Setting Your Arousal Level

[Steve Anderson]

I had a first hand experience with arousal level at this weeks frosty spectacular match in Zanesville.

The last stage of the day was an in-your-face paper mixed with distant steel kinda deal and it was c-o-l-d cold.

Windy, yucky and icky out.

The cold wasn't bothering me but I noticed after my first less than stellar run that ignoring it had beought me back to zero on the "how's the day going" scale, when I needed a +5 or so.

I was granted a re-shoot on the grounds of a door prop malfunction. Turns out a stick in the mud makes not a good door holder shutter. So a shotgun shell was pressed into service and it was reshoot time.

I decided to get amped a little and did some jumping jacks and half pushups to move the blood a llittle.

Second run was much more aggressive and felt more like the old me.

It helped understand what Lanny Bassham had said about arousal level.

It's not a measure of trying, but rather a guage of enthusiasm or excitement.

It's "let me at that stage so I can kick its ass" vs. "it's my turn to shoot so i shall prepare myself accordingly"

It's half mental and half physical and may not be needed all the time, but it's an interesting guage to keep an eye on.

It has little to do with the mental program part, but rather an enthusiasm for gettin' to gettin.'

Thinking about it now, it's clear that my best performances have been tinged with a desire to kick the stage's ass.

And please, you have no idea how hard it was to type this without a million arousal jokes.

Let's just say that your arousal level is measured by whether you're "up" for shooting or just waiting for your turn.

You don't want to limp around in flaccid compliance. Ideally you'd be a little pumped to penetrate.

SA

[dajarrel]

And please, you have no idea how hard it was to type this without a million arousal jokes.

Let's just say that your arousal level is measured by whether you're "up" for shooting or just waiting for your turn.

You don't want to limp around in flaccid compliance. Ideally you'd be a little pumped to penetrate.

SA

You couldn't stand it could you?

dj

[ChuckS]

Very penetrating but a bit stiff in the writing. This is clearly the state a shooter should desire but please seek medical help if the state should last more than 4 hours.

Edited April 17, 2007 by ChuckS

[dajarrel]

And all prodding aside, (shaking head emodicon here) I can see where I have been walking up to a stage with the idea of "it's my turn to shoot" with no enthusiam at all with the mediocre performance that goes with it. I'm going to work on that.

thanks

dj

[Micah]

After shooting 6 stages with fire and enthusiasm this past weekend, my squad had its break for lunch. After the 1-2 hour lul, I found that I was actually tired and unaroused.

It's rudimentary, but after jumping around and shouting for a minute I found myself back on track and ready to rock. Breaking out the Ipod and listening to my "shooting anthem" also added to getting back in the game.

At the last Circleville match when it was snowing, I kept my thoughts on the opening battle of "The Gladiator" and thought how kool it was to be shooting in the snow

Edited April 17, 2007 by Pharaoh Bender

[GentlemanJim]

Micah...you are a gladiator..all that practice

Thanks Steve I need all the help I can get!

please send more

Jim

[Steve Anderson]

OK,

Please remember that this is not opposed to being relaxed.

It's not not nervous or out of control.

It's being excited to shoot.

It's the difference between Saturday date night and the first time after a 2 week dry spell.

That enthusiasm has to be at the right level.

Too much, and all you get is speed. :)

Too little and you get a boring session.

Next time you're up, (oh no) check to see if you're excited to shoot (uh-oh) or just going throught the repetitive motion (tee-hee) until the end.

I feel like Chandler Bing talking about his "big important duties."

I'm spittin out coffee, and I can't breathe.

giggle giggle guffaw giggle giggle.

If Kyle's girlfriend was drinking white russians, Matt Trout wouldn't survive this. (you had to be there)

SA

[Z-man]

Steve- this "lack of arousal" definitely seems to set in when incliment weather is involved or towards the end of a very big match. Sometimes even when you're shooting with a long squad and you're towards the end. I don't know about others, but I've had the "let's get this over with" thought creep in at times and it certainly doesn't make for good shooting!

[tightloop]

It is kind of like: Hi there stage, you can see I am ready, stiff with excitement, not flaccid with a post stage cigarette.....LOL

You knew this kind of thing was inevitable, didn't you..?

[Steve Anderson]

You're absolutely right on that on. Some jumping jacks seem to help me...

SA

[SouthpawG26]

I remembered this thread after evaluating some recent match performances.

After reading Lanny Bassham's book, I really started hammering home the "all A's only A's" mental rehearsal.

I managed to completely eleminate all and any thoughts of speed from this mental pre-match rehearsal.

I was calm, calm, calm, dead calm.....

The match performance sucked.

Not only were the times disappointing, but suprisingly (to me at least), calling (bad) shots seemed to have suffered as well. I was both slower AND not as sharp/aware in calling shots as I could have been, picking up more misses than I'm accustomed to.

Then I remembered the thing about arousal levels.

While mantaining the "all A's only A's"-mental picture and stage rehearsal, it seems essential for me to get into LETSKICKASS mode on the line as well.

I just seem to need that controlled amount of aggression to be sharp, aware AND fast.

Edited September 3, 2007 by SouthpawG26

[j1b]

Nice post Steve.

All of us have got to figure out that balance.

My third "major" match I can recall was the AK state many moons ago. The month before, much to my surprise, I'd finished fourth overall at the Coors in CO. So going in to AK State I was feeling good. I felt - well . . . prepared to kick ass.

So I shot my first stage and to my great surprise I had a miss. That wasn't supposed to happen. Then the second stage and I had TWO misses. Ok - clearly the stars were out of freakin' whack because I'd just placed fourth in a much bigger match.

Next stage I decided push ups were in order. I did a few, and got ready to shoot. Man, that was ugly too!

So that night I slept on a 50 or 60 point deficit in the match. The next morning I was horsing around and I whacked my foot on the wall pretty good. It needed to be taped up. Things weren't good.

I figured I could still shoot but knowing I was behind and knowing I now had an injured foot I figured things were pretty much decided. I then decided that I'd just focus on the shooting. Get the points, move efficiently, and really dail in what I could control.

Ended up winning the match that Sunday. Made up the deficit and then some as I simply focused on the task at hand. I wasn't pumped up. I wasn't there to make my stamp. I was simply there to shoot. My experience at the CA state stock gun championship (I would argue my best match of all time) was similar when on the first stage I had an FTE and two misses. The rest of the match could ONLY be focused on nailing the basics. Turns out in most cases that works . . .

Over the years, and even now as I contemplate rebuilding my shooting platform, I hope to remember that lesson. Being "there" for the match is important. Being "more than there" for the match (for me) is deterimental. All I have to do is focus on the shooting. The rest takes care of itself.

J

[38supPat]

Nice post Steve.

All of us have got to figure out that balance.

My third "major" match I can recall was the AK state many moons ago. The month before, much to my surprise, I'd finished fourth overall at the Coors in CO. So going in to AK State I was feeling good. I felt - well . . . prepared to kick ass.

So I shot my first stage and to my great surprise I had a miss. That wasn't supposed to happen. Then the second stage and I had TWO misses. Ok - clearly the stars were out of freakin' whack because I'd just placed fourth in a much bigger match.

Next stage I decided push ups were in order. I did a few, and got ready to shoot. Man, that was ugly too!

So that night I slept on a 50 or 60 point deficit in the match. The next morning I was horsing around and I whacked my foot on the wall pretty good. It needed to be taped up. Things weren't good.

I figured I could still shoot but knowing I was behind and knowing I now had an injured foot I figured things were pretty much decided. I then decided that I'd just focus on the shooting. Get the points, move efficiently, and really dail in what I could control.

Ended up winning the match that Sunday. Made up the deficit and then some as I simply focused on the task at hand. I wasn't pumped up. I wasn't there to make my stamp. I was simply there to shoot. My experience at the CA state stock gun championship (I would argue my best match of all time) was similar when on the first stage I had an FTE and two misses. The rest of the match could ONLY be focused on nailing the basics. Turns out in most cases that works . . .

Over the years, and even now as I contemplate rebuilding my shooting platform, I hope to remember that lesson. Being "there" for the match is important. Being "more than there" for the match (for me) is deterimental. All I have to do is focus on the shooting. The rest takes care of itself.

J

Nice! Amazing how simple it is once you get past all the ancillary stuff.

[ahtsay]

J1B, just yesterday I experienced the same thing... except I didn't whack my foot on anything and I didn't have a nice recovery in the end. I actually shot two different matches on one day. On stage one of the first match I had a no-shoot and a mike. Although I'm not a GM shooter, I can make top 20 easy on a field of more than 120 competitors and top 10 if I keep it together. After the first stage it was downhill from there. I even had an AD after I ran out of ammo (I didn't fill up my mags to capacity) and had to do a standing mag change. No, I wasn't DQd since the shot hit about 10 yards in front of us, downrange. In 2 years of shooting, I've never had an AD. I probably had a total of 2 NS and maybe 6 mikes for the match. I'm not fast but I like to keep it clean and error free so this is unusual for me. I went home and felt like cr@p. So I decided that maybe I was just having a bad morning and decided to enter another match in the afternoon. On my first stage I had one target (it was a classic target that had the half cut-off) completely clean! Not one hole in it. I was sure I called the shots...or did I? Again the mikes kept coming and the second match was not better than the first. I went home thinking maybe I'm getting old. Then after reading this thread.... this was exactly how I felt. It was as if I was just going through the motion, and then expecting myself to go to autopilot and still hit the targets. I can't recall my sight pictures, and it seems that I'm focusing more on the target than my sights. I didn't have the "arousal" level that Steve was describing. I felt disconnected, kinda like being half-asleep. But the big question is besides jumping jacks, what other techniques are there to help you be excited to shoot? Thanks for this post Steve, made me feel a lot better. Its like knowing there's a cure to a disease that I have.

[Stefano]

I don't know if it can be called "arousal" but usually I'm "pushed-up" whit my shooting when I'm squadded with shooters who are a lot much better than me.

Having all around me several skilled GMs gives to me a very good feeling:

I'm excited and enthusiast of being in such a good squad, and my shooting is improved by this feeling.

I dont' try to emulate them (I well know that it would be VERY dangerous for me ...) but I enjoy their superb (for me) performances, and this usually works to "pump-up" my attitude to the match ...

The problem is that this works perfectly (with a different result ...) also at the opposite, when I found that' I'm squadded with beginners ...

In this situation it's a real challenge for me shooting at the best of my possibilities ...

Edited January 14, 2008 by Stefano

[nashvillebill]

I have seen a shooter pinch his nipples at LAMR. I thought he was being funny, now I'm not sure.

[ahtsay]

Would drinking coffee or those energy drinks (RedBull) help at all? I'm tempted to try it but I'm worried it might make me nervous or hyper Anybody try this?

[FranDoc]

Would drinking coffee or those energy drinks (RedBull) help at all? I'm tempted to try it but I'm worried it might make me nervous or hyper Anybody try this?

I've seen the augmented caffeine/sugar drinks drive someone's blood pressure & heart rate through the roof (BP 180/110, pulse 160!), especially if they're not really accustomed to having a load of caffeine in their system. Obviously, other people don't respond that dramatically.

I can't imagine that it would be helpful to have every muscle in your body twitching and your skull feeling like it should split open.

If you want to try this, consume only a few ounces of the 'energy' drink, then go dry fire. See how you do and how you respond to it. Determine how long it takes to 'wear off'.

Caution. YMMV.

[tightloop]

I have seen a shooter pinch his nipples at LAMR. I thought he was being funny, now I'm not sure.

Does pinching your own nipples quality for the dreaded FTDR???

[Chills1994]

Having been a human factors (ergonomics, anthropometrics, and engineering psychology) major, I did learn about the Yerkes-Dodson Arousal Curve.

Basically, up to a point there is an optimum level of (external stimulus/stimuli) arousal which yields the best or peak performance.

At some point, external stimuli can be too much and performance suffers.

Here is a simple graph:

You can read up more on Yerkes-Dodson law here on the Wiki Site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes-Dodson_law

Or just do a google search.

[spook]

It's "let me at that stage so I can kick its ass" vs. "it's my turn to shoot so i shall prepare myself accordingly"

It's half mental and half physical and may not be needed all the time, but it's an interesting guage to keep an eye on.

It has little to do with the mental program part, but rather an enthusiasm for gettin' to gettin.'

Thinking about it now, it's clear that my best performances have been tinged with a desire to kick the stage's ass.

I have shot my best stages when I was pissed off for some reason and the only logical outlet when standing online is to tear the stage a new one.

I wish I had some instant way of creating this mood.

I have noticed that a sub-optimal intake of nutrients (not eating/drinking enough) can be a big loser for your arousal level.

[boz1911]

For me I think the key here is balance, and not to confuse nervousness with arousal. I may be working on getting too calm for stages instead of retaining or focusing that energy into the course of fire.

[el pres]

Ok first the joke, I cant get aroused at matches because there is no hot chicks at

matches and if there are they are some buddys wife or something (sausagefest or something)...

Anyhow, good metal music could really do this for me, if I could just wear headphones with like Pantera

playing ,its on, your all going down... there's nothing like good ole aggresion. I work in a 100% commision

enviroment and I do just that to haul ass....

[DoubleA]

Aggressive zen and begging for the opportunity to react.

It's just what popped in my head after reading this thread, along with more innuendo