Rock Your Glock and the RO Class...

Been rather behind on my blogging---have been running around getting all the details ready for my students at the beginning of the school year. As such, I've also NOT had time to do much in the way of pistol practice, even though my Area 3 showing demonstrated strongly that I need LOTS more.

That being said, I shot the Rock Your Glock match last month, and as always, it was fun. Ardi came with me, and we worked the match all day, and she shot in a competition for the first time. I shot about normal, perhaps a little slower (not much---but I didn't get first, either). Ardi did a very good job, particularly for her first time. No misses. I put up video of her shooting on the NHA blog page, so go there to take a look.

Today, at a makeup steel match at ENGC, one of the ROs from the RYG match came up to me to specifically congratulate me on how well she did---but most particularly, to let me know that he was impressed at her handgun handling ability, with regard to safety and procedures. She did everything right, all the time.

So I was happy to hear that, both for her, and because it means I'm teaching her correctly. :)

In other news, I went to a Level I Range Officer class in Jefferson City, MO a few weeks ago. I'd been wanting to get my RO certification for quite some time, but there just haven't been any classes nearby. This one (6 hours away) was the closest I'da seen.

One full day of class time, and about half a day on the range. The class itself wasn't difficult, and it was interesting with all the examples. To be certified, a shooter has to take the class, then complete the open book exam by answering all of the questions and citing the specific rule for each question. I finished my exam, checked it two or three times, and emailed it to the instructor yesterday--so we'll see how it went...

With any luck, he'll be able to grade it in time to send it to USPSA headquarters before the 10th of September. If he does (and I passed), it should be in the computer and I'll officially be an RO on the 10th. (I'll get my offical RO stuff later, but I'll count as an RO from that point in time.)

Amusing thing from the class---on the second day, we were on the range, with an "RO stage" set up for us to shoot. The stage itself was straightforward, but not easy---the layout gave shooters many many chances to mess up royally. The point wasn't to have a competition, but to give potential ROs a chance to run shooters, and learn to score targets in potentially confusing situations.

But none-the-less, the shooters were still competitive. We couldn't help it. :)

There were 19 shooters, with some in every division. The stage was only 12 rounds, with a mandatory reload in the middle. And like I said, it gave shooters many chances to screw up---which many did. Six people (out of 19) zeroed the stage, due to misses and no-shoot hits.

Here's the fun part: I took first place, with 100%. 2nd place---had 66.35% of my score! Third was another shooter from ENGC at 60.62%, so the two ENGC people got two out of the top three places. But boy, was there a gap between first and second.

Made me feel better about shooting. :) And evil, too---because the stage I'm designing for next week's regular pistol match is based on the RO stage. Should be nice and straightfoward...but not easy.