Welcome New Shooters!
New shooters are the lifeblood of our club, and IDPA in a larger sense.
Attending your first match is an experience that opens new doors to the shooting sports as well as the way you shoot. Some of our members love the defensive skill-building, while others go on to compete on a national scale. Others are simply interested in enjoying the close knit atmosphere of likeminded shooters that attend our matches. They network and go on to attend events together in South Florida, and across the state and country. Whatever your interest in shooting is, it is important for you to realize
that all of our shooters were new to the club and IDPA at one time. You are not alone.
It is our desire to welcome you to TSSA and the sport while insuring that
you are comfortable, and safe while shooting with us. TSSA has shooters from every walk of life and skill level and many of our members are available to answer questions to help you get started. The most notable of these is the core of our Safety Officers who donate their time and energy to run squads through the stages of our matches and practice sessions.
The material on this page is available for you to download so you may familiarize yourself with helpful information before attending a club event.
When you arrive at a match with a club member or alone, let the person handling registration know that you are new to the club, and we will arrange to have you attend a safety briefing and shoot an introductory stage before the match. We do this to insure that your equipment is suited for shooting a match and that you are comfortable operating the firearm you brought out to shoot as well as to understand the basic rules of IDPA and the rules of our range.
TSSA also conducts a New IDPA Shooter Orientation Day, where we present a more detailed explanation of the sport and rules along with some of the basic skills that you will find yourself performing at an IDPA event. If you are interested in attending one of these well received courses, tell a TSSA officer right away! We schedule orientations about every four to six months and more often as requested.
As you continue to shoot and learn with our club, you will notice that each match has new and different stages and problems to solve from the week before. This is part of the spirit of IDPA, which uses hypothetical scenarios based on real events that have occurred or might occur. Other courses of
fire are skills based stages that develop fundamental skills used in defensive based pistol shooting. This may be firing with one hand or shooting from strange or difficult positions, manipulating your gun under the pressure of a clock, and many more . Many stages are designed to keep you thinking while performing, others to increase your skills or stress you into mental mistakes where errors often occur. We like to say that IDPA and TSSA - teach you how to think with a gun in your hand.
You don´t have to join TSSA ($35 annual, pro-rated Jan. to Dec.) in order to attend our local shooting events. However you will pay more per match ($20 for members $25 for non members). IDPA wants your membership after two matches. You must join IDPA to shoot the Classifier Match. These are held three to four times a year (on the 5th Saturdays) in order for members to evaluate their skills on a Course of Fire (COF) that is a test of marksmanship and efficiency. You will then be classified in one of five divisions; this
allows a member to compete against shooters with a similar skill set and firearm type. This will help you track your progress, and opens you up to more chances to win in a sanctioned match.
As mentioned on TSSA´s information page, we are a teaching club. We have several members who are involved in firearms training. If you are interested in obtaining formal training, you can write to Rick@tssaidpa.us or David@tssaidpa.us
Again Welcome To TSSA And IDPA.
We will help you Get The Hits!
