Quick update about this weekend's match...

Poof. It's always funny. It says you're live and here we are. All right. So this is definitely not planned. So if anyone watches, I will be surprised because I have no idea who's got a show on right o'clock at 9 o'clock and all that fun stuff. So that being said, those of you who have an alarm set— oh, GW, how are you, sir? I was just saying, I'm like, this is just a pop-up. I don't know if anyone's actually gonna watch this live or not, but good evening, sir. So I've had a lot of people say, so how was the match? How was the match? And y'all, a lot of you were here for the 2 weeks of dry fire leading up to the match. And so yeah, this is just the— oh, look at you, sweetie. Hello, darling. Hope you had fun at Blue Trails. Looked like it was a lot of fun that you all had and sort of that sort of thing. What am I doing? Oh yeah. So match update. So how did the match go? Got there 8:00, registered. Well, we were already preregistered, but signed up, got geared up, all that sort of stuff, you know, hugs around because, you know, haven't seen a lot of people in a long time. So that was cool. First stage of the day was beautiful. For the first match, for the first stage, it was awesome. It was 3 targets, 2 shots each, reload, 3 targets, 2 shots each. So for yours truly with the bum knee, getting to warm up on something that simple, totally awesome. Oh, most excellent. All right, sorry. So Fiona's going to DC Project event on Saturday. Um, totally want to invite you all that are in Connecticut New England, because, you know, New England's small, especially relative to the rest of the world. Um, DC Project brunch, bottomless mimosas and all sorts of yummy food, uh, Saturday 11 to 3. Oh, I will warn you, I'm leaving early because I forgot to put on my calendar, so I have students in the afternoon, but I'll be there for most of it. Um, but I will put up links to that later. Um, hey DJ, how are you, sir? All right, so loved it. First stage, totally awesome. Stationary reloads, all of that. And G-Web, to ask you, answer your question, no, I had zero malfunctions throughout the day. Oh wait, I did have one. I had a misfire. Pulled the trigger, nothing happened, racked and went. So do I practice that sometimes? Uh, and, uh, hey MK Joe, um, Will anybody go live from the event? I don't know, since I am only the mere assistant director, and this one is really definitely, um, this is, this is all, uh, Miss Mary. Miss Mary is putting together this brunch. Uh, I'm, I'm showing up. Why am I showing up? Because I told people I'd be there. Uh, Holly Sullivan from CCDL will be there. I do not know if she's planning on live streaming anything. She and I actually still have to talk this week because we've got goodie bags for everybody, and I've got stuff to go in the goodie bags, but I'm not even sure how many people we have, but we won't know the final count to Wednesday because when's the last day that you can actually, uh, sign up. So, all right, first course, a fire, piece of cake, didn't have to move. Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, um, seventh was— no, sixth one was the other one where I didn't have to move much. It was, you had choice of going forward going to multiple stations, shooting 2 targets with 1 shot, reload, going back and shooting those same targets. Or you could go and take the 20-yard shots and not move. I did 20-yard shots because I didn't want to move, especially because it was towards the end of the day. My teammates were very accommodating and understanding that I didn't do resets, because for those of you who don't go to competition you want to be a good competitor. And the way that it works is there's the shooter, then there's the on-deck shooter, and then there's the shooter that's in the hole. Those 3 people do not have to do resets. And if you are the shooter who just shot, you also don't have to do resets. But normally you want to go and tape targets and that sort of stuff to be part of the good team and have good etiquette while at the at the event. So anyway, after you shoot, you also don't— if you just shot, you don't reset because you have to reload so that you're ready for stepping up. So you also want to listen so you know which shooter you are. All right, so what else did I do? So there was lots of moving. Were there moving targets? There were not moving targets. They did have, um, one that you didn't want to shoot going back and forth in front of targets that you did want to shoot. So you had to avoid the moving target, which some of my teammates were— squadmates were laughing at the fact that I can't hit a moving target on purpose. I'm not going to hit the no-shoot because it's moving. So that was cool. And it was just— it was a really awesome first way to go as far as a nice small club match, friendly, no real range lawyers of that sort of stuff. And what else? What else? I don't know. I don't know what else I got. All right. So for all you don't know, oh my gosh, dudes, I totally forgot. This is brand new. We rolled out a whole brand new website on Friday. It's still missing some functionality, but we're working on that. But yeah, if you go to greatsearchtoolschool.com, I actually have a whole brand new website right now. DCProjects.info unfortunately does not have the brunch information. However, and I know DJ does not do Facebook stuff. Fiona, maybe you can help me out here. Hold on, let me see if I can grab it. I'll grab it afterwards. I will. DC Project Connecticut. Oh yeah, we gotta work on that. I gotta find the event link. I will send you all the Eventbrite link. That's what I gotta send to you. Okay. So What else did we do? One misfire, racked and kept going. Had one table start. So that means I'm sitting here like this. My gun is on the table. There's X's on the table. So everybody has to put their gun in the same place. So there's no gaming it really. And so left-handed, like myself, goes over here and it was, had to pick it up, rack it, and then shoot from seated. You had 2 targets to engage and then stand up. My knee did not like the standing up quickly thing. So that was the one thing I learned about some of my limitations currently while I am still healing is standing up gently is much more important. And so the other thing that I learned is there was a lot of lateral movement, just left and right along walls. And some shooting through ports and stuff like that. And I had now learned that right now while I'm still strengthening my knee, I want to move from my right to my left because my left knee is the bad one. And when I would move from my left to my right, that's when I'm like, ooh, not so awesome. All right. So the other thing people keep asking me is how did I do? And I will tell you And I told you during, you know, all the dry fire stuff, I just wanted to get through the day. I wanted to make it through the entire match. And because my squad was gracious and not cranky because I wasn't taping targets, um, it was— I— because by the end, even just only running my, my stages— and when I say running, I mean walking through my stages— it was definitely a bit I was, I was sore by the end. But this is one of those things where, for those of you who've not been in the competition world, this is where like the craziest stuff happens. The safety officer that was running our squad had knee surgery not that long ago, and he got this cool machine that like you put ice and water in it and it freezes your knee. And, um, well, he came over to my house on Saturday before Easter and dropped off this machine for me so that I could have therapy on my knee for after, after school and after, after the thing. So I thought that was just crazy, crazy sweet. So I'm going to see if I can actually find my scores for this, um, for this event. So you and I will see my scores together because I have not looked at my scores. Um, I don't know if I can do this or not because I'm on practice score and I never look at these things because I just don't. Um, so was it the 23rd? No, that's next week. April. What am I looking at? Sorry, I probably should have looked to find this before I brought you on. Yeah, wait, wait, no, wrong one. Sorry. There's gotta be, hold on. I can go to my home and then I'm going to my dashboard. And yes, it is kind of like a slushy machine. It's you. Oh, so here's the other part of the slushy machine part. Is that, um, he came with his machine, hooked it up, it didn't work. So he brought it home and then he texted me. He's like, uh, the other one that I had that I was going to bring to you, my friend already lent it out to somebody else, but I'll get it to you tomorrow. So here we are, Easter Sunday, dude shows up with 2 bags of ice and a different machine just so I could ice myself on Easter Sunday after everybody had dinner. So gun people are the best people. I mean, I know there's bad people, but it's just one of those things where we don't know. All right, so where do I find— did anybody here else do a practice score person that can help me? Oh wait, wait, here it is. Recent events. All right, hold on, let me— oh wait, wait, wait, I will share my screen so y'all can scroll with me. So that we, we see it together. All right. So as, as DJ just said, this will be the big reveal. All right. So give me a, give me a moment to make this a little bit bigger so y'all, or so I can even read some of it. All right. So let's see. I scroll up, match breakdown overall. All right. So can I make it bigger? I don't know. Let me see. That if you're on a phone, you're going to be like squinting hard to read any of this. Oh, that might be too big. But anyway, oh no, that's pretty good, right? All right, so I'm not number 1. Not that I thought for a minute that I would. All right, so let's see. Aaron, Neil, Paul, Harrison, Dan, Chuck, Mike. Number 8 here, Michael Krakow. He's our match dude who runs all of this stuff. At Northwest where we did— hey, CNT! And then where are we going? Oh, oh, there we have number 23! There you go, folks. Um, I was doing really good until this 5 right here. That, that is me shooting a no-shoot. I was doing really good, and I did that on the final, final um, the final stage. So for those who've never been to a match, here's how it works, right, is that they tell me what my raw time is, right? So this is how long it took me to actually shoot each stage. The Mozambique one was, like I said, it's 2 to the body, 1 to the head. It was 3 targets, reload, then do 3 more. So I shot 12 rounds in 17 seconds. Um, all right, wait, say hi to everybody. Um, just so y'all know, this is the first time I'm looking at my scores. So, so it took me, uh, 17 seconds to shoot 12 rounds, which is— I figured it was the slowest I'm ever going to shoot 12 rounds in my life. Uh, it means that I got 5 points down, meaning I didn't have all down zeros, so they add that to create my final score. Um, Hooligans, it's a scenario-based thing where you had to just shoot a whole bunch of different targets, and again, um, with a 41 raw time, and then they add any points down. Now this one here, Stage 3 Thugs, when you get zero down for your points down, that's called a a down 0 stage, and ideally that's pretty awesome because it means that you shot it and you're accurate through the whole thing. Down 1, which was stage 5 muggers, also not so bad. But this one here, that 16, that would be because I shot the non-threat. So now y'all know. People were asking, how did I do? And yeah, hooligans and thugs. It's one of the things with IDPA is like they love telling the story. It was like Mozambique is just 2 to the body, 1 to the head. That's just when you have a stage with that, when you have to shoot a target like that, that's what it's called. Hooligans was— they tell you a whole story about, well, you were out doing this and then hooligans came and started doing this thing and that thing, you know, save the good people and take care of the bad guys. And that's sort of like the whole thing that goes on and on and on. Um, so yeah, like one of them, the one that was a seated start, that was, um, might have been Watch Out. Because it was, you know, your scenario is you're at the, uh, you're at the restaurant and something happens. You gotta stop. You're basically, it's, you're the good guy. So you need to, uh, stop the bad guys. Um, so yeah. So, well, thank you, C&T. Um, yeah, I just, like I said, all I wanted to do was actually get through the match. I wasn't looking to break any records or anything. Super happy about a down zero stage. Yeah, because that's always very exciting and it doesn't happen very often. And with only 2 weeks of practice and not a lot of practice because it was literally just those— the time I spent with you and 5 or 10 minutes before or after when I'm handling my guns. So I did not dry fire a ton. So to have any down zero stages at all, totally awesome. Um, well, thank you, it's good to know. Yeah, it's so funny because I'm like, I, I, yeah, I, a top 25, you know, it's— and it's just so funny because everyone's like, what, how'd you do, how'd you do? I'm like, I never look at this, at, at the, um, scores. They're like, really? I'm like, yeah, I didn't get into competition to become world-class, win-all, everything. I got into competition so I could pick up a gun and not shoot myself with it, and I've gotten there. I can do that, you know, knock on wood, right? Because, you know, nothing is important. So the other thing when you're looking at scores, if you want to get all particular-like, is— show you guys. I don't know why my thing's making all that noise. Um, is that you can change to your— so first I'm an SSP, which is Stock Service Pistol, and then my class, I am a marksman. And then, um, it shows that I was the only one, so in theory I won. Because apparently I was the only SSP there who is a marksman. Um, so yeah, see, I am actually number 1 if we go that way. Uh, it didn't even occur to me. But then if I just get rid of classes and we say, all right, so there was an expert and then there was Scott, so I came in 3rd. The ones that say UN mean that they don't have any classification yet, so they're like newer. They could be novice. Well, Scott's obviously not a novice because he beat me. But yeah, so when you look at it, you can make yourself look even better because, look, I came in third out of all of them. And, you know, you know, I'm only two behind an expert, so that's got to be pretty good. So with— thanks, Fiona. So yeah, it's one of those things where it depends how you look at it. And I just realized this. If you look at my number, notice how much shorter it is than those folks. Those are the newbies. I've been doing this for over a decade, man. So I'm the old, I'm the old lady at the range. So anyway, sorry, I'm just having some fun because I don't know, it's funny. I really don't care about the results except to be fair, I totally love the fact that I had a down zero stage. So, um, all right. Oh, for crying out loud. Aha. Welcome, brothers. Let's see. I don't know. Is there anything else? I, why I feel like I— all right. I did Hooligans and Thugs. Uh, G-Webs. I know I said this. So look, dude, I'm number 3 out of all of the SSP. Folks that were there. So, um, I think I already said thank you, C&T. Uh, let's see. Ah, I'm gonna shoot a vid. Oh yeah, that's right. So GT3 is like sending people stuff like crazy apparently. I know I got a packaging thing, but it says it's not going to be here between May and May 30th. So when I get it, it'll be cool. Uh, Guns and Barbecue, see, apparently I just need to not schedule in order for you to have show up. Um, so the down zero stage means that I got no penalties in that. Ready? I have this right here. So down zero is either in this circle here, or down zero is this circle here. So it means when I was shooting my targets, all my hits were down zero. And the reason we call it down zero is because 1 adds 1 second to your time. And then if you go out to here, that's 3. So that's 3 seconds. So the idea in IDPA is you want to be as accurate as possible because most of us can take a good shot within a second, and we certainly could get a better shot if we took 3 seconds. So it's one of those things, IDPA, you're really working on your speed and accuracy. It's, you know, some of the folks who shoot it say it's like a bullseye because the accuracy really matters. So, all right, Bernie is here. Hi, Bernie. Everyone else is just saying hi. Yeah, I know. They were super happy that as many people got there as possible. And let's see, how much was it again? So I don't know. See, now I clicked on stuff and I can't see what it says. So it is a lot of competitors for a 2-bay, um, stage— or sorry, a 2-bay club. Like, there's literally just 2 bays. And the match directors are crazy smart because they set up the most complicated stages first And you shoot 2 stages in a bay, and then you get the squad swap bays, and then they reset the stages, and then shoot 2 more stages, and they take more pieces away to create a different stage, and then we swap again. And that's how we can shoot 7 stages. Uh, I think we're done by 2 PM, started at 9, um, and there's 30 of us, so, uh, it ran really well. And sorry, I thought I could see this because like I said, I already forgot what, how many there were. I guess it was 32 altogether. Yes, 26. So anywho, I think that's everything. I use real snack bake. Like, well, so one of the things I talk about, like, IDPA versus IPSC. And in the States, we usually shoot USPSA, but we have combos of IPSC or USPSA. The difference of IDPA versus IPSC to me is that IDPA— IDPA is International Defensive Pistol Association, and it's much more like playing checkers, right? In checkers, you're either black or you're red. And you know which squares you have to go to. IDPA is, hey, there's these muggers here, you need to go here, take care of those threats, go there, take care of those threats, and don't hit the good guys. And it's very— you know where you can go and how you can do it. Like, there's tons of rules, I'm not going to get into all of them. IPSC and USPSA is a lot more like chess because in IDPA you have a limit of 18 rounds per course of fire. In IPSC and USPSA, um, you have like 32-round courses, and you have— it's much more like chess because it's like you have 32-round courses, so you're shooting a lot more. There's usually generally more targets, and there's a lot more ways to slice your, um, your stage up. And everyone, depending on the stage, if it's a really well-done stage, usually there's like 5 to 10 different ways to shoot the stage, and you have to remember to shoot to your, your strengths. Even in IDPA, you still want to shoot to your strengths. Like, doing 20-yard headshots, I was thrilled that I only missed like 4 of them because that's really hard to do, a little headshot, um, especially without doing a ton of practice. So, um, there are some choices in IDPA, but there's way more in IPSC and USPSA. So they're different games. Um, yes, I think I saw that. Oh wait, no, I have not seen that yet. Um, oh yeah, well, yeah, there's, um, there are tons more, and I mean I don't know that IDPA or USPSA is— one is growing any faster than the other as far as that goes, because I just know that more people are playing games because more people have guns. And I think it's the best way to learn how to handle your gun because for $20 to $35 or $5 to $35, depending on where you are and what clubs run, honestly, it's a little bit like having a coach for the day because you've got your safety officers or your range officers depending on which game you're playing. Following you around and watching your safety. Finger off the trigger, gun pointed downrange, you can't break the 180, and someone's going to call you on it if you do. And this is one of the things where I try to get everyone to get into competition simply for the fact that your safety handling skills will be so much better. So, well, but USPSA and IPSC are two different things because IPSC you can only use your diamond, um, targets. USPSA can use humanoid type targets. Uh, IPSC is the International Pistol Shooting something. I don't remember what it is. So I mean, they're under the same umbrella, but they are still two different things. So, um, Race guns. Yeah, so exactly. Um, sorry, so those of you don't know what G-Webs and I are talking about, sorry. Uh, IDPA, again, chess versus checkers. In IDPA, the only thing I need is my gun that I bought from the store, a holster I bought from the store, and 2 additional magazines, and that's enough to get me through an IDPA stage. In USPSA and IPSC,— you need more. I have like 8 magazines when I go up to the line in an IPSC match. I have 5 on my belt and 2 in my pocket. Actually, I guess that's 7, but I have more, you know, for failure and all that sort of stuff. So IDPA is the cheaper, easier entry level to get into, and I really loved it as a beginner because it was go here, shoot these, go here, shoot that. Um, and, uh, it's that whole thing. Oh wait, wait, hold on. Uh, Mr. Moskowitz was there. Oh wait, maybe we should— hold on, where did he come in? Oh yeah, so now that Mr. Moskowitz is here, um, where was he? Where did he go? Let's see. What did you shoot that day? Uh, let's see, where are you? I see your wife. Oh, there's David. All right, so David, he kicked my ass, but that's okay. He's doing carry optics, which is the little red dot thing, so it's similar to production, but, you know, but his wife is on, on his heels. So I love the fact that his wife Kat here Um, she didn't like guns. She's one of those people. She didn't like them. Uh, David tried for many, many times to get, um, her to come to me. Like, years. It took David years to get his wife to show up, and now she just loves shooting. And, um, yeah, as long as she comes back some more, we'll see if we're gonna get Kat to actually beat her. You did a really good Mozambique. Oh, were you like down zero? Wait, let's look since David is here. Mozambique, 1 point down. That is pretty stinking awesome, dude. Good job. I bet you didn't know you were coming to be shown up here. But yeah, so yes, it was years and years and years. And yeah, she's going to a Girl and a Gun national conference. Which is totally awesome and fun and exciting. Yeah, sorry about that, hit the wrong button. Um, so his wife is gonna go to, uh, Girl and Gun National Conference, and I'm like, I'm actually kind of sad because this year is the 10th anniversary, and I was at the first one and the second one and the third one. And, uh, but my son's turning 16 on May 1st, and that's when it is. But, um, G-Webs, yeah, competition gives you safe gun handling, period, end of story, because you've got somebody there watching. It's like when people come to me for instruction, what am I doing? I am— I'm making sure that your finger is on the frame, not just off the trigger. I want your finger to have a home, whether it's on the grip or on the frame, depending on what you're doing with the gun. You're aware of where your 180 is if you start moving and that sort of stuff. Lots of people whine and complain, "Well, it's not real life scenarios." I'm like, safety is always number one, and I really do feel you get much better gun safety handling when someone else is watching you. And part of, part of that is the students I've had. I have had students come to me that have been shooting all their lives, 30, 40 years. How long I've been shooting? Now about 12 years, seriously. And I can teach them that. Like my favorite student who'd been shooting all his life, older than me, but he just shot in the backyard with his friends. He came to me for 5 lessons. At lesson number 3, He said, Brooke, I've been shooting all my life with my buddies, and the safety you've taught me, I can't shoot with my buddies anymore. I had no idea how unsafe we were being. And to me, that's like, that's— it's a weird place to be, right? Because I've only been doing this for 10 years, but I've been getting professional training, I've been going to competition, I've had a safety officer watching me or a range officer watching me. Every time I'm touching my gun to make sure that I've got that safety stuff down. So yeah, 100%, competition is the best for me. I know one size doesn't fit all. I believe in that totally. But yeah, it is what it is. Oh wait, I didn't mean to do that. Sorry. So I went to the first A Girl and a Gun National Conference back in 2012 with Juliana and Robin and all those guys. Uh, like I said, I went to a couple of them, uh, probably 2, 3, 4, 5. I went to 7 or 8. Um, but again, because my job is teaching people on the weekends, it's hard for me to travel because between competition, training for myself, and fun stuff like Girl and a Gun, which is still training— oh my gosh, a Girl and a Gun national conference has the most amazing trainers there from all over the country who volunteer their time. And when you go and pay for— I think it's $350 maybe now for Friday, Saturday, Sunday with all of these amazing trainers— you're paying for the— you're paying for like not even what you could get for that. Sorry, I don't even know how to say what I'm trying to say. But yeah, if you go to girlandagun.org, um, you can click on National Conference and sold out. It's not like you can go now, but you can totally, um, look at the list of crazy amazing instructors there are. I was just watching the Weekly Bullet with Robin Sandoval and that sort of stuff. So, but yeah, I love it because like I'm a handgun girl, so if I'm gonna go to a Girl and a Gun, I get to choose, am I gonna do more handgun stuff? Or for me, I'm not a big self-defense person, so Maybe I'll go take a couple more self-defense stuff, or will I get out of my comfort zone and go do some rifle or shotgun? And for people who don't know anything about guns, it's awesome because they have stuff for every single layer— level. And if you're new to guns, absolutely amazing. I am actually already planning for next year that I will go, but this year I can't miss my kid's 16th birthday. So, oh, I was at the first Girl and a Gun event. Yes, and I was at the first DC Project. Uh, was anyone else an attendee of both? So not that I know of, but there were a lot of people at the first, uh, a Girl and a Gun event in Waco, Texas. Um, and a Girl and a Gunn is sort of partners with DC Project, Robin Sandoval, who's one of the— I don't even know what she is other than goddess of everything. So yeah, I don't know that there was anybody there that was at the same— wait a second, what'd you say? So did Brooke just win 2A for girls? I don't think there are any winners. It is each one reach one, as we've all talked about before. It's definitely, uh, there are no winners. It's like, I'm gonna speak in a way that reaches someone, like my girl on here, Fiona, right? And but I'm not gonna reach everyone. And then Mary is gonna speak in a way that's gonna reach people that I'm not gonna be able to reach, and that sort of thing. So the only way we win 2A is to accept our differences and promote how we want to talk about 2A. Because, I mean, and it goes on and on, but it's just like our Second Amendment rights are about freedom, and those of us who understand our Second Amendment rights get that. But when I didn't understand about Second Amendment, my thing is how do we stop violence? Because that's what they say they want to do, but they're not talking about violence, they're talking about guns. And I'm like, my newest tagline— ready for this? All ready? It's, violence is a verb, a gun is a noun. If we're going to stop something, we need to work on the verbs because the nouns don't matter. So anyway, I don't know how I'm being gracious, but I believe you. I'll just say, okay. So anyway, all right, so I said this would be quick and this ended up being half an hour. That was not my plan, but now I shared with y'all my actual results, which I hadn't looked at, but enough people had asked me about since Saturday how it all went. And so now I just point them to this. Oh, you wanna know how I did? Go watch that and fast forward till you see a black screen. So yeah, so violence is a verb, gun is a noun. It's my new thing because it kind of, to me, it just, they want to make gun violence an epidemic. And I'm like, no, violence is a problem. When 75% of all violent crime in Connecticut is committed without a gun, then we need to work on the violence stuff. We want to stop people being violent long before they ever have a gun in their hands. So it came from me. That's where it came from. Violence is a verb. A gun is a noun. I decided that that is something that I can portray the information that is important because all we have is itty-bitty sound bites. My other one that I've been using forever is that— well, it's a bit longer, but if I can snap my fingers and make all the guns in the world go away, we still have violence. If I could snap my fingers and make violence go away, it doesn't matter that we have guns. So yeah, and yes, you're absolutely able to run with that. I don't even need credit for any of it or any of that, because as Shakespeare may or may not have said, there is no unique thought in the world. It's just who you attribute it to. Um, you know, there are some things that I learned from Kathy Jackson and she's like, yes, but I learned them from someone else and I learned them from someone else. There are things I tell you guys that I learned from Tony Robbins, but he learned them from someone else who learned them from someone else. So not only can you run with it, you can make it pretty or do whatever you want. And, um, you need to work on your typing. Violence is a verb. Gun is a noun, not -ed. So yes, if you're gonna run with it, DJ, do it— type it proper-like. So anyway, all right, well, y'all, you are welcome for that and for the live. And, um, yes, violence is a verb. A gun is a noun. If we need to stop something, we need to stop the violence. So, all right. Way longer than I expected. All right, I gotta get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. Y'all have a lovely day, evening, Monday. Happy Monday. Apparently it's Easter Monday. I didn't know that was a thing, but that's what it says on my calendar. All right, I suck at saying goodbye. Goodbye. I'm hitting the button now.