New at IDPA

rayzorloo

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
284   0   0
Location
Ottawa
Hi folks, as subject line says, I will be trying IDPA for the first time this year. Besides making sure I've run at least 1000 rounds through my Glock 35 and work at knowing and being proficient with it, and consistently be able to hit 8.5x11 from 10 yards. Should I increase the distance as well to 12 or 15 yards? Besides that what else can I practice before the NSOC I will sign up for in June? I've been reading a few forums and watching a couple of videos and it seems like I should practice reloads and drawing with my concealment garment on...with gun not loaded of course. Is there anything else I can practice beforehand? Thanks in advance from a newbie.

Cheers
Ray
 
Sounds like you're well on your way. Not sure where you're at, but our IDPA matches rarely have shots past 10m, but YMMV.

Draw stroke and reloading is essential. Practice off hand shooting too as it helps immensely with cover calls. Note that beyond hits on paper, speed matters more than accuracy... But you need to get one good hit to avoid the Failure to Neutralize penalty.

Have fun!
 
Hi folks, as subject line says, I will be trying IDPA for the first time this year. Besides making sure I've run at least 1000 rounds through my Glock 35 and work at knowing and being proficient with it, and consistently be able to hit 8.5x11 from 10 yards. Should I increase the distance as well to 12 or 15 yards? Besides that what else can I practice before the NSOC I will sign up for in June? I've been reading a few forums and watching a couple of videos and it seems like I should practice reloads and drawing with my concealment garment on...with gun not loaded of course. Is there anything else I can practice beforehand? Thanks in advance from a newbie. Cheers
Ray

First off, let me say that whatever your choice of action shooting sport(s), the biggest step toward enjoying it is your own good attitude and finding a group of shooters who are like-minded. If you can achieve that much, you are already well on your way.

I would worry less about accuracy and speed, and maybe a little more about becoming comfortable with the rules and mechanics of the game. Things like maintaining cover, tactical sequence/tactical priority, etc can be difficult concepts for new shooters, but its been my experience that they are better able to grasp those nuances if they understand the basic philosophy behind them.

If you really want to practice, I would add head shots, strong and weak handed shooting, shooting on the move, as well as the reloads and the draw to your mix. There are plenty of drills available for this.

I hope you enjoy IDPA. I've been involved in the sport for about six years now, and still look forward to every match.
 
Sounds like you're well on your way. Not sure where you're at, but our IDPA matches rarely have shots past 10m, but YMMV.

Draw stroke and reloading is essential. Practice off hand shooting too as it helps immensely with cover calls. Note that beyond hits on paper, speed matters more than accuracy... But you need to get one good hit to avoid the Failure to Neutralize penalty.

Have fun!

Hi Phat...sorry but what does YMMV mean? LOL And "Draw stroke and reloading is essential"? Is this basically drawing my gun when the bell rings and reloading as quickly as possible?

Thanks
Ray
 
First off, let me say that whatever your choice of action shooting sport(s), the biggest step toward enjoying it is your own good attitude and finding a group of shooters who are like-minded. If you can achieve that much, you are already well on your way.

I would worry less about accuracy and speed, and maybe a little more about becoming comfortable with the rules and mechanics of the game. Things like maintaining cover, tactical sequence/tactical priority, etc can be difficult concepts for new shooters, but its been my experience that they are better able to grasp those nuances if they understand the basic philosophy behind them.

If you really want to practice, I would add head shots, strong and weak handed shooting, shooting on the move, as well as the reloads and the draw to your mix. There are plenty of drills available for this.

I hope you enjoy IDPA. I've been involved in the sport for about six years now, and still look forward to every match.

Thanks CV32...also by the way, I know I can ask this at the orientation course but do clubs typically have the matches set to experience/skill levels or will it be all combined? I wish I can say I wouldn't be intimidated but who am I kidding....LOL
 
Thanks CV32...also by the way, I know I can ask this at the orientation course but do clubs typically have the matches set to experience/skill levels or will it be all combined? I wish I can say I wouldn't be intimidated but who am I kidding....LOL

I expect it would be combined. Keep in mind that shooters are categorized by division and class, and that won't be an issue for you until you complete a classifier.

Btw, YMMV means 'your mileage may vary'. :)
 
^^Yup, "your milage may vary".

I referenced the draw stroke and reloading as you want to be very fast and very sure when drawing from concealment. Good mechanics and many repetitions will help with a clean draw and getting started.

CV32 makes many great points. Get good, then get fast... I've seen too many competitors develop bad habits trying to go faster, making it harder to develop properly.

Have fun!
 
Little delayed, but in our local matches in Ottawa we often have 15-20 yard shots even 1 or 2 35 yard Standards Stages. Not to mention the classifier Stage 3 is at 20 yards.
 
You're sounding like you want to set the world on fire your first time out. Stop worrying about your speed. Instead concentrate on safe handling and safe drawing and safe reloading.

No one is going to point and laugh if you turn out to be the slowest person on the range that day. But they WILL talk to you seriously or ask you to not come back if your rush to the point of being unsafe.

Safe drawing starts with "load and make ready". Do all the stuff in a comfortable and deliberate manner. No one is rushing you. And when you holster the gun don't jam it in the holster. Ease it in feeling for anything unusual. Being a Glock with no hammer to feel moving or safety you want to make sure that your cover garment isn't fouled in the trigger. And the best way to do that is easing the gun into the holster while feeling for anything unusual.

Always know where your booger picker is. This applies to flagging your trigger finger strongly up and along the slide whenever it's not in the trigger guard. BE THAT FINGER all the time when handling your gun. I know this is basic stuff. But it's double important when holstering and drawing from a holster. You want to feel the finger location and know exactly at which point during the draw and extension where the trigger finger is moving into the guard. And at that point you want to know that the gun is pointed at a spot at least a good 4 yards downrange. Needless to say this applies also for any movement and reloading. If you're not aiming and shooting the finger needs to be strongly out of the guard. So work on that during all your unloaded practicing.

At the beeper don't be in a panic. You want to sweep your cover garment to the side in a way that you know it's out of the way.

As you attain your hold on the gun be sure you can't feel anything unusual. So I'd suggest that gloves are not a wise option for most folks. If you do feel anything that could be shirt or jacket fabric let go and re-sweep the garment away and try again.

You want to work on placing your hand firmly onto the gun so your strong hand grip is established before you lift at all. You want your hand high up into the beavertail and your fingers wrapped solidly in the perfect strong hand grip before you lift up. Once you start to lift isn't the time to start trying to correct your grip as you've lost any stability provided by the holster.

When starting do all this deliberately even if it costs you some time. Speed and lower times comes later. If you feel rushed then you're doing things too fast. And if you feel rushed you're more likely to screw up and put a bullet into the ground too close in front of you or drop your gun during the draw. No need to be glacial. But don't go faster than what let's you be sure your grip is solid and correct or where you lose track of where your trigger finger is and when it moves into the guard.

The draw and presentation is an up, pivot and extend action similar to that used in IPSC. But in the case of IDPA I do find that I like to use my support hand to aid in sweeping the cover garment away. So instead of bringing my support hand up to my sternum and wait for the gun to come up to it I slide it around towards my strong side armpit going under the cover garment to help lift it away to the side. Then as the gun leaves the holster I shift it back and turn it to meet up with the strong hand during the lift and rotate portion.

Here again we're doing a lot of movements and if not done right you can easily end up sweeping your support hand. So just like martial arts slow motion you want to work on this very slow and deliberate for a lot of repetitions and increase your speed in small increments. And here again if you go so fast that you don't know exactly where your hands are and where they are in relation to the gun coming up and out then you're going too fast. Speed with accuracy of movement comes with practice. Speed for speed's sake earns you safety violations or match DQ's.

This same sense of awareness of your trigger finger and muzzle direction applies during movement between cover and during reloading. Don't try to do things so fast that you lose situational awareness of your muzzle direction or trigger finger. That'll come later with practice and familiarity.

One hint I can offer to you as a newbie is to not crowd the cover. This means you don't hug the walls. When you do you restrict your room for moving the gun around and increase your chances of breaking the 180 rule and of sweeping yourself while trying to get the gun moved to travel or reload. Keep back from the walls and corners you use for cover by a good arm's length. Nothing more than half the gun should move around the edge of any cover. And really it doesn't even need to be that much. Don't be one of those people that sticks your arm around the corner or through a "window" up to the elbow. It costs you time and will make safe handling of the gun more risky.

I went onto You Tube to find you some videos of IDPA holster drawing to use as an example of what you want to do.

Here's a great example of a BAD technique. His support hand hovers by his hip so it's not up where the gun can come up to meet it. It's also not going to do anything worthwhile when a cover garment is in place. His strong hand moved directly to the gun instead of using a center out sweeping action which is needed to sweep the cover garment away. So there's a lot of "bad" in this example. However he does use good technique for putting the gun into the holster.

In the second half of the video where he's using a shirt he's sweeping the shirt aside well but he's still letting his support hand dangle. And worse yet he's letting it dangle out too far from his body. It would not take much of a shift to end up sweeping his support hand with the gun as he lifts and rotates and then moves the gun out to meet the support hand.

You want your support hand to come in from the side or even from the side and behind to catch up to the gun so you run no risk of sweeping your hand with the loaded gun.

So all in all there's a little right but a lot more that is poor or just plain bad in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DLeJSpN93o

My second pick pretty much makes all I wrote above a wast of time. Learn from one of the best and take note of what he thinks is important. Much of it is material I wrote above but there's more that I was also going to mention. The only factor for IDPA is that Jerry isn't wearing a cover garment in this video. So some SLIGHT alteration of your strong hand will be needed. And the fellow in that first video shows what is needed. But for the rest of it all do what Jerry says and does. Just don't try to do it as fast as he does... :d

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_W2w0oBwb8
 
You're sounding like you want to set the world on fire your first time out. Stop worrying about your speed. Instead concentrate on safe handling and safe drawing and safe reloading.

No one is going to point and laugh if you turn out to be the slowest person on the range that day. But they WILL talk to you seriously or ask you to not come back if your rush to the point of being unsafe.

Safe drawing starts with "load and make ready". Do all the stuff in a comfortable and deliberate manner. No one is rushing you. And when you holster the gun don't jam it in the holster. Ease it in feeling for anything unusual. Being a Glock with no hammer to feel moving or safety you want to make sure that your cover garment isn't fouled in the trigger. And the best way to do that is easing the gun into the holster while feeling for anything unusual.

Always know where your booger picker is. This applies to flagging your trigger finger strongly up and along the slide whenever it's not in the trigger guard. BE THAT FINGER all the time when handling your gun. I know this is basic stuff. But it's double important when holstering and drawing from a holster. You want to feel the finger location and know exactly at which point during the draw and extension where the trigger finger is moving into the guard. And at that point you want to know that the gun is pointed at a spot at least a good 4 yards downrange. Needless to say this applies also for any movement and reloading. If you're not aiming and shooting the finger needs to be strongly out of the guard. So work on that during all your unloaded practicing.

At the beeper don't be in a panic. You want to sweep your cover garment to the side in a way that you know it's out of the way.

As you attain your hold on the gun be sure you can't feel anything unusual. So I'd suggest that gloves are not a wise option for most folks. If you do feel anything that could be shirt or jacket fabric let go and re-sweep the garment away and try again.

You want to work on placing your hand firmly onto the gun so your strong hand grip is established before you lift at all. You want your hand high up into the beavertail and your fingers wrapped solidly in the perfect strong hand grip before you lift up. Once you start to lift isn't the time to start trying to correct your grip as you've lost any stability provided by the holster.

When starting do all this deliberately even if it costs you some time. Speed and lower times comes later. If you feel rushed then you're doing things too fast. And if you feel rushed you're more likely to screw up and put a bullet into the ground too close in front of you or drop your gun during the draw. No need to be glacial. But don't go faster than what let's you be sure your grip is solid and correct or where you lose track of where your trigger finger is and when it moves into the guard.

The draw and presentation is an up, pivot and extend action similar to that used in IPSC. But in the case of IDPA I do find that I like to use my support hand to aid in sweeping the cover garment away. So instead of bringing my support hand up to my sternum and wait for the gun to come up to it I slide it around towards my strong side armpit going under the cover garment to help lift it away to the side. Then as the gun leaves the holster I shift it back and turn it to meet up with the strong hand during the lift and rotate portion.

Here again we're doing a lot of movements and if not done right you can easily end up sweeping your support hand. So just like martial arts slow motion you want to work on this very slow and deliberate for a lot of repetitions and increase your speed in small increments. And here again if you go so fast that you don't know exactly where your hands are and where they are in relation to the gun coming up and out then you're going too fast. Speed with accuracy of movement comes with practice. Speed for speed's sake earns you safety violations or match DQ's.

This same sense of awareness of your trigger finger and muzzle direction applies during movement between cover and during reloading. Don't try to do things so fast that you lose situational awareness of your muzzle direction or trigger finger. That'll come later with practice and familiarity.

One hint I can offer to you as a newbie is to not crowd the cover. This means you don't hug the walls. When you do you restrict your room for moving the gun around and increase your chances of breaking the 180 rule and of sweeping yourself while trying to get the gun moved to travel or reload. Keep back from the walls and corners you use for cover by a good arm's length. Nothing more than half the gun should move around the edge of any cover. And really it doesn't even need to be that much. Don't be one of those people that sticks your arm around the corner or through a "window" up to the elbow. It costs you time and will make safe handling of the gun more risky.

I went onto You Tube to find you some videos of IDPA holster drawing to use as an example of what you want to do.

Here's a great example of a BAD technique. His support hand hovers by his hip so it's not up where the gun can come up to meet it. It's also not going to do anything worthwhile when a cover garment is in place. His strong hand moved directly to the gun instead of using a center out sweeping action which is needed to sweep the cover garment away. So there's a lot of "bad" in this example. However he does use good technique for putting the gun into the holster.

In the second half of the video where he's using a shirt he's sweeping the shirt aside well but he's still letting his support hand dangle. And worse yet he's letting it dangle out too far from his body. It would not take much of a shift to end up sweeping his support hand with the gun as he lifts and rotates and then moves the gun out to meet the support hand.

You want your support hand to come in from the side or even from the side and behind to catch up to the gun so you run no risk of sweeping your hand with the loaded gun.

So all in all there's a little right but a lot more that is poor or just plain bad in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DLeJSpN93o

My second pick pretty much makes all I wrote above a wast of time. Learn from one of the best and take note of what he thinks is important. Much of it is material I wrote above but there's more that I was also going to mention. The only factor for IDPA is that Jerry isn't wearing a cover garment in this video. So some SLIGHT alteration of your strong hand will be needed. And the fellow in that first video shows what is needed. But for the rest of it all do what Jerry says and does. Just don't try to do it as fast as he does... :d

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_W2w0oBwb8


Thanks BCRider...I completely see what you're saying. I know from training in martial arts, when shown a new technique, I'm always told to go slow but my mind and body want to go fast and slap on that new cool choke hold...LOL. I always had to consciously do it slow and steady, actually I was at the range this morning and happen to be shooting with one of the IDPA SO's and he said the same thing about going about it slow. You won't be sent home for being slow and not quite on target, but you can be sent home for being unsafe. Thanks for the tips!

Cheers
 
Back
Top Bottom