Setting the bar in ESP

So.. We had a new level of course difficulty at WLSS today. It came via 14 stands, with maybe two or three being a bit tricky and the other eleven or twelve being properly tough. (Terminology is relative and I relate to the "usual" ESP Reg shoot). What made this shoot so hard was its maintained difficulty. No stand was daft, but there was just nowhere where an inexperienced shot could expect to straight a stand. If you take "market leader" shoots that I know, such as Weston Wood or EJ Churchill, there are usually three easy stands, three pretty tough stands and a middle section that is interesting but medium level. The mixture of medium stands will catch out a beginner but equally an experienced shot should hit most targets.

So, has the industry got it wrong? Should all Registered shoots be as tough as WLSS today? We hear much from shooters on social media about how people enjoyed it, how much it makes you better, how we like a challenge. I have a theory: Those that do well like to talk about it (fair enough, well done them). Those who want to improve know that you do need to be stretched. Another crowd actually feel beaten up but their ego will only allow them to praise the shoot. Another large portion feel horribly beaten up and don't say a word as they don't want to talk about their low ability or failure. 

The CPSA average system clearly affects / concerns some shooters. Again, many talk publicly about the quality of the shoot being everything but actually the scores matter to them. I seem to recall that Weston wood was very tough about 6/7 years ago, then they backed it off a bit and entries increased significantly. 

I believe the issue is consistency. If EVERY shoot was as tough as WLSS was today then nobody would blink.  That would just be how shooting is. Cut off points for classes are based on top 5% being AAA, C class being lowest 25%. These points would just move. The only thing to factor in is that.. well let's say it.. It's more fun to pull the trigger and watch a clay break than to see it fly on undamaged. Certainly for beginners! One top shooter was critical of WLSS today because it did little for encouraging beginners. I believe her opinion was well balanced and untroubled by defensive testosterone.

Just to offer my opinion, I think today wasn't actually an experiment or statement by WLSS. It was just an example of a ground that does not hold regular Reg ESP competitions. They have a lovely ground and can set lovely targets but got it wrong last year by making it too soft. That was an accident. Their inexperience showed again this year by toughening ALL the stands ( rather than three) and not realising that this makes a colossal difference. I'm sure that they had no handle on where the scores would end up last year or this. 

I have done about 700 ESP registered shoots and believe that the usual standard we have now is about right, where good beginners hit around 50% and top folk hit 95%. It covers all bases.

So, given that our system needs to cover the needs of all shooters, should we step shoot difficulty up, or is it about right now..? Should ESP Reg shoots properly conform to a similar level of difficulty? After all, we all shoot different shoots on a day, yet the CPSA just receives our score. Should we be advantaged or penalised by our choices of shoot? (As some may know, I devised a grading system that looks at where you place, not how many clays hit, but that ain't going to be adopted, so shoot difficulty remains critical to averages).

I'm sure this debate will turn up nothing new, but it's a chance to vent..

Will........was nice to see you at WLSS.

There are a few factors that people look for at any event.........

Some are average checkers & feel that wherever they shoot they need to maintain that "All important average at all costs (WLSS wasnt the place for that !!)Did see some glum looking faces coming in as we went out tho !!!

Some just shoot what is presented & get on with it, its the same for everyone......a testament of shooting many different grounds & not just your local venues !!

A venue like WLSS is a treat to shoot as they dont hold shoots week in, week out, so you dont get a lot of time to get used to the background of where the targets are being thrown (much like the Classics of old when they was on Greenfield sites!!)

Yes it was a cold day but its February & any hardend competitor will take precautions to ensure they are well catered for.350 entries was great for all involved....well done to WLSS & all the refs who are often forgotten.

Looking forward to the others now !!!

I typed a response and lost it so short version. 8 months ago at the WLSS premier league I shot 69 - massive disappointment - shouldn't have been after all 8 months less experience but it was.  This time 53 should perhaps feel disappointment but do not.  I knew from talk it was going to be tough, I looked at scores before going out and was mentally prepared.  I did enjoy it, ref gave me the prize for the loudest laugh of the day and I came 12th with others in my class.  There were those who hardly ever shoot reg shoots let alone special shoots, those that only shoot a couple of grounds and perhaps a lot who have only just ventured into competitions and we rarely get to shoot West London so that would have brought a few.  

In comparison I shot Owls on Thursday, I did not connect with the clays or mentally that day and was massively disappointed in my score.  I still can shoot in the 50s - Westfield for example - sometimes lack of skill and sometimes attitude - sometimes both and big disaster.

You'll never get one standard across all grounds, it simply will not happen.  The thing is we keep changing our minds, we want challenging shoots but not all the time, we are so used to seeing big scores we lose perspective.  A realistic perspective is what we need to remember when we face a shoot like yesterday.  There was nothing there yesterday that could not be hit except for me the pink sim teals I simply could not see them and one more target I did not give enough to and was high on.  Everything else I got but not consistently obviously.  

I am a C class shooter with rare moments of wow and a lot of mediocre not yet at the top of my class performance and I survived it.   My respect goes to the person who scored 21/100 but finished the course.

An average is just that, so tougher shoots like this are needed to balance out the softer shoots that we all know are out there without naming names.

the problem I see with people moaning about seeing big stuff is that you won't get better at it by not shooting it. 

I wasn't there (working) but have spoken to several people from various classes and the general consensus was positive. It has shown up some technical weaknesses which is great.

one thing that came back several times was it was nice to feel you had to work to hit them, as opposed to trying not to miss them!

personally although this sounds at the tougher end of the scale I think this is closer to where reg shoots should be as opposed to the current trend for big scores without having served an apprenticeship so to speak.

EdSolomons said:

one thing that came back several times was it was nice to feel you had to work to hit them, as opposed to trying not to miss them!

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A good course should have stands where you have to work hard to hit them and stands where you try not to miss them. I have to agree that some regs are too easy, as my scores last winter in uk were too good for me without practise and had a new gun. That's why I'm coming to uk soon to find some thougher regs like Westfield and Owls.

I was one of the inexperienced and infrequent visitors to registered shoots that took the opportunity to shoot at WLSS as I'd never been there before.  I wasn't the shooter that Sian mentioned that got 21, but I wasn't far off that.

I was feeling disheartened after the first few stands, as they were empty when I arrived and just thought it was me being more useless than usual.  As I got further round, saw a few other people that are much better shots than me missing a fair few I began to realise that it had been set as tough as was being predicted and decided just to treat it as an experience and not worry too much about missing stuff.

I just don't see enough targets of the sort presented to be able to get on them quickly.  Having 3 or 4 pairs and taking until the second or third pair to start stretching out the lead enough to hit anything was my problem.  I also suffered on all the sim pairs, the rabbit was particular annoying.  If they'd been on report they would have been great, orange one no problem at all but I just couldn't slow down enough to get on the second one.  All good experience though and it hasn't put me off my aim of attending at least one Registered shoot a month this year (rather than the three I did in total last year).

Edit to add: I don't mind if all Registered shoots are like this one or if they are all similar standard to what they are at present.  I don't care about my average in comparison to anyone else, I just care about improving.

Maybe a way of softening the blow is for the cpsa to declare unusually tough shoots a non qualifier. This happens in golf. This would also help ground owners as fair weather shooters would be more likely to venture out on a nasty day. A simple way for them to do it is to take the average score in A class and if it falls below a set percentage declare non qualifier.

Will.  Years ago WLSS did all the British / English opens, those shoots were a lot worse than this. You knew if you went there you were going to see the toughest targets around but these were championships so testing. So their heritage is they are amongst the best target setters around. Yesterday proved that. They could all be hit I never blanked a stand just too late for me once I worked them out. That's what I'm taking away from this, the ability to work them out and try to remember it. That shoot destroyed my card but was one of the best I have done. So top marks to the course setter.

To add, a couple of weeks ago I had a 1/2 day with the Edmaster. I didn't go up there having time on easy targets, the first bird was a semi flat pink 70 ft teal. 50 - 60 yd battues etc. I put that into practice at this shoot and it came in very handy just need to practice it now. 

if I may give some input as a esp virgin. If the targets are generally as hard as the ones I have recently been shooting at then I am genuinely suprised that esp is as well attended as it is. No pun intended but new shooters should be given a sporting chance. There should be a soft version comparable to dtl one with hittable targets that you can learn your craft on then another version comparable to abt for the more experienced. There is no fun in shooting a course that you know is going to demoralize you. Yes I know there is different versions such as fitasc but I am talking of some way of standardising your grass roots comps.

Thanks for replies folks. Not everybody quite gets what I am asking though, which is should ALL shoots be at this level. Or should registered shoots stay largely as they are and shoots of this difficulty be non registered as move mount miss suggests. I totally get that a shoot like yesterday is great for stretching people and is interesting to shoot. I love shooting the long stuff.

Will Hewland said:

Thanks for replies folks. Not everybody quite gets what I am asking though, which is should ALL shoots be at this level. Or should registered shoots stay largely as they are and shoots of this difficulty be non registered as move mount miss suggests. I totally get that a shoot like yesterday is great for stretching people and is interesting to shoot. I love shooting the long stuff.

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Did you mean ....... " I love shooting AT the long stuff !!! "     :baby:

philmoss said:

Did you mean ....... " I love shooting AT the long stuff !!! "     :baby:

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Stand 9 defends my honour there. ?

I would say no as the jump from straw baler to reg is fairly big at the moment. Making the reg shoots harder could damage the sport long term. However there is a place for tough shoots I just don't know how to include them.

Will Hewland said:

should ALL shoots be at this level.

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I wouldn't be upset if this was the case in all honesty. Corporate/practice grounds can cater for the grass routes stuff and some of the non registered shoots can be a bit less firm. 

I've been shooting for just under a year now but the general consensus seems to be that the overall standard of shooting has greatly increased over the last decade (as with ALL sports); we should continually be pushing ourselves to be better and better and have something to really aim towards. As a graphic example, here is a small animation that shows the difference between a gold medal gymnast 56 years apart: http://i.imgur.com/yV0V4.gif 

My score wasn't great yesterday (49) but that's life. You don't always win things!

move-mount-miss said:

I would say no as the jump from straw baler to reg is fairly big at the moment. Making the reg shoots harder could damage the sport long term. However there is a place for tough shoots I just don't know how to include them.

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Totally agree.  Think there is ABSOLUTELY a place for these tough events, but I would not register them. 

Will, Why NOT ??

philmoss said:

Will, Why NOT ??

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Simple Phil, because not everybody shoots them, so those that don't get judged more easily by CPSA and get over-promoted in classification. The whole point is that a classification system identifies groups of people of similar ability. That only works if the shooters are competing at similar levels of difficulty at their different shoots. When you compare car 0-60mph acceleration times, the tests are done on flat ground with no wind. A Fiesta 1.1 would have the same rating as an M3 BMW if you allowed Ford to do their test down a ski-jump.

Yes, yes, of course, all serious shooters shoot a huge variety of shoots so it all averages out. We are talking the principles of "what if" a whole series of super tough events sprung up and how would it imbalance things, that's all.

You will never please everybody !!!

You can lead a horse to water BUT you cant make it drink it.........Some shooters want to be in AA and go to softer shoots to get that rating, the cream will always rise to the top & when a hard er shoot appears thats when the wheels fall off........people talk with their feet, its a "PREMIER LEAGUE" event, the team selection shoots are another gauge of class abilities, BUT pay your money & take your choice, its the same shoot for everyone.......anyway thats me done on the subject !!!

Hope the ground staff at WLSS have picked up all the toys that were thrown out of the prams as they left the ground  :angel: :angel:

I love to feel entertained at a shoot, that the owners have gone that extra bit to make it special, not just grab as much money for as little effort as possible like some grounds around here. Toilets, hot drinks if you wanted them half way round, 14 stands, top high end ground, walk around in trainers, it doesn't get much better. I wish they did one a month.

Thats the standard everyone should be aiming for.