I shot my first contest and came in 9 out of 13. I was very slow!!! I wanted to be sure to keep in front of 180 and be as safe as possible. On my very first station on my very first ever competition, the RO says Range is hot....make your gun ready.......ready.....beep......I reach down draw my weapon extend to shoot. what the heck the holster is still on the gun. I was so nervous i reach down pulled up and took the paddle right out of my belt. It got better from there. I was shooting with members of the Mpls Police pistol team. They are very good at this.
2nd day, this time I came in 8th. I had 2 stations of all alphas but was so slow I finished 7 and 8. I had 2 were i was the second most accurate and one I had was #3. I do not run yet and work very hard to be safe. I shoot as fast as I can but move between targets slower and very concious of the saftey factors. Finger off the trigger and 180 still are not second nature and I have to pay attention to those things.
My goal is in the first 8 weeks to finish in the top half and then to just start cutting my time down. I haven't had this much fun for a very long time. I may be too anal about not getting proceduarals or a DQ but I don't want to develop bad habits before I work on time reduction. I have been practicing mag drops and reloads every nite. That is just not as easy as it would appear to be.
RCG
This is the best attitude. I see GM's and M's get DQ'd; you can go up to any experienced competitor and they'll tell you it's not how you DQ, it's when you're going to do it.
If they all had your mindset and safety attitude, this would not happen. Sometimes, competitors try to push their speeds to uncontrollable levels. This is understandable, considering the game. However, being unsafe is never understandable; additionally, you input the fact that your open gun has a 3/4lb trigger and it's just DQ after DQ.
Presidents of companies SPONSORING big matches have been DQ'd on the very first day...
