Day After Thoughts

Day After Thoughts

I really want to improve, that's a given. Something I'm still not using to it's full potential is my video. Today though, I took some time to watch each stage, make some notes on things that I was seeing that I'm doing wrong, and I want to use that to focus my dry fire for the week. I've done my dry fire trying to focus in on one or two things a day, and drill those, but I've more or less done it on a rotation, and what I really need, besides just more repetitions, is to spend a little extra time on areas that I'm significantly deficient.

We did some grocery shopping and I spent the time thinking about what I saw, and when I came home, I had a match review e-mail from Les waiting for me. As usual he picked up on a few things that I missed, and he confirmed something that I thought, but was not sure I was doing. (Linda will be happy to hear this....go figure...she felt beat down by seeing her own flinch) I thought a couple of times yesterday I may have flinched, and in one video, Les found a specific example that I could clearly see of me flinching. I think if there was a different camera angle on the first stage I shot, I would have seen a couple of other flinches.

Two for Flinching

So, probably some ball and dummy for me, but acting on a suggestion from Les, I'm going to run some rounds with no time constraint, isolate it, and eliminate it. I hate saying that this is a "been there, done that", but I have, and I've eliminated it, and its creeped back a couple of times.

Les found an example of me pulling off a shot before it was completed, and it was the last shot of the stage, I was already on my way back to unload and show clear before I had finished breaking the shot.

I see you do this in dry fire from time to time. You see the sight,
then snap the shot while moving the gun away. Snap the shot AND stay
committed to the sights.

I think you can tell yourself to stop "trying to go fast" and relax a bit.

**I see that after the last shot you are defeated.**

You are the one judging yourself here.

-Les

That's a pretty meaningful commentary. I've been trying to break a tendency to swing the gun thru one target into the next, without making a commitment to driving the gun to the target, and staying committed to the sights. Les is dead on, and it's going to make me look at my practice, and ask myself if I am being honest. Am I doing it right in practice, or am I continuing to practice incorrectly? This has been going on for awhile, and since I have not improved enough on it, I tend to believe that I'm not being honest with myself in practice. I think I'm going to probably do a couple of minutes of video tape on my practice this week, just for personal review, so I can help use that to see if I am practicing right, or if I'm cheating myself. 

Watching stage 3, the classifier, I can see myself doing exactly this and not "owning" my shot. It goes a long way towards understanding why I may have hit the paper, I was not hitting the paper where I wanted to be hitting it, 8 charlies and 4 deltas, with only 7 alpha's is not how I was aiming.

As far as judging myself. I hate to admit it, but if I'm being truthful, I made so many mistakes in the stage, and I was judging myself as I was going, and that probably played a part in my making even more mistakes. Shit sometimes just happens, accept it and go on, don't dwell on it. I'd like to think that I'm leaving frustration with a stage at a stage, and not carrying it forward, but I'm definitely not leaving a mistake where it is and continuing on, I'm letting it impact my game.

I want to give you a specific mental challenge:

For a week, I don't want you to Judge... I don't want you to be upset
when something doesn't pan out - just accept it. I don't want you to
be passive aggressive" 

This may give you the freedom to accept that you will make mistakes. I
don't just mean learning  from the mistakes - I mean accepting a mike
without it even rustling your feathers.


Just observe. Just do.

-Les

This is a pretty good challenge. I actually achieved a bit of this just one time yesterday on the last stage I shot. On the array after I shot the steel, I miked a shot coming into the position, and I knew it was close, I saw it as I pulled away from the array, that it was a mike, and I did not care, and I kept going. It did however effect me, because if you notice, I had a slow reload there, no urgency getting the mag out of the pouch, and into the gun, and I was standing waiting to shoot, if you look at the reload after that, I was quick, and as I came into position, the gun was already up, and in position. 

I'm not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, nor have I ever been a part of Alcoholics Anonymous, but a little bit of the Zen of Les makes me think of the Reinhold Niebuhr Serenity Prayer: God give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. (Hey, I'm not all that shallow....there is more to me than just shooting!)

Time To Rise Above This Plateau

I need to accept a mike, and it should not bother me, sometimes there is nothing you can do about it but just accept it, let it go, and don't let it bother you. I have a huge issue doing that, but mentally I'll improve when I stop focusing on one mistake, and having it pave the way into more mistakes. In this case, one often begets many.

It's a little life lesson there as well, because I'd be better off applying this in other aspects of my life as well. Short version is that I've got some work to do, and I've got a good place to start. Making this kind of mental change is not going to be easy, but I think if I apply the lesson in other places, not just shooting, it will make it that much easier, effective, and quicker to see some positive results.


This is the home stretch, but as I'm finding you can go 80% of the way easily, but the last 20% to this goal is where progress slows down, and I'm really having to work and earn success. I'm happy to see that Dave is pushing thru, and getting close to the goal, I'd like to think that with some work, and some conscious effort to relax, I can do this too.

See why I've got the utmost respect for Les? Not just a great teacher, or a great friend, pretty damn good person too.