Hi,
After practice last night Gene asked me for comments or suggestions on
the practice and I didn't have anything to contribute off the cuff,
but after sleeping on it I have a few ideas.

1st thing to do is come to the IPSC practice some time and see how
they use the indoor space to set up stages. One trick they use to make
it seem larger and allow for more movement is to set up walls or
corridors by hanging up netting from the ceiling. This forces the
shooter to move to many more positions in order to see and engage all
the targets.

2nd, shooting targets on the move. IDPA requires that you must engage
targets on the move unless you are behind cover. One of the IPSC rules
in that indoor space is no shooting between the poles, this cuts in
half the amount of lateral distance (and time) you have to engage a
set of targets on the move. In our small indoor space this is very
challenging because if you move to far or too fast before finishing
engaging the targets you have to move backwards or stop. Shooting on
the move quickly and accurately is pretty advanced and we should
afford opportunities to practice it, but we should do it while moving
directly towards the target and not moving laterally the majority of
the time. Doing so laterally would probably be easier after we get
more experienced as a group and have more space. In a larger space
less experienced shooters will have the distance they need to walk
while engaging the targets and more experienced shooters can run it
through faster.

3rd, the order with which you move to the positions where you can
engage targets should be left to the shooter as much as possible as
the IDPA rules allow. Learning to quickly parse a course and find the
fastest way to engage all the targets is an important skill. My
impression from the IDPA I have done is that everything is heavily
scripted and the only way to do better is to go through the motions
more efficiently. We should be developing more than just shooting skills.

4th, I haven't seen any no shoots. This might be because the target's
aren't ready, but no shoots are another way to force the shooter to
move in order to engage targets much like the netting from the
ceiling. Coming to the IPSC practice slightly earlier can give you an
idea of the absolutely crazy ways they place no shoots. No shoots upon
no shoots upon no shoots with little bits of bad guy sticking out
between em. I love it.

5th, because you need to be behind cover in IDPA we are going to need
more barricades, something light and easy to move around when we want
to reset the course. The netting works fine. There are also saw horses
that we could kneel behind. There may be a few barrels that we can use
somewhere. Give the shooter a choice between multiple barricades,
maybe put a few decoy barricades that give a lousy view of some
targets. Let the shooter make mistakes (as much as the IDPA rules
allow) so that he can learn to recognize the faster way.

6th, Weak hand only, strong hand only, sitting on the ground or in a
chair, prone, one hand "tied" to an object, shooting at the target
through tubes. We should get a dummy and have the shooter start the
stage with dummy on top of him and make him throw the dummy off and
get up to draw. Anything you can think of to make life difficult for
the shooter.

7th, for general consumption (just something I wanted to share with
the group) http://www.grayguns.com/Grayguns_Dry_fire_Safety_packet.zip
It contains the key to shooting as accurately you want as quickly as
you want as long as you remember that practice does not make perfect.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Hope this is useful.
Regards,
Ariel