My Ideas and Opinions on Course Design
Jeff Loveless

I started to title this “If I were a Match Director”, but since being an MD covers so much more territory than designing courses of fire, I chose to limit my discussion simply on philosophies of course design.  A course of fire (CoF) is the scenario or stage that is the nuts and bolts of IDPA matches.  Whether a match has 2, 4, or ten stages, the CoF design is what makes or breaks the match.

IDPA shooters weigh several components when considering whether a match was a success or not.  For some shooters the priorities are, in no specific order: range amenities, use of props, skill of other shooters, SO or MD attitudes, their own performance, safety, and overall match organization.  How one perceives the effectiveness of the CoF design can alter the perception of all the other priorities, however.  Poor course design can erase all the hard work you did mowing the range and sprucing up your facilities and good course design can mask other faults and keep your shooters coming back.  Hence my theory that the CoF design is as integral and important as any other component of the match.

Game vs. Tactics?  Sport vs. Reality?  Forget it!  This is a pretend activity where the threats are made of cardboard, they never shoot back, and cover is a barrel or a plywood barricade.  If you’re lucky a real automobile may be available to shoot from and/or around.  Problems are presented where the only response is to shoot something.  There are rules to follow; minor infractions (like shooting a good guy!) are assessed minor penalties and major infractions (like loading too many rounds or wearing the wrong shoes) are assessed more serious penalties.  You are never arrested, need an attorney, witness death, or are tried in a court of law.  Your possessions aren’t seized and you don’t lose your liberty – all very real outcomes of a REAL shooting incident.  So, while I believe that IDPA can and should be approached in a serious manner, I must conclude that it is a sport and in reality we are all still practicing for the big game.  In football, there were days when you practiced without pads, avoiding real contact and other days when you went full steam, but against your own team-mates whose skills and tendencies were generally known ahead of time.  It didn’t get real until you went up against a REAL opponent trying to BEAT you.  Preparation, practice, and training are all that is available until game day.  Such is true with defensive behavior.  Hopefully, none of us will ever get to game day, fighting a real opponent.  But, we use IDPA to practice, test new ideas, prove old ideas – to separate the wheat from the chaff.  And this brings us directly back to the CoF.  The design of the CoF determines what skills are tested and how they are tested.

What skills to test? There are some basic skill tests I look for in any CoF.

Is there a threat?  Since the buzzer just sounded we assume that a threat exists.  Remember, this is a sport and we came here to shoot, right?  But the requirement for a judgement to be made should be incorporated into the CoF.  All bad guys (BG) aren’t rectangular and tan.  The placement of no-shoot targets, props like T-shirts and plastic guns affixed to BG targets, color coded targets, and the like, all force the shooter to quickly determine what to do and who to attack.  Wouldn’t it be a shame if you wound up not having to shoot?

Drawing from concealment should be tested as often as possible.  There are those among us who can carry openly, but for the most part, concealment is the order of the day.  Anyone that carries concealed should practice using a covering garment.

Strong hand and weak hand only shooting should be tested during a match.  Not every CoF has to do this, but it should be incorporated into at least one stage during the match.

Head shots, partially hidden BG targets, or moving targets should be included in any CoF.  It is unlikely that all your real life targets will be standing still out in the open.

Movement.  You DO NOT want to be standing still out in the open either.  Use of cover, slicing the pie, and generally CYA should be standard in any CoF.

Round count.  Ah, is it a gang attack or a lone mugger?  Will you need 2 or 3 shots or the rule based maximum of 18?  One gang attack CoF is ok with me, but it should be offset by a short and quick CoF with only one or two BG targets.

So there you have it.  My ideal CoF would begin with the shooter walking to his car carrying a bag of groceries.  Seeing a group of thugs surrounding his car he would quickly move back to the store, alert other customers and call 911 from the nearby pay-phone and then call his insurance company as his car is being broken into.  BORING...

Rewind.  Now we make it an IDPA CoF.  It is a Sunday afternoon.  You’re walking to your car carrying the groceries, thinking about your child’s birthday party in a few hours.  Your 13 year old daughter is a few steps behind you, because she doesn’t want to be seen with you!  Alert to your surroundings, you notice the undesirables loitering around your car and shift the sack to your weak arm.  You slow down and tell your daughter to run back to the store NOW!  The leader of the pack calls you a “M-----F----!” and charges you with a knife in his hand.  You drop the sack, dart behind another car while drawing your weapon from concealment and sock three shots into his upper body.  He stumbles and falls at your feet, twitching.  You scan the area from your point behind the car and make eye contact with the one remaining individual that didn’t run away.  You can see his hands, but they are empty.  He stands there a few long seconds before trotting away.  The area is clear.  You later learn that only two of your shots entered the chest area of the BG.  Fortunately, the third shot went sailing into an embankment near the parking lot where some new construction is going on during the week.

You survived.  Your score is 2.3 seconds with zero points down.  You show clear, re-holster and pick up your brass.  The SO says “Good job” and you get ready to move on to the next CoF.  There, the group of BG’s don’t run away!