Pre-Game

Pre-Game

This has been a busy week, work is pushing us hard to do more the last few weeks of the year, and it's been more hours, and higher stress. On top of that, I came down with a cough, and am feeling subpar. Practice has not felt fruitful, in a way I feel like I've been walking thru it, without making any meaningful improvements. I'm off on Friday, so I'm really going to to focus and get some extra work done.

As I've been reviewing the video from Sunday, it occurs to me that by in large, I've been struggling with the first stage of most matches for the last five or six months. I would always attribute to coming in cold, and not being on the top of my game. This week though, I shot nice and quick, I just did not hit anything in my first run, and that bothers me. I realize that it isn't just me coming into a match cold, it's that I'm not taking the time I need to put myself into "the zone."

(Matt Mink) Anyone Seeing a Theme?

This was an interesting topic of conversation at breakfast after the match with Les, Kozy, and Tony Amici. Les shared that before a major match, he gets between one to two hours of dryfire before he starts. I'm getting the time it takes me to un-bag and holster my gun. What I'm really doing is cheating myself. I need to spend 15-20 minutes, at a minimum, before I leave home just going thru a dryfire routine. Get some time on my sights, my draw, and reloads, get myself comfortable with where I need to be, before I get to my first stage. Then, once I'm there, take a couple of minutes, tune everything and everyone out, and draw at the safe table, get my sights, and get my focus.

That really does look nice

I'm tired of wasting stages, getting myself "ready" to shoot, I'm surprised it took me this long to get my head together to realize what I was, or more to the point, was not doing. It's batting practice before a baseball game, it's shoot around for a basketball team, and it's warm-up's for a football team. What made me think I could come in cold, and skip a crucial part of my routine?

Short blog, back to bed, and hopefully the added rest will kill this cold off, and I'll be back and ready to go for dry fire practice tomorrow, and class again on Saturday morning.

The Inner Game of Luke

The Inner Game of Luke

Screw you Les.

The other day I got a homework assignment, and had to go pick up The Inner Game of Tennis, by Tim Gallwey. I picked it up, and started, and within a page, I was nodding my head saying “yeah, that’s exactly what I do, he is talking to me.” Sure, the book use tennis as the sport in question, but the mental aspect, was just amazing. I admit, I’m the guy who will talk to myself at the line, remind myself what to do, as if I need to be reminded, and be critical once I’m done with a stage.

To break off briefly from the book, last night Dave and I jumped on live fire night, and had a pretty solid run. We started off so, so, but after about the 3^rd run, I got to the line, took a deep breath, and got everything out with that breath. I was relaxed, there was nothing else going on in my head, I heard nothing else, and I did not tell myself what I needed to do. I had a slow draw, 2.03 because I tried to go too fast, but my first split was .23, to a .30 transition onto the 2^nd target followed by a .22 split, followed by a .31 transition, and a .23 split, for an overall time of 3.32 looking for a par time of 3.80. That was also my worst draw to first shot for the night, most were running 1.59 to 1.81.  The hits? I hit the steel with 5 of the 6 shots, I hit the bar that the plate hangs on with my first shot. I’m not saying this was a perfect run, but with nothing going on in my head, I just did what I can do. I shifted weight as I went left to right, I found my sights, and I had great trigger control. Truthfully, I blazed thru things. The rest of the night I was around my 3.80 par time, maybe a little higher. I kept trying to get a faster draw, which slowed me down, I shot low, I tried to go too fast, and the one thing I had in common with all of those runs, was simply that I was reminding myself what I could do, and what I needed to do. I never cleared my head, and let myself do naturally what I can do.  My very last run of the night, I again went up, deep breath and exhale, and again shot a very credible round.

When I left the range I was trying to understand and make sense of what I was doing. Why I had struggled, was thinking that I should start practicing an hour a day instead of 30 minutes, that if I just worked it harder, I’d consistently do what I did right on a couple of runs last night. Today however, I picked up the book, and realized that it was not harder practice that I needed, that mentally I was getting in the way of my own success. Physically, I can draw, shoot accurately, and fast, but my own mental process was inhibiting me from doing that. If ever there was a right book, for the right time that was it.

If Wiilshoot can have random Eric G. pictures, I can too.

I'm going to continue to practice with the par times that I started earlier this week, and I believe that with more repetitions I’ll have the draw at a consistent 1.70, and be able to slowly bring that par time down. I’m not going to rush that, I’m going to hit 1.70 consistently, and teach my body how to do that, speed will come once I’m at 1.70 smoothly. Right now, when I try to go faster, I don’t decelerate enough, and my sights are bobbing which costs me extra time. Going from 1.70 to 1.50 I suspect will come in the speed from hand to gun, to clearing the holster, and my extension will stay roughly the same in order to maintain control.

I can see that this is a process as well, and I won’t be able to turn it on and off just yet like a light switch. I’m going to take a few steps back, start to tune everything and everyone out as soon as I’m “in the hole”, and by the time I’m at the line, my focus will be entirely on execution of my plan, I won’t “hear” background noise. When I holster my gun after “Make Ready”, I’m going to take that deep breath, and exhale absolutely everything that is in my head, so when the buzzer sounds, it’s just me and the gun. I don’t want to make relaxing sound like a chore, but right now, unless I make an effort to relax, and tune things out, my mind will talk to myself, and I don’t need my own head inhibiting what I’m doing. Just shoot. 

So yes, Les picked the perfect book to shake my mindset, and open myself up to what I have been doing. I think last night a skirted a bit on the edges of self awareness, but I honestly don't think I would have found it, unless I read thru the book. There are definitely other instructors in the area, and a couple who focus on competitive shooting, but I honestly believe that there is no other instructor around who is as good as Les. He took the time to recommend the book, he's consistently found keys to unlock what I'm doing and get me to understand, and that isn't easy. I'm consistently impressed with the way I'm taught, it's not just the material, it's presentation.