Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

Winning- How Important Is It To You?


Flyin40

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 137
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

And you will do better next time. ;)

I have found that to be true. Once I shoot really, really bad, I want that experience so far gone and over, that I focus on relaxing and shooting next time out. Usually I have a really rough day at the range about every other month, and between them, I find great relaxation and results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

short_round Posted Today, 01:40 PM

I'm concerned about this ... if it happens to me I expect there will be a few more used limited and open guns on the market. This subject came up this weekend. A friend of mine said as soon as he get's is M card it's off to sporting clays for him and all his race guns go on sale. It made me sad at first. It made me more sad that more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

Quitting when you have achieved a card does not make sense, quitting when you dont care about getting better anymore is another thing altogether.

TDean Posted Today, 12:25 PM

  Do these sound familiar to anybody?

-Most of the time I'm having "fun", but sometimes I'm not. Why do spend time and money on something that pisses me off 1/3 of the time?

I suspect the situation would be the same whatever activity you choose to spend your money on.

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I shoot because it is fun. I'm not to a point yet, where my skills are good enough to win, or "beat" someone. I try and shoot each match, with the intention to "improve". My ultimate goal is to be smooth. I screw up too much tring to be fast.

Merlins post really hit home. I too was an avid 3D archer. I quit the day I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. I remember being upset about where the arrow hit the target in the 10 ring (I think it was off 1" at 37 yds.) I thought that this is just ridiculous to be upset about this. I haven't shot a 3D course since. Now I just plink at a deer target with my hunting buddy, and suddenly it's fun again!

Ray

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was reading some of the post and something hit me. I really wanted to beat SAnderson in the shoot offs at the Ohio Match. Some local guys having some fun. Head to Head is alittle different. I knew my only chance was to index really well on the first target and don't miss the rest. I knew not to push it too much because it would be one of those crash and burn stages.

Even when shooting head to head I realized prior to shooting against him I had to make sure not to "try to win", just focus and shoot.

I also noticed for the first time I felt alittle pressure while shooting. I think because of my mindset the pressure of a match never gets to me. I shoot against myself. But.......in the shootoff, with someone right next to you I felt some pressure. It was my first shootoff and I had alot of fun. In this type of situation I think if your focused on winning you will end up having alot more crashes than good runs.

Flyin40

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John,

You just didn't get warmed up enough. :)

At those shoot-offs, i was getting tired, and I knew the only way to end the shoot-offs was to win. I've never had that feeling before, and it made me focus.

Interesting.

SA

btw, If I shoot to my potential, the placements don't really matter as much as if I shoot below my known potential. Winning feels great, but shooting my absolute best feels better. To do both...Ahhhhhhhhh. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is gonna get a little intense, so bear with me :)

As a lady COMPETING in a male dominated sport, the desire to win and prove that Women CAN compete (and beat) men is my entire drive and focus. Yes, literally, the only reason I do this sport is to prove that we can DO THIS SPORT!

So yes, winning is very important to me. And beating my friends is fun. Beating David is even better :) And yes, my purrsonality is such that if I consider you to be a friend, and I beat you, you're probably gonna have to take some ribbing over it. I also use other shooters as benchmarks. There is absolutely nothing wrong with motivating yourself in this manner! There is absolutely nothing better than overtaking your benchmark and having to pick a new one (look out Kyle and Steve) :wub: [soapbox] Anybody that has taken any business and/or quality courses lately will tell you that this is the newest way of measuring companies - by picking their best competitor as a benchmark. It's highly ingrained in my brain right now :) [/soapbox]

And lastly, since I moved to the South, I've truly enjoyed opening some eyes and minds to the fact that ladies shoot, compete and even win sometimes. The IPSC shooters I've met are the best people on earth - don't get me wrong - but there are still some "good ole's" out there that needed the wake up call :) (and before Lynn and Sam get mad at me - lemme clarify that there are NO good ole's on be.com!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Focusing on winning is focusing on the competition to a degree (sometimes a large degree). That is an external focus.

I think we all have enough to focus on internally. Which, in my opinion, will yield better results. ;)

Focus on the fundamentals...keep your eye on the ball...don't drive through your rear-view mirror...blah..blah...blah

Link to comment
Share on other sites

God I try so hard to keep my head low these days but every now and again a topic pops up and I raise my ugly mug again.

Competition drives me (and by default probably winning). Not just in shooting, but in most components of my life. I want to continue to improve and get better and better until I am winning and then I want to get better after that so I keep winning.

Sometimes I've shot a horrid stage, come back through the rest and won. Felt great. Bad that I trashed one stage, great that I was able to execute and pull out the W. Sometimes I've lost by .02 points - drives me crazy! That was one D, or maybe even 1 C!

Yes, winning is important to me. Since coming back, I am not as intense about things though. A screw up on a stage in the old days would have really upset me. Today I simply pull it back together and go shoot again. It is what it is and I can't do anything about it. Losing matches as a result sucks and drives me to do better the next go round.

The reality is that I'm not afraid to think about winning or desire to win. Before a stage, after - doesn't matter. The fact of the matter for me is that when the buzzer goes off I've got too many other things going on - I can't think about winning then. Ironically, that's the one time that either enables or prevents me from winning.

I wish I were able to go to nationals this year. I feel I am such a better competitor than I was years ago. I am not as skilled as I was, but I am a much better match manager. I don't think I would win, but I think I could be competitive.

As a whole, I am a more complete shooter today. My resume of skills doesn't just include draws and reloads, shooting on the move etc. etc. The last several of the "bigger" matches I've shot have been marked improvements. They've enabled me to be able to win.

I think about it and I desire it. I do not focus on any one individual to beat. That doesn't matter to me. I care about winning the match, not beating so and so. Winning the match requires good execution on what I know to do. Coming back to what SA said, when it all comes together it works and that is what keeps me coming back.

SOrry for the long post.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Human Nature is to COMPETE !!!

That is just how we are made !

What you get out of competeing is what drives us down our different roads....

Some folks have to win to make it "justifiable"

Some folks have a certain "standard" they want to achieve.

When I started I wanted to learn how to "shoot fast" like the guy showing us...

Now I have learned I want to shoot ACCURATELY Fast.

my anwser to the question....

I want to go out and have fun with the people I am shooting with, shoot to my ability (usually doesn't happen) and if I win doing so that is just a little ICING on the cake.

Hopalong

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's something for the mix that hasn't been mentioned. When you have a sponsor, the pressure to win is both internal and external. While winning is the ultimate goal for me, I can't let it invade every stage. It isn't necessary to win stages. I came darn close a nationals title in 97 by being 2nd, 3rd, or 4th on the stages. Consistency I think is more important than "winning". It's never who shoots the best but who screws up the least. When I can "actualize trust" and let my shooting happen instead of trying to control it, then I eliminate the small mistakes, that's when I win even if the scores say otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Focus on the fundamentals...keep your eye on the ball...don't drive through your rear-view mirror...blah..blah...blah

+1 on this

When I used to race bicycles, I was taught to go for the finish line in the sprint, not for the other guys rear wheel because even if you catch your goal, your still behind. I think that can relate when we compare ourselves to other shooters.

Can't you say the outcome of the match is really determined before you shoot it?

I try to keep that attitude when shooting and it seems to help with any kind of performance anxiety.

All you can do is perform at the level you are capable of performing at. It seems unlikely that wanting to win more than someone else is going to get you very far. Unless of coarse that wanting to win more than someone else keeps you disciplined in your training. The will to win part should happen before game day, regardless of the sport.

In this sport, the finish line seems to be a lot of different things to different people, being new to this game, my finish line is shooting every stage "in the moment."

If I can achieve that goal, I always go home feeling like I won. When the results come out days or weeks later, it is just a nice bonus if I placed high in the standings.

Rockclimbg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Winning is an end; performance is the means. I focus on the performance and don't think about the results until the end of the match. Most times, not all of the time.

Winning is nice but since shooting is a personal sport..I am the only factor that affects the outcome. If someone else wins because they performed better that day and I did the best I could, so be it. It's over and there is next time.

I have a close friend and M class shooter that is a walking score card and has gotten bitten because of it many times. Many times I've heard him say, "I need x number of match points here since I lost x number of points to _____ on the last stage." Then bomb the next stage since he was so focused on the outcome the performance took second seat.

I learned playing darts in college years ago that you never chase your opponent, you make them chase you. That was a very lucrative lesson and I try to follow that rule in shooting. Sometimes it works, others it doesn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Random thoughts from MI.

To me there are several types of winning.

1. Winning externally - IE the trophy. Good for paying the bills if the sport (whatever sport) is your job and maybe good for the ego.

2. Winning internally - good for the ego and helps you drive on if appreciated properly. This is the important one to me.

These two can go together or be independent of each other.

You may win the match, but, not do a "good job" and win internally. It may have just been good enough that day to beat everyone else. I believe this is what the whole thread has been about. This is the difficult situation to deal with and I have found that there are very few people you can talk about this with.

If I win internally, most of the time I do not care where I finished in the competition. Although a lot of the time I end of winning the match. This maybe just related to doing something cool on a stage.

Take care,

MB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well put, Matt - about what I was (lamely, verbosely) trying to get at... :)

The only one that you really want to avoid is "sucked internally and sucked in results" :) The one you mention - "sucked internally but did well in results" - gives you lots of clues to what you need to improve - but should also bolster your confidence that, even on the bad days in your performance, you still have what it takes to turn in results. That's good stuff, too!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In our sport, getting better is to some degree the end goal. We measure our progress in part by winning, measuring our performance against others. With the classification system we use, and some of the other stats, we can also measure our performance against ourselves.

Without the classification system, shooting against the bad*sses could get discouraging in a hurry.

I keep notes after each stage and match. I look at how I did overall, in my class, in hit factors, in percentages, and relative to my past performance. I try to note things I did wrong, but also try to find something I can like about each match. Sometimes I do so poorly overall that I have to look at my performance on a single stage for encouragement. But I think we keep track of these things to help motivate us and remind us of the end goal, which is to improve.

I have a shooting partner who's roughly at the same level as me. You can be d*mn sure the first thing we look at after a match is our performance relative to each other. The hour drive home from the last match was a long one for him!

Shooter Grrl - I shoot with a Master-class woman who's on the national team. In our groups "You shoot like a girl" is a compliment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll never be a top shooter, but I used to race sailboats professionally, at world-championship level... so perhaps some of my observations will translate.

What I found was that if I focused on "beating" someone, I had basically allowed them into my head, and given them some degree of control over my game plan. It added artificial pressure, and took me off "my" game.

Conversely, if I focused totally on my own game - did my own pre-race routines, worked through my own internal priorities, and raced my own race... I not only found that my "competitors" were somewhere in the distance behind me, I also enjoyed the experience a lot more.

Loosely translated, that means that they were only my "competitors" if I decided to designate them as such. If I raced my own race, I had "no competition."

This sort of resonates with my own personal theory about competitive "comfort zones." I believe that most people finish, in competition, just about where they can "picture themselves" finishing. If they can imagine themselves beating their regular competitors, they will. If they cannot imagine themselves beating the top competitors, they won't. There is some internal mechanism where "most" people will compete just brilliantly enough to end up where they are "comfortable" - and if they find themselves in front of an "icon", they will make just enough subconscious mistakes to put themselves "back where they belong."

To me, at the top level of a game, it is the mental aspects that separate the top dog from the rest. There may be a handful of shooters who have the *physical* skill to beat a Rob or a Matt or a Todd on a given day. But very few of them have the mental game that it takes to shed the pressure, not pay attention to the competition, focus on their own game and just shoot the match to the *best* of their ability. They are totally "comfortable" with the idea that there is nothing between them and the win. They can "picture themselves" shooting a flawless match. More to the point... they don't allow anyone else to intrude into "their" picture. The ones that can do that... we call them "champions" for a reason.

Obviously, in both racing and shooting, there are times when different tactics are needed. Going into the last race of a series tied with someone else, it is natural (and necessary) to shift from "sail your own best race" to "attack the other guy and leave him gasping for air in some remote corner of the racecourse." My guess is that going into the last stage of a match tied with someone else for the win, the same approach might apply. But by and large, my belief is that if you go into competition focused on what you have to do to "beat" someone... you've already turned over control of the outcome.

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bruce...the book I told you about is With Winning In Mind by Lanny Bassham

Thanks, Steven! I'll give it a look (I actually have a whole collection of books on what I would loosely characterize as "the psychology of winning" - I got interested during my racing career, but the topic is as relevant in today's business world as it is in sports)

A minor thread drift - hopefully illustrative.

The America's Cup is a yacht-racing series between two countries - a "defender" and a "challenger". Whatever country last won the Cup, gets to be the "defender" until some other country wins that right away from them.

America won the initial Cup (originally called the "hundred guineas cup", because that's how much silver it took to make it) in 1851. From then on, they were undefeated for *decades* - they were neve seriously challenged, they were totally dominant on the race course. Other countries would compete amongst each other for the right to "challenge" the Americans for the Cup, but would not be able to come away victorious.

The Australians, beginning in the early 1960s, challenged for the right to be the challenger. For several years, they dominated the "challenger elimination" series and won the right to sail against the Americans... but lost. They consistently sailed brilliantly against all the other countries, but fell apart against the Americans.

In 1982, the Australians hired a sports psychologist to work with their team. He looked at their track record, identified that pattern, and prescribed a novel remedy. He advised the Australian team to build a second boat, paint it to look "just like the American boat"... and have it follow them around during all their practice sessions.

In 1983, the Australians won the America's Cup, breaking a 132-year American winning streak. They credited a large part of their win to "being used to the sight and sound of the American boat being behind them", to "sailing their own race, to the top of their own ability", and to treating the Americans as "just another boat" rather than giving it recognition as some historically-insurmountable opponent.

Loosely translated... their skill was a constant. Their win was a result of changing their *mental* game, and focusing on competing rather than on "the competition".

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Bruce, that was also the year that the Aussie's brought out the winged keel design. The mystery/secrecy and media hype of the new design cought the whole world off guard. Trying to win against an engineering breakthrough was a lost cause for the Americans. They couldn't beat what they have never raced against. The Americans were now focused on their competitors new boat as opposed to the race.

Mentally, they never had a chance against the new Australlia II boat. I didn't know about the second boat just for training.

I was mentally "out to lunch" at the Area8. After the second stage, I didn't have to worry about my competition, I had already put my self so far behind that I was just there for fun.

The mental portion of the game never ceases to amaze me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Bruce, that was also the year that the Aussie's brought out the winged keel design. The mystery/secrecy and media hype of the new design cought the whole world off guard.

Totally true. The interesting thing about that was that the winged keel was *not* particularly fast. Without going too deep into technical esoterica, it had more drag, required a different (arguably disadvantageous) set of design parameters for the rest of the boat, etc, etc. The only "advantage" it gave them was non-obvious - it allowed them to turn faster, which was an advantage they used mercilessly throughout the series.

I was with another American boat trying to win the right to be the defender that summer - we *knew* the winged keel was not as "fast" as everyone thought it was, but it had tremendous "psych" potential, which the Australians played to full effect. As a result, the biggest effect it had, as you note, was that it got into the American's collective heads, and forced *them* to come off *their* game.

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...