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Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

A sinner sees the sights


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Hello Steve,
It has been about a year and a half since you did a review of my 2013 Limited Nationals video. At the time I was not listening to the podcasts with much regularity, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered some months later the brilliant "Confessional" podcast that went over in detail the folly of my match strategy (or lack thereof).
I spent the last year plus doing the same dumb thing as the next hot dog in line (complete with my nascar shirt and race holster). I had to sort through a new job, getting new equipment that works, and had a bout with pretty severe tendinitis in addition to ulnar nerve impingement in my gun hand. My level of participation was basically shooting club matches- dry fire made the elbow worse and I sure didn't practice. I shot Nationals and Area 2 again this last year as a B class shooter and did alright in that class but for some reason I was not satisfied. I shoot with a number of expert sandbaggers who had me convinced I should enjoy my time in B and go for a class win next year before moving on to A- but this did not sit well with me. I realized I was spending close to 30 hours a month (driving to, shooting, and returning from a club match nearly every week) as well as considerable resources on the sport but only saw an improvement of a few percent over the period of a year.
Driving back from Area 2 I was discussing how I felt about my shooting with some friends and I came to the realization that I was letting my ego drive my match rather than surrendering to what I could see and calling my shots. I was throwing hopers and using my stage times to shield my ego from the low hit factors. I occasionally would hook up and have a super squad level stage finish at each major I attended- but only 1 per match or so. I realized how bad it was when I told a friend if it weren't for the penalties my times were relatively close to the match winner, and he asked me how many penalties I had- reviewing practiscore I saw I had 22 penalties for the match. I joked with my friends about having D class hits and GM times, but I was seeing a pattern of trying to ignore what the real issue was.
"I see a shooter with very good technique who lacks the visual patience to fire and call an accurate shot.
You learn to do that and you'll know how good you are and what really needs work.
Until you can shoot a cleaner match, you'll never know."
This spring I decided to "get to work". I shot less club matches, and started to practice a bit. I hit A within about a month. It felt good so I decided to aim higher.
I decided to become a GM and told my closest friends about my goal to keep me accountable. 3 weeks ago I restarted up my dryfire routine (from Refinement and Repetition) that had got me to B so quickly before. I started to record my par times. I have been skipping every other club match in favor of going to the range to practice. I started up Chad Reilly's shooter's elbow routine (thank you so much for sharing that) rather than making excuses for myself.
I find myself often exceeding my practice schedule and taking a break from dryfire just long enough to dry the sweat from my hands and arms instead of checking my phone for facebook updates or to see if I have met my minimum time in the dryfire dojo. This has had two main benefits that I can see:
1. My gunhandling skills are improving rapidly.
2. I am beginning to trust instead of try. I know I can draw, reload, and transition like a GM so I don't feel like I need to break the shot before I see what I need to see.
This last week I shot a little indoor match with the singular goal of calling every shot. I felt slow as molasses. It did not feel exciting. I was sure that I was going to get served- but I had accepted the process of calling every shot, and allowing the outcome to be dictated by my level of training rather than my level of "effort".
I was stunned to see I shot over 90% on the classifier and won the match. I am now just a few percent away from M in Limited and will be switching over to my single stack for the charge to GM.
This stuff is very real. Thank you for continuing to hammer on the shot shot calling. Some of us are so deep in our patterns that it might take a year of podcasts, books, and getting beat before it sinks in.
Sincerely,
a former index shooting sinner who has seen the shot calling light
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