[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

digby7 - Thanks for the recommendation! It annoys me too when indoor ranges make you pay $k for classes in order to draw and rapid-fire.

Today was a frustrating day of shooting. I went to the range with the sole purpose of figuring out recoil management. My grip tends to slip in between shots (my hands aren't sweaty, the gun isn't slippery). My support hand keeps wanting to rotate forward until it's barely gripping the gun.

This is a big limiting factor in my shooting. I need to be able to fire x shots without my grip changing at all.

I don't think it's a problem with my technique. I'm gripping the gun high up, with both wrists meeting and my support hand canted downward. I've tried variations in technique, but they haven't helped.

Is this most likely a grip strength issue?

[Help Managing Recoil]

I am having trouble keeping a consistent grip and returning the sights quickly in between shots. My grip tends to slip during the recoil (specifically, my support hand slides forward), and I know that is a problem. I need to be able to fire many shots without my grip changing at all.

I think that my technique is solid - high up on the gun, wrists meeting, support hand angled downward a bit. I've tried experimenting with different techniques (e.g., support hand angled more or rotated forward), and nothing seems to work better than what I am currently doing.

Is this just an issue of grip strength, or could there be something else going on?

Thanks!

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

BritinUSA - That's helpful to hear, thanks! I know you're right.

Jon - I took out the 1911 spacers, and my CZ mags wobble without any spacers but don't fit with the smaller spacers. I think you're right that getting a CZ specific or generic holster (I'll probably go with CZ) as I'm deciding on a competition gun is a good idea.

Tim - I may do that, thanks!

Chris - That's funny how different people have different ideas of what constitutes "good ergonomics." (Kind of like how different people have different notions of what is "obviously stupid and/or false." I was with a friend the other day, and she said she didn't see how any reasonable person could oppose the Assault Weapons Ban, and I said, "Really? I oppose the AWB.")

The XDM is on my short list of Production gun choices. I really like it, but it is a pain in the butt to get in California (you have to buy it used or from someone who will do a single shot exemption for you).

GuildSF4 - Will do. And thanks!

[Fourtrax's Range Report]

Chris, I love your enthusiasm for USPSA after nine years of shooting. I am rooting for you to make and be a "legit" GM.

When you get there, you can help me to make it too!

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Kevin - Thanks! Having you follow me through the stage was super helpful.

Tim - Thanks for the info. And, I do like the single stack 1911's a lot!

Aglifter - Nod. I think that's probably true of female rock climbers too. I have not tried yoga but may give it a try.

Tonight's shooting-related thankful item:

5) cleaning and putting back together my CZ magazine. I'd been running around the house dropping it on the floor, and today one of them came apart with the spring and everything...

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

diehli - Thanks! I love the rooting faces!

Tim - That was my original plan, but now I'd rather shoot a gun that doesn't have DA/SA.

When I was in elementary school and just learning to add numbers, the thought of doing algebra terrified me. I couldn't imagine solving problems with scary things called "variables," and factoring was a foreign concept.

My dad said, "Don't worry, no one's asking you to do something really hard, like invent algebra. You can learn anything as long as you do it step by step."

He was right. By the time I got to algebra, it felt no harder than learning to add for the first time.

I mention this because I feel overwhelmed. I went to a USPSA practice in Richmond, and even the B and C shooters seemed really fast and good compared to what I can currently do. I felt like my elementary school self watching local shooters blaze by doing logarithms and multivariable calculus. I also finished reading Ben's technique book, and some of the stuff he talks about - like position entry and exit - I only have the faintest idea of, the way that I barely knew what variables meant when I was six.

Tonight's thankful items:

1) Jon letting me borrow his single stack .45, mag pouches, and holster, and letting me shoot his ammo!

2) shooting a USPSA practice stage for the first time! I was nervous at first, but I asked Kevin if he would walk through the stage with me and give me feedback on how I did. He is a pediatrician and has a very calming and reassuring manner. Kevin gave the range commands for me and talked me through the course: "Take a deep breath." "Your gun is dry." (I was shooting Jon's 8-round mags and shooting a course for the first time, so I totally forgot to reload when moving between positions!)

The second time I ran the stage, my goal was to reload between every position and never let my gun run dry. I did that. I hit all alphas and every popper with one shot, except the swinger which I hit one alpha and missed once.

Things I need to work on: 1) my draw, 2) maintaining my grip in between shots and after reloads, 3) analyzing stages and planning my reloads, and 4) shooting on the move. Some of the better shooters were doing this as they backed away from the first target array; I want to be able to do that too!

3) meeting a lot of nice and friendly shooters: Kevin (kevin c), Alex (digby7), Sebastian, Byron, Lily, Jessica, Manuel, and others whose names I forgot.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

I feel gobbly and am imagining myself waking up clean and clear and slightly hungry in the morning...

I did my budget tonight and freaked out a bit over how much my shooting expenses are. I am shooting about 150-200 rounds of new 9mm's and several hundred .22's each week, plus lane fees and shooting resources (like Ben's excellent book on technique). And I haven't gotten my competition gun and gear yet...

Dry fire, dry fire, dry fire.

Tonight's thankful items:

2) doing hard weights, running 5 miles (3 miles increasing pace, 2 miles easy), and stretching a ton.

3) paying special attention to my grip during dry-fire. I realized that I get lazy in reacquiring my grip after a mag change, but that having the proper grip helps me to get my sights back on target and know they are in alignment.

4) reading Ben Stoeger's excellent book on technique

[Ben Stoeger]

Ben, I just got your technique book and it is awesome! I am super impressed with how you address the why behind each technique and present different perspectives when top shooters differ. I can tell it took a ton of thought and effort by many people (including forum friends like Donovan and Andy - it was cool to see their names in the credits! ); thank you SO much for putting it all together.

I can tell that I will be referring to this a lot as a develop as a shooter.

p.s. - I think the crowd-sourcing improved your writing too, or maybe you just improved as a writer since your first book.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

I shot SHO and WHO at 25 yds for the first time today. My strong-hand groups were only a little bit off of my freestyle groups, and my weak-hand groups were only a little bit off of those.

I was feeling exhausted physically and emotionally, though, so I packed up early and went home instead of throwing money downrange and burning in bad shots.

Today's shooting-related thankful item:

3) making plans to go to the action pistol practice in Richmond on Saturday. And, Jon offering to let me shoot his single stack .45 and use his gear until I get my own competition gun and gear. OMG!

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

GuildSF4 - I can't do a .8 reload yet. A full reload would be sights on target, drop mag, insert fresh mag, gun back on target, sights (almost) settled. But I can do more in .8 than I thought I could.

Chris - Thanks for the tip! I will look my mag into the well every time.

Steve - Thank you for the wise words. You're a good instructor in more than just shooting.

I've been reading Lanny's book and Steve's second book, and one idea that struck me is that your conscious mind only holds one image at a time, which your subconscious then musters/recruits all of its resources to deliver. So if you think, "Don't miss," the image you see is yourself missing, and you become more likely to miss.

I think to myself many times a day, "Don't gobble." Of course what I think of is gobbling.

I've tried to think of things to do instead, but that doesn't quite work. Maybe because writing/painting/cleaning guns/calling a friend are means to an end, not the end itself. Imagining myself putting $5 in the jar isn't helpful either, because it feels like an extrinsic reward not the real goal. (Analogously, I bet it helps some athletes to imagine receiving the gold medal on the podium. But I need an intrinsic performance goal, like Steve's image of two alphas on every target.)

Tonight I am going to try an experiment. I am going to imagine myself waking up clean and clear and slightly hungry for breakfast.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Paul Buchheit (the creator of Gmail) has a way of saying things that I've heard elsewhere in ways that make sense to me. Here he writes:

"Many of our weaknesses are actually strengths once we learn how to use them, and our greatest gifts are often buried beneath our greatest insecurities."

That's hard to see and believe, sometimes, when one is alone and crying after the nth thousandth late night gobble. I look around sometimes and see so many people who don't gobble or sabotage themselves. It's tempting for me to think, "They should be the ones who dream of being artists and GMs, not me." But maybe one day looking back, these struggles will enable me to say and do things that I wouldn't have otherwise.

But it sucks sometimes.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

A lot of Taylor Swift on repeat while I dry-fire.

Tonight's shooting-related thankful items:

1) Bo sending me a super helpful email about instruction, what he would do to develop a new shooter to be as good as possible, and the importance of maintaining and getting a proper grip ALWAYS in dry-fire practice.

3) setting my par timer to .8 and seeing how close I could get to a mag change. I can get my spare mag to (or almost to) the lip of my mag well in perfect or near perfect alignment.

I notice that when I push the pace past what I can currently change a mag in, I stop looking the mag into the well. I am not sure if that is good or bad. I think I unconsciously hesitate when confirming alignment with my vision, so when I am trying to go as fast as I can, I just trust my body to get the motion done as quickly as possible. Ideally, seeing my hands in alignment shouldn't take any more time than slamming them into alignment, just like seeing my sights in alignment as I press the trigger shouldn't take any longer than just pressing the trigger.

[Sub-conscious shooting]

The mind doesn't know the difference between something real and something vividly imagined, so if we visualize a stage thoroughly and properly, it's as if we've already shot it.

I've heard this a lot before, and I'm not sure it's entirely accurate that the mind doesn't know the difference between something real and vividly imagined...

We know that the same brain regions are activated when a user is engaged in a "real" task and when they are vividly imagining it. And it's true that visualization is a powerful and underutilized tool - depending on the study and the skill, people who depended only on visualization gained 40-80% of the benefit of people who actually practiced (free throws, strength exercises, etc.). That's crazy!

However, to me it seems a jump to conclude that the mind can't tell the difference. If the mind can't tell the difference between a very good visualization and the reality, then how can we know that our lives aren't just one big visualization? Like, what if we are all brains in vats imagining ourselves visualizing and then shooting "real" stages?

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Donovan - Yeah, I've pretty much decided to save up for the reload press. In retrospect, was the primary value of the reload press in ammo savings (thus allowing you to shoot more) or in customized loads?

Today's thankful item:

2) running 4 easy miles and squeezing in 20 min of dry-fire even though I had a super busy day

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

I am starting to read Steve Anderson's book, and the mental stuff is really interesting. He said that for two years, he would always miss 1 or 2 plates when shooting at 20 yds. He would never miss 5 or 6, just 1 or 2. And he realized that he had this mental image of himself where he expected to miss 1 or 2, even though he wanted to hit all 6. How he expected to perform was more important to his actual performance than how he wanted to perform.

In fact, he had gotten so used to the image of himself as a shooter who missed 1-2 plates at 20 yds that not missing any made him feel uncomfortable.

I resonated with that, not just for shooting but for gobbling. I really want not to gobble, I try my hardest to not gobble (just like Steve really wanted and was trying his hardest to hit all 6 plates). But I think of myself who is more likely to feel defeated and clobbered in the morning than someone who feels gobbly, doesn't gobble, and puts $5 in her jar as a matter of course.*

And, for those of you who've recommended Lanny Bassham's books - thanks! With Winning in Mind is on the way via Amazon Prime!

Tonight's thankful items that pertain to shooting:

2) running 2 miles of .25 mile repeats at 6 minute mile pace -- I am really out of shape! But I did it!

3) doing a bunch of slow, smooth reps of my new new mag change technique with no par timer while looking in the mirror. And some SHO WHO dry-fire.

4) cleaning my guns

* I put $5 in a jar for every day that I don't gobble. Originally I was planning to save up for an evening gown, but now I am thinking of using the money to buy a reload press (because how will a gown help in a home invasion?! ).

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Chris - Thanks!

GuildSF4 - I've thought the exact same thing about sub 4 miles. I think it's just a matter of time before we see a female GM in Open; it might take a little longer in Production where you have to physically do all of the work that an Open gun does for you, but it will happen. I honestly care very little whether I make GM first or second or fourth or nine hundredth as a female; I just want to do it. :-)

daves_not_here - Not revising my goal, just revising my estimate of how much effort it will take. But that's an excellent point that the value in an initial goal, question, product idea, etc., is often in the further goal, question, idea that it leads to.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

GuildSF54 - That's a great quote. And, thanks for the suggestions about grip strength!

Tim - Thanks! I'm really touched by your support, and that of everyone here. Send me the target transitions exercises when you get a chance!

Shooting items from last night's thankful email:

1) having a good conversation with Jeremy last night. He asked whether my current level of effort is consistent with my goals. I honestly answered that clearly it is not...

I think an important thing for me to find is the right balance between thinking something is hard and not hard. Maybe I'm a lot lazier than Jeremy is, or our approaches are just different, but I don't find it helpful to dwell on how much hard work something will take. It helps me to realize how much effort and commitment is required, but then I need to forget it, too, to find my intrinsic motivation in the moment.

Jeremy said, "You want to be the best in the world," and I said, "No, I just want to make GM (at least for now)." And he pointed out, "But that would make you the best female shooter in the world right? Even the top women shooters who do it professionally haven't been able to make it."

I try not to think of it in terms of being a great female shooter, but it was helpful to realize just how ambitious my goal is. I see examples left and right on the forums of people who make it to GM through hard work, and they're just regular guys who love to shoot, and they work at it a few hours a day, and they do it. They're not super athletes who run sprints, lift heavy weights, dry-fire two hours every day, and burn through 1,000 rounds a week. So I tend to think making GM is hard but doable, like learning to walk on your hands.

But Jeremy's point about how there have never been any female GMs thus far made me realize, okay, maybe this will take a little more work than I thought.

Another thing I realized is that even though I know how to excel at mental pursuits, I know very little about training my body to perform certain skills. I had assumed without realizing it* that a lot of the habits that make for a good artist translate to sports, but that is not necessarily the case. As Jeremy said: "You need to burn movements/actions into your subconscious. It's different. It's not purely mental like the things you are used to doing."

4) getting helpful responses to questions about shooting from Donovan and Bo

5) figuring out a way to shift my gun in my shooting hand without relying on momentum. Jeremy said to start from what I want to accomplish and work backwards. So I pressed my thumb to the bottom of the mag release, dropped a mag vertically, and shifted my hand back to a normal grip, and figured out what the motion is like.

Of course now I am back at square one and super slow again, but I think this will be much better in the long run. When I was flipping my gun with more momentum, the mag would fall vertically most of the time but not always, and I didn't feel as in control of the gun during the motion. Now I do whether I am moving left or right or forwards or backwards.

* One might say this is the definition of an assumption. :-)

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Alphamikefoxtrot - Making GM is not the most aerobic undertaking, but I'm guessing that upper body strength matters, especially in controlling recoil, so I will have to work extra hard at that.

One more shooting-related thankful item:

5) that I can appreciate and/or create beauty in music, literature, painting, art. I think I am more artistic than the typical shooter and more badass than the typical artist. It is a nice spot in the Venn diagram to be. :-)

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Aglifter - Yes and yes. Compulsive behaviors are very multi-faceted monsters. There are biochemical and cultural and personal factors. Everyone is different.

What is really interesting to me is how certain disorders manifest in specific cultures at specific times. As a historical example - because it is easier to see quirks in cultures from other times and places - female hysteria was a very prevalent "illness" among upper-class Victorian women during Freud's time, but is practically unknown today. Looking back, we can see clearly that many of the symptoms of hysteria (fainting, nervousness, shortness of breath) as reactions to the stifled lives that women then were forced to lead.

From what I've read, addictions (to food, drugs, alcohol, sex, the Internet / ) are a modern phenomenon. People were addicted to substances before, of course, but we don't see the widespread occurrence of and recognition of addiction as a way of life (albeit a dysfunctional one). My guess is that the prevalence of addiction has to do with an emptiness of purpose and community... If I'm right, that would help explain why shooting is such a powerful antidote to gobbling.

diehli -

First off, good for you on your eating disorder. Few realize that it's more than an issue of willpower and involves some major work and soul-searching (I've been there).

Thanks for understanding about that! Jon's beat you to giving me the info about the Intro to IPSC class. And I'm hoping to come out to the Richmond practice next weekend, so hopefully I will see you there!

Jon - Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try it the next time.

Shooting items from tonight's thankful email:

2) dry-firing and practicing mag changes. Actually, I'm not happy with how I continue to have trouble hitting the mag release, so I just rotated the gun over and over in my right hand hitting the release and getting the mag to drop vertically.

I also figured out why it's harder for me to drop a mag when moving left than right. When I move right, inertia makes the gun's muzzle turn left, towards the center of my body (it's the same effect as when your car accelerates forward, and you feel slammed backward into your seat). Whereas when I move left, inertia makes the gun move right in relation to me, away from my body. Anyway I need to be equally good at changing mags no matter which direction I'm moving, but that was kind of cool to figure out.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

I really want to gobble, I am too tired to dry-fire (Steve, I do not want to hear a comment about how one can never be too tired to dry-fire! ), so I am going to post about what I did in shooting today.

Actually, I am going to copy and paste. But first I will explain the source.

Several months ago, after a particularly awful series of mega gobbles*, I asked my good friend Rebecca if she could do me a favor. I asked if each night, I could send her a short email of 3-5 things that I am thankful for that day. I said that I spent so much of my time fixated on (what I perceived to be) my lacks, worrying about the future, or feeling sick, stuffed, drugged, and frustrated from gobbling that I missed a lot of the very good things happening around me every day.

Rebecca said she thought that was a great idea, and that she wanted to send me her thankful list every night as well!

At first I was really inept at coming up with thankful items. It would take me half an hour of sitting on the couch before I could think of five things that I was thankful for that day, and they would often be lame items, like, "I ate a tasty sandwich." (Of course I could default to things like existence, but that was a cheap trick because the point of the exercise was to come up with uniquely positive things about that day.)

But pretty soon, within a week or so, I found myself keeping an eye out for thankful items that I could report to my friend. And creating opportunities for things I could be thankful for.

Well, here are the items from tonight's thankful list that pertain to shooting (in chronological order not in order of how thankful I am for them):

1) getting so many encouraging and supportive comments after posting my first range diary entry, including ones from Ben Stoeger (current Production National Champion), Steve Anderson, Kyle Farris, all GMs. I am pretty floored.

2) shooting at Reed's. I had originally been planning to shoot mostly .22's since I am all out of factory reload 9's and am paying regular prices. I started off doing random beep - torso shot - head shot with the .22 and shot terribly. I've been handling my CZ at home more, and as a result (I think), the m&p's weight, grip, and trigger all feel funny. My index was off, my sights came up misaligned, and I kept pulling the trigger left and right.

I switched to the CZ, and immediately everything felt much better. I could tell from my grip that my sights were (mostly) aligned where I looked, and pulling the trigger felt really natural. I also noticed something interesting - when transitioning from the torso to the head A shot, I felt like I was "riding" the recoil of the gun to the follow-up shot, and they all turned out really accurate (unlike my .22 shots, my CZ head shots all showed up in a nice small clump right of dead center in the upper A zone).

I don't often get to practice transitions in live-fire (though, I am sure if I am creative I can come up with some good drills even in a single lane at up to 25 yards), but it's something I've noticed while shooting plate racks too, that the momentum from the recoil of one shot helps to transition your gun to the second/next shot.

5) the shooting community and especially the people on brianenos.com. I know I say this all the time, but shooters as a group are the nicest and most helpful people ever :-D

Goodnight!

* Gobbles come in different sizes, and mega gobbles are the biggest.

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Wow, you guys are so amazing! Thank you soo much!

Thanks Donovan! That sounds right. And is exactly the kind of kick in the butt I need (and started an online range journal for). Bill, same goes for you. :-)

dfwmiket - lol I was going to say the same thing dravz did. But I appreciate the meaning!

daves_not_here and pointofimpact - I know that most USPSA shooters jump into their first competition and have a great time from there. However, I want to learn the most that I can from my first competition, and I know that if I shot my first match tomorrow, I'd waste a lot of time, attention, and ammo during the experience botching my mag changes, draws, etc. I want my basic gun-handling to at least be competent so that I can focus on the shooting and pick up what I don't know (and need to improve going forward).

In other words, I have so many basic weak or nonexistent skills that I don't need match experience to know I need to work on.

Steve - That's the plan, to practice those skills in dry-fire.

Flex - That's a very interesting observation about personalities in the sport that exhibit compulsive behaviors. Do you mean compulsive with respect to training and competing, or unhealthy behaviors (e.g., addictions, nail-biting, etc.), or both? Do you think they are more common in our sport than in other sports or activities, and if yes, why?

Chris iliff - Yeah, I pretty much flipped out when I saw so many GMs (including Bill, who is pretty much an honorary GM) coming out of the woodwork. Thanks for the book suggestion and encouragement!

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Thanks so much, guys!

CocoBolo - Good for you re: the 10k steps a day!

Steve RA - Good question. "Gobbling" is my term for what most therapists would term compulsive eating disorder. It's been a part of my life for over 11 years, and while I (like anyone who gobbles 10,000+ calories in a sitting, many times a week) do gain weight, I've never been overweight even at my heaviest. But apparently you don't need to be overweight for your blood sugars to be really imbalanced and put you at risk for all sorts of apocalyptic medical consequences.

Hi-Power Jack -- You might be right about GM being unattainable for most people, or for most women, or for me in particular, but the only way for me to find out is to assume it's possible and try. At the least, I will have fun, learn something, and make great friends in the process.

pjb45 - I agree re: skill at classifiers translating to matches. The whole classifier system reminds me of the standardized testing system for getting into college. You can (and many do) spend tons of time and money practicing the question types that appear on the SAT without getting much smarter in the process.

And, thanks for the recommendations!

Ben - Thanks!!

[Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?]

Like a lot of people, I want to do great things but fight my inertia constantly. (Does anybody else think, I bet Dave Sevigny wouldn't be checking Facebook right now, and then do it anyway? I do that about 100 times a day. ) I'm hoping that keeping a range diary will help me to practice more, so that I will have something to update regularly.

A bit of background: My name is Esther, I am 29 and a half and a GSB* dropout. I got really into pistol shooting after leaving business school in October 2012. (Technically I'm on medical leave, but I don't plan to go back.) I had gotten really sick from an eating disorder** and diabetes, and one of the things you are supposed to do to get better is work on mindfulness. I remembered from Brian's book that he talks a lot about mindfulness and attention, so I took my CZ and started practicing at the range.

To my great surprise, shooting became a huge part of my long, slow, and frustrating journey towards healing. (Case in point: I practiced with my par timer for the first time several nights ago when I was feeling gobbly and needed the "beep" to help me refocus.)

I am training for my first competition, and there are a ton of things that I need to practice. Mag changes, draws, indexing on multiple targets, movement...

Which is easier - overcoming gobbling or making GM? I'm really hoping the latter. I can't imagine anything being nearly as hard as healing from gobbling. But we'll find out.

Esther

* GSB = Stanford's Graduate School of Business

** I'm never sure what to call it - a habit? compulsive behavior? addiction? I debated a long time before posting this. But I want to write about it eventually, and maybe my notes in the process will be helpful to someone (even if that's just me! :-)).

[Growth mindset and shooting]

Donovan - Nice to see you again. I haven't played enough sports that require hand-eye coordination to know, but my guess is that like in most activities, talent matters, but effort and determination alone will get you surprisingly far.

DHTampa - I haven't read Gladwell's book, but I've read a lot of Ericsson's research on expertise, which (from what I understand) a lot of Gladwell's content is based on, including the oft-cited figure of 10,000 hours. My senior thesis was on whether and to what extent Ericsson's theory of deliberate practice can be applied to less defined fields. (Much of the research on focused, attentive, sustained practice leading to dramatic results is based on studies of fields in which success and improvement are fairly well-defined - for example, chess, sports, musical playing (as opposed to composition), etc.). I was curious how the model would translate to more creative, amorphous fields such as art.

Since then, there's been a ton of literature on developing creativity (e.g., Ted Pink), which I haven't followed as closely.

Steve - Good point re: things being easier when you don't know they're "supposed" to be hard. And thanks for reminding me to be careful of my self-image during development - I don't think it hurts for me to think, "I currently suck," because it's obviously true and just a starting position. But I catch myself thinking all the time, "I am a [fairly] accurate but super slow shooter," and that is much worse.

a matt - Nice!

[Growth mindset and shooting]

I read in Carol Dweck's work that when kids read stories about geniuses who were "born" that way, they give up faster when they encounter a hard problem. They think, "I must not be talented, so I might as well give up."

In contrast, reading about people who were not "naturals" but did great things anyway through effort and persistence inspires kids to try their hardest and not give up. They learn to value effort and perseverance over raw talent, and as they try their hardest and smartest over time, their hard work starts to look a lot like talent.

I think this forum is so cool because you see examples left and right of people who weren't "naturals," but through intelligent effort and determination became/are becoming amazing shooters. Brian comes to mind, but there are many others.

It gives me hope that even though my slow and smooth mag changes take 3 seconds (i.e., I currently suck ), that's just a point on my position function and I can get really good over time if I try.