Off to a rough start....

Some days you get off to a really bad start. It can really put a damper on the rest of your match.

The first stage in today's IDPA match was one of the most complex that I've ever done. It involved a swinger that started at the start, but you had a choice to engage it later if you wanted. I took that route and I paid for it. When I engaged it, after shooting two targets while walking backwards and two more around cover, I shot at the thing three times while it was barely moving. I was sure that I saw holes in the target so I moved on. I was wrong. No hits at all. That's two down-5's plus a 5 second penalty for failure to neutralize.

Other than that, I shot the stage pretty well (including a pop-up disappearing target that I nailed), missing 8 more points. But the total of down 28 was not a good start to my day. On the plus side, it was such a complex stage with so much movement and cover, everyone was getting procedural penalties. I didn't get one.

Stage 2 had a lot of targets, but it was nothing like the first one. The strangest thing there was a target with a steel knockdown target in front of it. You could hit a small area of the target or shoot the steel, knocking it down, and then hit the target behind, but still is pretty slow to fall. I opted for knocking down the steel so I could get the clean shot. Down 6 for the stage (3 seconds), so not bad.

 Stage 3 required us to pick up a "brief case" (a drill case with a brick in it) and then shoot the rest of the stage one handed. The tricky thing about this stage is that each target required 3 hits, not the more common 2 hits, so a lot of people messed that part up.

After I picked up the brief case, I couldn't remember if I had to reengage the first few targets again, so I had to stop and ask the SO. Oops. It was good shooting though, only down 8 points.

Stage 4 went really well except that my first shot was super low. I flinched on the first shot, dipping the gun. After that I was right on. I also tried planning out a tactical reload (reloading when it was not necessary) on this stage. It worked OK, but it took me too long to get the empty magazine into my pocket. Most of the targets were pretty close, but I was still happy with my down 3 points for the stage.

 Stage 5 I almost made the same mistake that I did last time I was at Lower Providence. I started moving before my reload was complete. Luckily the SO yelled "cover" and I backed up behind cover and completed my reload. I looked a little goofy backing up in the video, but I didn't lose much time. Down 10 points.

Total for the match was down 55, with something like 35 targets. I'm really happy with that.

For the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q2BWteS2p0