I set up challenges that are representative of what I'll see at a match or on a classifier, but haven't ever exactly replicated a classifier to try to practice it. Any expectation I set of what I could do in practice would invariably not happen on match day, so even having the idea in my head that I could shoot a certain score on a certain classifier is more likely to cause harm than good.

So set up stages that are representative of the type of challenges you see at Steel Challenge. Set them up harder than you'll see in a match. Set them up easier. Set the up mirror reversed. Make up your own stages that are a hybrid between two standard stages. Practice everything so that when you step up to a particular stage, you're not simply confident that you can shoot that particular stage well. You're confident that you can shoot anything put in front of you well.
 
This is actually secretly an advantage in my opinion. If you dry fire your perfect simulation of the stages and get used to the times you can usually run it in, you build up an expectation in your mind. But when things don't go exactly as expected on match day, then you'll start to doubt your training and your skill and the bad performance will be a negative feedback loop.

What I've found works for me is to not even establish any kind of expectation like that. I shoot USPSA primarily, so there I set up challenges that are representative of what I'll see at a match or on a classifier, but haven't ever exactly replicated a classifier to try to practice it. Any expectation I set of what I could do in practice would invariably not happen on match day, so even having the idea in my head that I could shoot a certain score on a certain classifier is more likely to cause harm than good.

So set up stages that are representative of the type of challenges you see at Steel Challenge. Set them up harder than you'll see in a match. Set them up easier. Set the up mirror reversed. Make up your own stages that are a hybrid between two standard stages. Practice everything so that when you step up to a particular stage, you're not simply confident that you can shoot that particular stage well. You're confident that you can shoot anything put in front of you well.

This is an excellent strategy for NSSF Rimfire. Which is getting new ownership and will become the Rimfire Challenge (or somesuch thing that for some reason I can't recall).

The key to Steel Challenge, as best I can tell, is repetition. You set up one of the 8 stages and you shoot it until you become physically ill and throw up. Then you shoot it some more. Then you set up another stage and repeat the process.

Quite frankly this is not super appealing to me. However, it is a discipline in which I get to shoot Rimfire race guns really fast. For that reason alone, I'm in. Eventually I will shoot PCC and other things. The upside of Steel Challenge is that major matches are prevalent. I can shoot state championships in many neighboring states.

NSSF Rimfire is different. Instead of having the same 8 stages at every match, you never really know what you're going to get. It might be 5 plates. Or 7. Or 6. Or maybe 3 but you have to double tap two of them. One never knows.

I've said this often to my buddies over the past year: Steel Challenge measures how well you shoot 8 very specific stages. NSSF Rimfire measures how well you shoot steel.

The randomness appeals to me. But I think in order to really get good at Steel Challenge one must embrace the consistency of what you'll be shooting.

This drives some people crazy. It is likely that I eventually get tired of shooting the same thing over and over again too. And then will join the ranks of the people who just can't stand it anymore. Who knows?

For me, the questions are as follows:

1. Is my goal to win matches or actually become a better shooter?
2. If I want to be a better shooter what does that entail? In other words, what specific disciplines am I trying to get better at?

I think it is entirely possible that a fellow could end up dominating one small aspect of a given discipline and never see even the tiniest improvement shooting his carry gun. I used to think that trigger time was trigger time and every hour spent on the range helps. But once you get super specialized, like I am now, I'm not sure that is the case.

Thanks for the insight and advice.
 
I'll have to reassert my 2017 goals for 2018 since the neck injury, surgery, and long recovery derailed me since March. My first goal is to get back into game shape. I have lingering nerve damage in my right arm from the blown disc and pinched nerve. I didn't know how bad it was until the doc gave me the go ahead to lift weights again. I was shocked how much strength I lost in my right arm. I'll be starting back dryfire this week, and if the doc gives me a thumbs up on Dec 18th when I see him, I'll be starting back livefire then. Hopefully I can get back to shooting like I was last Jan, Feb, and March.
So...in short...my first goal is to get back to being able to shoot with no lingering pain issues. I can shoot a match here or there now, but the practicing both livefire and dryfire was causing neck and back pain that robbed me of sleep at night. I haven't picked up the gun since the week after the Sectional; I needed to just recover. Hopefully now that I'm back in the gym I can build up some of the neck, back, and arm muscles that got so weak. If that gets back on track then my 2017 goals are on.

I was a half % from Master until the problems that dropped me back a little. I'll be going for Master in Production this year. Top 20 in Production at the Sectional is also a goal. I'll shoot a couple matches in January, and all the practice that entails from that. I'll reassess in February. If the problem with pain and sleeping persists then, then I'll take the rest of the year off shooting and focus on getting the body back strong and right.
 
I have not set my goals yet. Been reading With Winning In Mind. Really good book on goal setting and the mental side of accomplishing said goals.
 
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