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As you get better your time perception changes!


DrLove

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So only very recently have I started to train on a regular basis (both dry fire and live fire sessions). Probably the most amazing thing I started feeling is my perception of time. Before I started training, I couldn't set this PAR time to anything less than 2 sec because it just feels to short. Amazingly after you train a little, Time just starts to feel way slower than it is. You can finish doing stuff and like waiting for the timer to "beep" and thinking, did I setup this timer correctly??.

It's amazing how your perception of time changes!!

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  • 9 months later...

The perception of time is relative. Einstein proved that it was dependent on the speed and position of the observer and observed.

In a clunky analogy, one may consider that time is also relative to the observer's ability. The sense of slowing down may be attributed to one's brain's ability to better translate external stimuli into an appropriate motor response, faster and more efficiently than before. One can therefore interpret this by saying that your brain has "excess" capacity and could facilitate additional "work". What took X seconds to process can now be achieved in 0.5X seconds. But as the same time passes by, that extra time is interpreted as a newfound 'pause'. Push yourself even further with a lower par time and that sense of slowness may disappear until you develop the necessary neural pathways to support it.

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The best stages I've ever shot didn't feel fast, while some of the worst felt like I was running 100 MPH with my hair on fire. Perception is certainly an individual thing, but for me, there is a fine line between being at the edge of my performance envelope and being outside it.

Any time I feel fast, it's telling me I'm outside the envelope and I have to train until the desired speed feels natural.

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Any time I feel fast, it's telling me I'm outside the envelope and I have to train until the desired speed feels natural.

Completely agree. If you're rushing it, you're not doing so good and need to go back to your control zone.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I try to ignore my perception of time, because I often try to adjust my speed if time comes into my focus. Then, of course, bad things happen.

But, I notice when I go faster that my feeling about timing (not time) is really affected. Things start coming up more quickly and the feeling I feel is that I'm not ready for them. These awkward feelings seem to pass quickly.

I once had the experience of letting the cadence of the shots of the shooter in front of me get into my head. I wasn't watching him, nor was I intentionally paying attention to the reports from his guns. But, when I went to the line, I shot at his pace rather than mine. That, also, didn't have an harmonious outcome.

Pretty much, my sense of timing -- and certainly any awareness of time itself -- haven't had any value to me while running a stage. They do, as you've said, pop up now and then to try to seduce me from the moment. I sometimes try to go "fast", but that has never worked out well.

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Pretty much, my sense of timing -- and certainly any awareness of time itself -- haven't had any value to me while running a stage. They do, as you've said, pop up now and then to try to seduce me from the moment.

Indeed - awareness of any sense of time is counterproductive.

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I notice that too. often I'm thinking about going faster and do a clean run that seemed fast but was in fact not as I was wasting part of my conscious mind on 'thinking' about time rather than using my conscious mind to execute my stage plan and to shoot! then I had a short-ish stage. I shoot with some good shooters. it was fairly simple, 2 positions, unloaded, targets between 10 and 15 meters distance with 2 steel. one side involved a tough lean to shoot around a vision barrier. I shoot with guys better than me. but with a clear mind, focussed on what I needed to see and what I needed to do I ran it clean, 3 points down and fastest time. beating guys I hardly every beat. I had not even considered the time and after ULASC I thought, "that was fairly clean, probably somewhere in the 12-15sec range like the other guys". nope, 9 seconds... :)

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I think I'm finally starting to understand finding my calmness and not rushing. My first two stages I ran today I felt like I was rushing and it was a terrible feeling. I think I was allowing the other shooters to dictate how fast I should be going. So on the following stages I would ignore how the others were doing and set my mind to just shooting the stage I was on and not worry about the time perception and mainly to not rush. WOW. What a difference it made. I ran so much smoother and felt so much better and getting my points was easy instead of struggling through the stage. And the biggest thing was no mental mistakes. I was able to execute my stage plans flawlessly. Now.... If I can just continue to find that calmness consistently at future matches

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  • 6 months later...
  • 6 months later...

Time during a stage is interesting to analyze. I will say the more I shoot and the better I get the slower I feel. It's not always as slow as I think it is but I never really feel like I'm at 100 percent. That being said I don't feel like I'm slow because of another shooter or I'm rushing. I just don't feel like up to my abilities and I don't have anybody to blame but myself. Just need more practice and hopefully the time thing will work itself out.

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I think our vision is like a movie camera...it can shoot 1 frame/sec (blinking), 10 frames/second, or 100 frames/sec, or maybe even 1,000 frames/sec. Figure out how to tune up the frame rate and you'll do very well.

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I was taking a training class at Shaw shooting and shooting with Huston. We were on the plat rack and I couldn't compete with him but I realized that I am moving faster than I though. And if I can set a good cadence and not go spaztastic all the plates go down. It takes a long time to go back an make up a plate.

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  • 6 months later...
  • 5 months later...

I've always thought this was the source of the saying: "slow down to get faster".  The observation being that as they get faster, time appears to move more slowly during the stage so they feel like they're slowing down, when in fact, they're not...  It doesn't necessarily mean you do things more slowly...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Maybe it works kinda like this... As your skill level increases and your attention fine tunes itself to be aware only of what is necessary to execute each task at hand, you no longer care about time, so you become less and less aware of it. Until eventually, the feeling of passing time disappears altogether. At that point all that's left is a state of witnessing, with no "witnesser." 

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  • 1 month later...

I felt the slowness of time most pronounced when I was involved in a traffic accident.  I looked right and saw the car that ran the red light just prior to hitting me.  It seemed like a scene from the Matrix.  I remember bouncing down the road sideways on two wheels.  Looking in the rearview mirror and seeing the shovel in the back levitating and slowly rotating, thinking in that dubbed over voice "I sure hope that doesn't hit me". As soon as I stopped, it stopped.  It was memorable.

 

After I read Brian's book, I really tried to focus on the Zen.  I did capture it a time or two in a match, seeing the sights, slide action, case ejection (bunny fart loads so they hovered over the port).  It is definately a developable skill, and a perishable one.  I have trouble getting 5 repetitions for 5 stages.  But that is part of the fun trying to harness it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Einstein proposed that time dilated, or expanded, and the faster one went, the slower one appeared to be moving.

If, when moving through a stage, I consciously get the impression that I'm moving at a snails pace, then that is, as Martha would say, "A good thing." 

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15 hours ago, MikieM said:

Einstein proposed that time dilated, or expanded, and the faster one went, the slower one appeared to be moving.

If, when moving through a stage, I consciously get the impression that I'm moving at a snails pace, then that is, as Martha would say, "A good thing." 

 

I went to the range today.

We set up a small stage and at the start signal I began running through it, shooting like a crazy person. I felt as if I had no perception of time. It was as if time was standing still.

Well, it turned out that I was the one who was standing still. My splits were horrible. You could have had a cup of coffee and a cigarette during my reload, for crissakes.

What the hell, I never did believe that time dilation stuff anyway. The only thing that dilated today were my pupils when I saw my splits. 

And, gravity? We're just all heavier than air, that's all.  -_-

 

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