Alberta Action Air Club is looking to grow and be an entry point and inexpensive training tool for IPSC and Practical Shooters.

[harbl_the_cat]

One thing for your to consider is the extent to which the "IPSC Establishment" and "IPSC Lawyer" types hyper focus on optics and "the rulebook," sometimes to the point of absurdity.

For example, in your video, I know some IPSC guys will go nuts about the fact that your not following the 180 principle in your stage design and execution:

Your SO is standing in front of the shooter along his direction of travel.

You have spectators open carrying forward of your direction of travel as you make a right lateral move, and your SO doesn't appear to use "proper" stage end safety prowords upon conclusion of your course of fire.

I know of some IPSC purists who would be keen to label you an "Unsanctioned outlaw league," some will write you off or try to sabotage you, or (as you have seen in this post) drown you with apocalyptic pessimism and cynicism.

My best encouragement for you would be to keep going, no matter what

I think the more people keen to get into this type of shooting, the better.

I started playing paintball almost 25 years ago (before airsoft was mainstream) and my passion for that sport was what got me into both the military and competition shooting with real-steel.

Most important though is getting kids and young people into the sport and community - and that looks to be a niche your program can fill.

[harbl_the_cat]

Funny how well timed this post is to my post where I use hyperbole to describe the challenges action shooting sports are going to face in the coming years:

https://www.gunownersofcanada.ca/sho...PA-3-Gun-etc-)

[M1917 Enfield]

One thing for your to consider is the extent to which the "IPSC Establishment" and "IPSC Lawyer" types hyper focus on optics and "the rulebook," sometimes to the point of absurdity.

For example, in your video, I know some IPSC guys will go nuts about the fact that your not following the 180 principle in your stage design and execution:

Your SO is standing in front of the shooter along his direction of travel.

You have spectators open carrying forward of your direction of travel as you make a right lateral move, and your SO doesn't appear to use "proper" stage end safety prowords upon conclusion of your course of fire.

I know of some IPSC purists who would be keen to label you an "Unsanctioned outlaw league," some will write you off or try to sabotage you, or (as you have seen in this post) drown you with apocalyptic pessimism and cynicism.

My best encouragement for you would be to keep going, no matter what

I think the more people keen to get into this type of shooting, the better.

I started playing paintball almost 25 years ago (before airsoft was mainstream) and my passion for that sport was what got me into both the military and competition shooting with real-steel.

Most important though is getting kids and young people into the sport and community - and that looks to be a niche your program can fill.

I don't see anywhere in this thread where this is happening - "some will write you off or try to sabotage you, or (as you have seen in this post) drown you with apocalyptic pessimism and cynicism."

Care to elaborate which post is doing such? Or is this a case of hyperbole?

[TAZGreg]

One thing for your to consider is the extent to which the "IPSC Establishment" and "IPSC Lawyer" types hyper focus on optics and "the rulebook," sometimes to the point of absurdity.

For example, in your video, I know some IPSC guys will go nuts about the fact that your not following the 180 principle in your stage design and execution:

Your SO is standing in front of the shooter along his direction of travel.

You have spectators open carrying forward of your direction of travel as you make a right lateral move, and your SO doesn't appear to use "proper" stage end safety prowords upon conclusion of your course of fire.

I know of some IPSC purists who would be keen to label you an "Unsanctioned outlaw league," some will write you off or try to sabotage you, or (as you have seen in this post) drown you with apocalyptic pessimism and cynicism.

My best encouragement for you would be to keep going, no matter what

.

So I definitely expected someone to catch rule violations, I was hoping to have this conversation and build on it.

This club itself is in its infancy, its been building in the background for a long while and was made "official" to the public about 6 weeks ago. As a new club we are going to face trials and issues going forward that will be solved by having continuous debate, meetings and discussions during our specified club meets. The cool thing, the fun part, what makes it exciting is that anyone that joins gets to be a part of the growing process, have the satisfaction of growing something and being a part of an organization that was built from the ground up, its possible to steer this in a direction that is fun and strict without losing the focus on friendly competition.

Anyone going from airsoft Action Air to IPSC is going to hit the right training channels and have standards set before they ever pull a trigger in a match, that is the beauty of the gun community. The limitations of a building stages in a combat field environment sucks but its awesome that we can have spectators (not in the best of positions I agree) able to watch and see a stage run, scored, and the protocol for starting and finishing. That particular video had 3 new participants, 2 regulars and one kid (rifle in the video) absolutely in awe and inspired by what he was able to learn and try. As the club grows and we have our meets and rules discussions the rules more and more defined and established into the players the better it will be.
The coolest thing is that as long as mistakes are being corrected, discussed and people pushed in the right direction this is good for the gun community as a whole.

I would be more concerned with someone not helping me produce an environment that grows the sport and using negativity to mock it then if someone said hey, check this rule set and tidy up your course at this point in that video. My group is a sponge, I am all ears and I took a deep breath and typed out that original post!

[harbl_the_cat]

I don't see anywhere in this thread where this is happening - "some will write you off or try to sabotage you, or (as you have seen in this post) drown you with apocalyptic pessimism and cynicism."

Care to elaborate which post is doing such? Or is this a case of hyperbole?

I should have said "in this forum, and in general as you try to grow"

[harbl_the_cat]

So I definitely expected someone to catch rule violations, I was hoping to have this conversation and build on it.

This club itself is in its infancy, its been building in the background for a long while and was made "official" to the public about 6 weeks ago. As a new club we are going to face trials and issues going forward that will be solved by having continuous debate, meetings and discussions during our specified club meets. The cool thing, the fun part, what makes it exciting is that anyone that joins gets to be a part of the growing process, have the satisfaction of growing something and being a part of an organization that was built from the ground up, its possible to steer this in a direction that is fun and strict without losing the focus on friendly competition.

Anyone going from airsoft Action Air to IPSC is going to hit the right training channels and have standards set before they ever pull a trigger in a match, that is the beauty of the gun community. The limitations of a building stages in a combat field environment sucks but its awesome that we can have spectators (not in the best of positions I agree) able to watch and see a stage run, scored, and the protocol for starting and finishing. That particular video had 3 new participants, 2 regulars and one kid (rifle in the video) absolutely in awe and inspired by what he was able to learn and try. As the club grows and we have our meets and rules discussions the rules more and more defined and established into the players the better it will be.
The coolest thing is that as long as mistakes are being corrected, discussed and people pushed in the right direction this is good for the gun community as a whole.

I would be more concerned with someone not helping me produce an environment that grows the sport and using negativity to mock it then if someone said hey, check this rule set and tidy up your course at this point in that video. My group is a sponge, I am all ears and I took a deep breath and typed out that original post!

I like your spirit.

You remind me of me when I started my shooting programs 5-10 years ago - all of which are still going even after I quit running them.

I hope I can keep encouraging you, because you have the right kind of energy to start something big.

Some general points.

Make sure you're not the point man on everything or you will burn yourself out, guaranteed.

That said, don't be afraid "do everything" (or realistically, 80% of everything) as long as you can - but really be careful of burning yourself out.

If you can find 1-2 guys with your level of enthusiasm and a few dozen guys to help with small things, you can build a program that will outlast you.

Don't be afraid of making mistakes - be afraid of failing to learn from them.

Create an atmosphere that is safe, but also warm, welcoming, friendly, and fun.

Please keep posting more of your thoughts, experiences, and growth on this forum, I'm really interested to hear from you.

If you'd like, I'd be keen to help collaborate with you on YouTube. I'm an expert at YouTube and I've been looking for a little project to re-launch my gun channel.

[TAZGreg]

Right now I am the point man on 90% of the functionality of the club, its a really interesting challenge and the only thing that bothers me is that I do not get to shoot or practice as much as I can! Club members do step up and help especially with teardown and setup, we have our next weeks meets talking points out and the big points are reading and interpreting rules, course design and growing member numbers.

Gold standard has been set for being welcome and friendly. Safety is pretty good but we have a big tolerance level with it being airsoft. The worst injury so far from an Action Air shoot is a little welt from a ricochet or a sliver from moving wooden objects!

I will be honest and say one of the difficult parts of this is that I want people to come in and see and shoot, get their feet wet but I cant "rent" pistols. The most common thing someone does when you hand them a 2011 replica is immediately eject the magazine. All fine for a bullet magazine but in airsoft its a propellent reservoir and has cheap plastic holding the bbs in and at the baseplate. So when they eject the mag its $14-25 in cheap plastic that is destroyed and a magazine now down for repair. Magazines themselves in the airsoft world are pretty expensive. My 140mm magazines are $80.00 each with $12.00 feedlips and my cheapest magazines are $14.00 feedlips with $10.00 baseplates. Constantly dropping airsoft equipment quickly destroys it.
Dropping a Pistol is really bad news too. In our concrete warehouse its going to do some damage to the potmetal and CNC slides, plastic frames and external switches.
Lending out equipment takes some trust and someone who understands the costs associated with damaging them. Most of my pistols are 4x-6x the cost of an out of the box quality replica. Its like letting someone drive your Ferrari and they drive a Chevy Aveo. They just dont treat it the same.

As for youtube, exposure is big. Instagram, youtube and the Mewe discussion board are good but most of those hit the airsoft community and to be honest, I have been trying to pull from that talent pool and many players are just happy spamming corners with bbs or hiding in the bush waiting for an enemy to walk by. Nothing against either as those are both valid ways to play the game but many I think are scared to put their skillset on the stage and perform. Its that stage I want to grow and challenge people to think, move and build their skills. So Youtube is one of the bigger platforms with a wider reach.
Are you local to Edmonton as I am happy to invite you in and take a look.

[Strangeday]

IPSC and PPC are on life support….3 gun is already dead.

Nobody in their right mind would invest a nickel in anything related.