I'm a "B" class shooter, I know I am, right now today. What my mind says is not agreeing with what kind of results I'm getting, and that's an issue. I spent two weeks with the CZ, and when I'm practicing, I get some outstanding results. I'm doing things very well, I'm getting good hits, and I feel very positive about what I'm doing. Classes and matches though are still uneven. Today's class begin with a simple draw, shoot one target 7 yards away five times, reload, and shoot another target seven yards away. My draw was about 1.24 to 1.27, and my reloads were a consistent 1.61 and 1.62, my splits were in the .19 to .22 range, and my hits were awesome. I was feeling pretty good about myself, and where I was going. Here's the key, and I'll come back to this later, I was not thinking about anything other than my front sight.
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| It looks like this |
Moving forward we jumped to El Presidente again, and I had a crappy draw, got poor hits, and Les told me that one of my issues was that I was tense, it was obvious to him, and I admit, I felt it too. He wanted me to be less robotic in my reloads, to "take the training wheels off". I'd found a way to cheat a bit, by twisting my elbow into my body to force the gun to a comfortable position in front of my face so I can watch the mag go in, and drive it straight back out to the target. He wanted me to stop that twist, and know where I need the gun, and do it without my "crutch", watching me reload, it was robotic, my shoulders are hunched, and I was tense. That said, my reloads were pretty damn solid, and now with the change I had something else I was thinking about. I started to pull off early on my last shot before a reload to "do it right", and that impacted how I was hitting, instead of just focusing on my sights, I was thinking about the way to reload.
We set up a couple of barriers at about 12 yards, and ran 9 Lives. Essentially you start in the middle, run to the left, shoot 3 steel plates, go back to the middle, hit the 3 plates again, and then move to the right position, and do it again. 9 shots from 3 positions, it's a challenging drill where you need good accuracy, and you need sound movement skills. Les made one pretty small adjustment for Dave and I, he made us dry fire and practice keeping our gun's up, so that once we cleared a barrier we were just about on target, instead of having to move it up, or get a hand back on it, and even if we felt slower, it turned out that we were anywhere from .2 to .5 seconds faster, and over a stage with only 3 positions, that's 1.5 seconds you pick up. It adds up.
To close out, we took a draw, shoot two at a plate, reload and shoot 2 more. My best run with all hits had a 1.6 draw and a 1.7 reload. This is something I can work on, but when it comes to simply "stand and shoot", I feel confident. I can accept that reload from more than 10 yards, especially with a hit, sure, I'd like it faster, but that will get me to B with no problem.
So anyhow, Les gave it to me, I'm mentally fucked up. Seeing as how this is a gun blog, and this is Illinois, I'd better clarify. I'm just blocking myself from doing what I can do well in practice. I'm self-critical, I'm judgmental, and my head is my own worst enemy. I'm not seeing spotted unicorns, purple horseshoes, or hearing voices. I'm simply pressing too hard, I'm trying to prove that I can do this, instead of just sitting back and doing it. I know that I'm better than I showed today, I've done it, but I get to a class, or a match, and I just start thinking too much. Part of me felt absolutely self-defeated when I left the range today, not that I was going to run off and cry defeated, rather that I was absolutely helpless, and could not figure out what I needed to do to right the ship.
I made a quick call and ran over to Kozy's, and we talked it out. He told me pretty much what Les told me, that fundamentally I'm there, I've got this, but I need to put it all together. He said another thing that Les did, just in a slightly different way that got thru to me. I'm going to focus on just one thing at the match on Wednesday. I'm going to forget my draw, my reload, everything else, I'm just going to look at my front sight, I'm going to think only about that. That does not mean I'm going to get all Alphas, just that I'm going to call my shot, and I'm not going to have any surprises at the end of a stage. If there is a miss, I'm going to know it, and I'm going to know why when I take the shot. That's the same thing Les told me, just the front sight. The rest of my game is either at the B level, or close enough that I can perform. When I had bad runs today, I was not thinking about, or focused on my front sight, I was worried about my turn and draw, taking the "training wheels" off my reload, and so on. Every single time I was thinking about either something else, or something more than my front sight.
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| Do you think he over thinks? |
When I look back at my past few blogs, I've said it, I trust the CZ. If I focus on the sights, the gun takes care of the rest. The truth is, I focus on the sights, the gun takes care of the shooting, and I, Luke, am good enough to take care of the draw, reload and so on. I know how to do those things already. So the million dollar question now, is if I can do those things in practice, and I know it, why am I not doing those things at class and at a match? I suspect class because I'm learning, and match because I'm pressing. So for Wednesday, I'm going to re-read the Mental Game of Tennis, and I'm going to try to clear my mind, and just think and see my front sight, nothing else. I'll let my improved skills as well as my confidence in my gun take care of the rest.
On the practice agenda, my turn and draw is abysmal. I was running 2.20 to 2.34 to Dave's 1.68. I'm going to work that pretty hard the next few days, and I'm going to set my par time to start to 1.90, and go from there. That's a pretty big slice of time I'm giving up for no real good reason. In part it's because I'm turning then drawing, instead of consolidating the draw and reload into one, and in part because I'm just not snapping my head around and letting my body follow.
There are little things I'm looking at, all fixable in dry fire. I can work my draw a little, get more comfortable with the reload, now that I know where I want the gun, and how I wanted it canted to get the perfect reload, and to finish a shot before I start to reload. Do those things, and I'm talking a few weeks of dry fire, not months. I know I've come a long way in a short time, and now we are talking some polish on the fundamentals instead of complete overhaul, but the mental block is something I just hope to get past. Give me some match success, for all four stages, and let me know how it "feels" mentally to do that, then I'll have a blueprint. I think I'm on the right path, with focusing on just one thing, I'm just excited to get out there and give it a go.
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