TargetTalk

I’m one of those who were ridiculed by Russ for using Izh-53 in my “initiation” period. He said something like “in my ex-country it was used in circuses for amusing masses.” Sure, I called him anal but his downplaying did not stop me shooting. He was harsh and crude to whomever did not share his vision of shooting sport (mighty Olympic ideal, or what ever that was, Russ was never clear about it) but also represented an outside-this-forum view on air pis-tol discipline. Majority of the forum visitors in fact agreed with his statements about need for adequate dedication and mentoring if certain level of results is to be achieved. His problem was reckless promotion of his own course and rudeness in addressing others. However, the level of entertainment that he provided outweighed, in my opinion, degree of discomfort that his posts presented. It was somewhat fun to read what he put on the forum, the single-minded perseverance to prove his fluctuated point. That is why I think he should not be banned, but just ignored by other forum visitors. Once he is left alone and with no audience, he would tone down the language or disappear altogether.

Sad.

I can partly understand Russ' position. He's trying to market professional coaching services to a shooting community that is not used to having such coaching available. In just about any other shooting discipline, people are used to the idea of being able to buy coaching...but in the precision disciplines, it hasn't been available. You learned by listening to other shooters, reading a little, and the College of Hard Experience. Good coaching would produce results a lot faster, and Russ was marketing coaching. Nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, he definitely came off as a charlatan, making promises of great performance jumps. Going from 540 to 570 in AP is a quantum leap - half the distance to a perfect score, in a few months. Hard to credit, but I was always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And I really would like to have seen reports back from people who took his course. I'm a potential customer.

Well done, surprising but expected......"Doc"

I think what Russ should do, is PAY to post a banner ad on some of gun web sites. USA shooting would be a good start since everyone in the USA who wants to shoot competitive air or free will eventually have to clock in there.


Meanwhile, I think Scott was more than patient. We don't know how many times Russ was warned before Scott finally banned him. This is Scott's site, and we should all try really hard to not be a PITA.

I think Rus's problems were not so much language as cultural. His coaching style seemed very Eastern European, in the Soviet style. That doesn't go over well with Westerners. Few of us on this forum, even if we aspire to Olympic greatness, want to go live in Russia and train in one of their shooting centers.

I am still sort of intrigued about what he had to offer.

I don't disagree with the decision. It's like he was getting frustrated about our inability to see or value his perspective.

-John

I don’t know if I should feel happy or sorry that Russ is banned from the forum. I exchange some PM’s with him to know something more about his program, to know his point of view. I really didn’t get more than what I could read on this forum or on Russ’ site. Russ is so terribly convinced of his methods that he will disregard all the rest, won’t even give it a thought. He was so obsessed to make money out of his coaching that in the end everybody turned against him to some extend. What annoyed me, and intrigued me, was the fact that he wanted to convince the forum members that in order to be a better shooter, all you had to do is follow HIS course. I’m sorry; I don’t think that works unless you need to improve from 500 to 540. In other words you need some basic guidance. For the rest I don't believe in secrets, I do believe in logic, continuous training. Those of you who are on Yukka’s mailing list will have learned more from Yukka’s advice then from the numerous comments from Russ. Too bad Russ.
As far as language errors are concerned, I not English and I'm just so glad if someone corrects my mistakes. I have never read that someone was joking about a language error.
I'm sure we are all here because we enjoy shooting and are trying to improve our skills...with a little help from our friends.
Guy

As someone who has both spilt milk on here with Russ and had several PM's from him, explaining as to why he is right and others like Zin are idiots as he put it, I'm not sorry to see him go, even though I'm new to air pistol shooting etc. I was even more convinced Scott did the right thing after reading some of the posts on Russ's website slamming Scott and almost everyone else on here (http://midwestacademyconsulting.wordpress.com/).

I might now be a lowly 550 shooter but I'm getting better, both from free information on this site and also I guess having a National coach in my club does help loads :) I also have several internationals in the club who have medalled at major events rather than just one, all are coached by the same person. His technique is to work with what's available same as I did in archery, yes faults need work but also each person has a different make up and can't be formed into a single mould, so there can't ever be just one route and way to shoot.

Russ was not banned for his language errors, or for offering his training in posts he started. A perfect example why he was banned is the topic "air pistol training program by Jukka Lahti" where a request was made by a forum member for feedback on the subject training program. Russ as the first responder, did not answer the question asked, but instead belittled the other person's course. He then proceeded to post to that topic over 20 times, turning a topic I was interested in learning about into yet another of his totally off topic rants, not one which addressed what I was interested in learning. Once he was banned, all following posts were suddenly very on topic.

This was only the most recent of many such attempts by him to destroy the value of the forum by making it all about him.

Even if I could block posts by him, his posts always seemed to get others to respond to his off topic rants, thereby drowning the original topic with "Russ talk". I for one will find the forum much more useful now.