What did you learn about handguns from IDPA or other competitions?

[Jim Watson]

There are a lot of IDPA stages that the COF is stated as "contact distance" from cover (this is because there are no "foot fault lines", so they force you do do something that is not in the rule book.

True, we do a lot of things that are "not in the rule book."
But if you are doing someting that contradicts the rule book, you are not shooting IDPA.
Of course the rule book is self contradictory on some items, but I won't get on that soapbox late at night.

 

[Skribs]

Oh, if you are there for "training" 2nd place is the 1st dead guy.

Assuming a free-for-all, he would be the last dead guy. I'd assume the guy coming in last would fare least well in the same firefight.
Of course, this makes a lot of assumptions. I remember rounds in video games where I take down the top player in the server, but the bottom player in turn takes me out. Firefights aren't just about who is better on the trigger.

That said, I get the joke

 

[BullfrogKen]

I agree with what Sam and many others posted on the first page.


I'll underscore the point that once you learn the gun handling skills to the point of unconscious competence, you free your mind up to deal with the actual problem in front of you.


Like I said, many of the points have already been well covered on page 1. But I'll add the things I've learned in competition can be summed up neatly in two different categories:

• The things I've learned about myself;
• And those things I've learned from others.

I can think of very few venues outside of competition that gives someone that kind of opportunity.

 

[Logan5]

One time I was at the range trying to fire fast pairs and not doing so well. Someone a few lanes down somehow shot the rope off their target carrier and there was a cease fire while it was restrung. I had Brian Enos's book in my range bag, and so I read while I waited. Where I picked up, he was talking about pointing your thumbs hard at the target, and I realized that what I had been thinking of as "trying harder" was really just making a face while getting upset. I'm sorry if it sounds foolish, but it was huge for me- wanting harder for bad technique to work instead of changing it was something I had no idea I was doing.

There were a couple of other big ones in there, but the other takeaway I think is really valuable is that anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first.