Are you ready to shoot a practical pistol match?

Robb Allen over at Sharp As a Marble has a plan for his USPSA match on Sunday.  ExurbanKevin at Misfires and Light Strikes has a plan for his IDPA match on Sunday.   Mz. VRWC and I are participating in an IDPA Regional Match this weekend, called the South Mountain Showdown, at Phoenix Rod & Gun Club.  Surely, I have a plan for shooting this event, I think.   The plan has to be somewhere around here, now where did I leave it?

The plan, meticulously based on the only three IDPA club matches I’ve shot so far…is:

1. Muzzle safety – Don’t point the gun at anything I don’t intend to destroy, including my own body parts, or my match is over early (instant disqualification).
2. Maintain the 180 degree rule at all times – Don’t point the gun in a direction greater than 90 degrees to the left or right of the downrange berm (instant disqualification).
3. Only shoot has fast as I can accurately shoot – Any faster than that will waste ammo, time, and incur penalties.  (You can’t miss fast enough to win.)
4. Have fun and enjoy the experience.
5. Maintain a relaxed approach to fend off the Red Mist, facilitating quick and safe draws from concealment.

That’s it!  That is my plan for this match.

I know how to pull the trigger smoothly, line up the sights correctly, and how to be safe while handling firearms.  Any other “things” I could plan on doing would probably exceed the mental bandwidth available after the timer buzzes.

Watching other shooters fire at lightning speed can create tremendous performance anxiety.  At some point, you realize that you can only perform at the best of your abilities.  You need this realization to keep your competitors’ performance from inducing the Red Mist.

Many people focus on the hoped for outcome of the event, at the expense of those tasks that have to be performed to achieve that goal.  When those tasks are performed correctly, the sum of those tasks will equal the desired outcome, which is a winning performance.  My focus will be on managing the tasks I have control over.  If I do everything correctly, the result will be safe competition,  zero-down scores, and a good place in the results.

Now I just have to remember my plan…where did I put that plan?