Calamity Jane

OK...it's the day before the match. My bed is full of equipment. I'm hunting around looking for stuff...taking stuff off of other stuff so I can put my gear together for a 3 gun match tomorrow. This wouldn't be so bad if I were preparing for just myself...but NO I'm also trying to equip my son so we can go shoot together. OH MY GOODNESS!!! I've got guns, bags, ammo, magazines...OMG!!!! I'm wearing myself out just getting ready to shoot! Boys, this is no pistol match preparation! It's 3 times the fun with 3 times the preparation!!!!! So my hat goes off to all those husbands...dads...and the few moms out there who take care of and provide the gear to participate in an awesome sport that uses a lot of stuff! Well done!! It truly is a pain in the XXX to get ready...but it is always worth it. Thank you for those who do it! Now that I'm walking in your shoes...I really appreciate you! Perhaps I should go tell my husband that and thank him for all the times he has prepared me to shoot pistols!

Thanks everyone. We used the air soft gun, no magazine, taped the orange around the barrel. The good news is although the scene has the girl putting the gun to her head...she doesn't pull the trigger...she chooses life instead.

I'm involved in a drama this weekend that protrays teenage suicide. The drama coordinator(who is NOT me) at first used a REAL GUN unloaded to do this scene. OK for me that is totally WRONG and offensive to all gun handling rules. So I'm looking for a solution to keep the scene "real" but not offend the general gun handling public. So I took our air soft pistol, took the magazine out, and taped the oragne barrel tip with black masking tape. It looks real and is safe. The concern is...is this still a breech of gun handling protocol. Do I let the oragne show or not? We have a house divided on this issue. Curious about others opinions and perceptions..

Well this has been a historic weekend for the Ball Family. My 16 yr old got his driver's license My 14 yr old shaved for the first time And I broke the 2.0 second bill drill barrier I did a 1.96 Break down looks like this: 1.12 Draw .17 .17 .16 .17 .17 I knew I was close to breaking this a couple weeks ago when I did time trials. I was doing 2.0's easy squeasy but each time I would dip under (1.87-1.94) I would throw one shot. Next goal with the Bill drill is to break 1.90 The plan to do that is to get a good 1.0 second draw at 7yd. I've got a 1.0 second draw at 7 but it's not consistent and comfy yet. It's real comfy in dry fire but the work in dry fire hasn't yet translated to live fire. I need more live rounds down range and then I think the benefit of my dry fire work will translate into my live fire. I've waited 2 years to make this post. Now that I've accomplished it...it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. On to more doing....I hope I get to post again soon

To me, more and more, the point is in the doing. I feel cleaner at the end of the day. be And the doing is done without judgement, boundries, expectations, etc.... Just be... Just do... Just experience... Let go.... Let what is....define itself Speaking of doing....I'm done talking. I've got it straight in my head and that's what really matters.

What happens when comparison leads to feeling superior? Pride. I'm trying to avoid pride. Pride is self limiting. When I say "trying to avoid"...that means I'm dealing with a spiritual/mental/emotional strategy to keep myself from pride. It's not wishful thinking...it has an action plan attached to it.

What if we looked at ourselves like we look at the shot. Quite minds, no judgement, just seeing what actually is and accepting it. The no judgement part is the hardest for me. The moment I judge or compare is the same moment I stagnate my growth of becoming who I am. I'm trying really hard to avoid that. I don't want any bookends on my becoming

I've been training. I did some time trial stuff and compared it to last year's data. The verdict....I'm a better shooter than I was this time last year The itch to ask others what they can do so that I can compare my times with theirs is pretty strong. I'm fighting that temptation because I know what others can do has nothing to do with me. To compare myself with others is limiting. Time is limiting. Let go of time. Keep shooting. Keep training. Let the shooting define itself. Don't try to define the shooting. Sorry...that is my mantra to keep me on track

I'm thrilled at your news CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

I thought the same thing but couldn't remember where I had heard or read it. Thanks for the reminder. I also think that feeling involves ALL senses that YOU possess. If you have two equally skilled masters and one is blind, who do you think is going to win the competition? Yes, the blind master is capable of winning, maybe even beating an equally skilled master on occassion. But, he is down one of his very important senses and wouldn't stand a chance over the long haul. I am a feeler and perform my best when just doing that. I use the thinker side to do my stage planning. I use every sense at my disposal to capture my feelings. To answer the original question, "What if feeling is more important than seeing?" Well then one could say, if one was a "feeler",... yes, it is more important. Basically since "Feeling" is your MOJO and sight is just "one" of your five senses and not all of them, then "Feeling would be more important than sight." On the other hand I don't see too many blind people relying on "feelings" winning much of anything in any sport. Calamity just dryfire, practice a couple of weaknesses and kick my butt again at State. Wasting too much time on the Zen and not enough time on the shooting. Respectfully IMHO Thanks so much for your advice and opinion Chris. I will most definitely keep it in mind as I continue to train. I wanted to share more of my journey but I'm beginning to see that's not going to be possible. Let the show up, shut up and shoot year of 2009 begin NOW! I'm headed to the range now for the first live fire of 2009....there will be blind folds involved....too bad you all won't get to know what happened.

Interesting developments at the "Y" today. One of the techniques I'm using to train proprioception and kinesthetic awareness is to do things with my eyes closed. Today at the Y while on the treadmill...I closed my eyes. Very interesting. When I closed my eyes and allowed myself to see nothing...just blackness...I practically would fall off the treadmill....my balance was a mess. So while my eyes were open, I looked at a fixed point on the treadmill and then observed what that looked like as I walked. Then I closed my eyes and continued to visualize that picture in my mind...and viola....my balance was better and I wasn't falling off the treadmill. SO...my balance was still dependant on sight even though my eyes were closed. I'm going to stop there...because I don't want to over analyze...over think...ruin what I've experienced today But I did learn some stuff today that I think is going to be useful. I'm learning through experience that sight and feeling may not be able to be separated...and that one is not more important than the other. Yeah yeah yeah...it's all awareness...I know...what I'm trying to figure out is how to train it. More experiments to come...

I have found the practice LEADS to all the good stuff...like trust and letting go.

The little voice says.....I'm going to train my proprioception and kinesthetic awareness. There is something there that connects with me and I'm going to explore it further. I've got a list of weird stuff I want to try out in training. It's going to be fun. I'm a ENTJ which I think means (Extrovert, intuitive, thinker, judge) The characteristics are: hearty, frank, decisive, leaders in activities. May appear more confident than their experience warrants. That's SO me

I'm marinading your words in my mind. Those words were meant to "enrich and tenderize". I just need a little time to let that soak in. We're just getting warmed up. I've got more to say Need to think some things through a little bit.

Here is a picture of my stage winning Nationals medal. A big thank you to Tony for bringing it to me!

Here is a picture of my 200 yard shot with the Remington 700 rifle. I shot 3 shots with one of them right in the center of the A.

Here's another example... I shot 3 targets at Nationals without a scope (no lens in the c-more)...one target at around 15 yards and the other 2 at 7 yards with no shoots covering half of them...got all my hits. That was not shooting by sight. What was that? Where was I shooting from? Was I shooting from body awareness? OK maybe it was just luck. But what if I was shooting from a place that transcended sight? Does that place exist? Which leads me back to the question....what is beyond sight? We need sight...but what's beyond it? Am I dancing around the concept of "knowing"??? Is that what I'm lurking about for? Is that what I'm trying to understand? Is "knowing" what is beyond sight and body awareness?

Or perhaps you're ignoring that we've already explored the area "out of the box" and come back into it, cause its what works... OK..perhaps this may be an exercise in "the grass is always greener on the other side" But since you know I'm at home on a snow day with nothing else to do but think...I'm going to continue to question. Let's say: Step one....a quiet mind Step two....seeing Step three....astue body awareness (which comes from a boat load of training) Step four.....what's next??? What's beyond that? Is there more power to be tapped into beyond that? What about my spirit...my intuition? How does that apply to shooting? "I walk by faith not by sight" that's my spiritual orientation....how does that fit into shooting? Could that fit into shooting? Let me try to be more concrete in thought. I do mag changes pretty well. When Cheely was here teaching a class he questioned me, "Are you even looking at that reload?" And the answer is "yes" I do look at the mag change BUT I don't change a mag by seeing. My mind is blank, my eyes are on the mag well but I don't have any conscious thought of seeing what I'm seeing, my body is tuned to perform the task without any direction what so ever from my brain. I don't think it, I don't see it, I just do it. I think this may be the closest I have come to the "knowing" concept that Flex and Brian have talked about...but then again....I don't know what I know and what I don't know. Oh MY I'm having a wonderfully mentally exhausting day. I've need this!!! I'm going to add....you can't do a task without some sort of mental instruction and in this case it is all happening in the sub conscious....but the EXPERIENCE is one of total just doing with nothing else clouding it. That's the way I want to shoot a course of fire and I think one day I will be able to. I've gotten little taste of what that is like. I'm looking for when the little taste of it becomes the main meal. Each year I get closer to it.

XRE...I'm not saying you can only shoot with physical awareness. OFCOURSE seeing is important! Duh! No one seems willing to step out of the box and explore the possibilities. In shooting we rely, talk about, focus on the aspect of SEEING. I'm trying to get out of that box mentally and physically to see what else is out there. What is beyond seeing? Brian...I'm begging you to chime in. I have a hunch you know where I'm at on my path.

Yep...physical awareness is what I'm refining. My question is....and one I will take to the range and experiment with is... What if one "amped" up their physical awareness to a point where it almost dominated their visual awareness? Also..it has been said that female brains are more intuitive than male brains. What if a woman "amped" up that intuitiveness as applied to shooting? My physical awareness and intuition may be stronger than my visual awareness...what would happen if I allowed myself to shoot from that strength?? This goes along the experimental "letting go" path I am on Oh my goodness...it just came to me....WE HAVE A KNOWING! Remember the trying, trusting, knowing thing. Women have a built in knowing!! Somehow I don't think Flex and Brian are going to let me get away with that statement!

I'm on an unusual path that I suspect is not well traveled. I've closed down my range diary, let go of all external goals, to embrace a quest of exploration into how far I can let go when shooting a gun. Oddly, that has taken me to training in the dark. I didn't intellectually decide to train in the dark...it just sort of happened and feels right. I've been dry firing with my open gun, in the dark, in front of a large mirror. The lessons there have been rewarding to me. One of the things I realized last night is that I can feel and execute the draw better in the dark, with my eyes closed than with my eyes open. What is really cool is...I don't even have to open my eyes to know if my draw was "spot on". When I'm "on" the red dot of the scope reflects onto my eyelid and I can feel/sense/see it without opening my eyes. After discovering how well I could execute upstairs in the dark with eyes closed...I went to my basement dry fire range and practiced some 20 yd draws with eyes open and eyes closed. Again..with my eyes closed I was more accurate and smooth...no need to correct the dot at all. SOOOO...what if vision in itself is limiting? What if I've been short changing my shooting experience by not being totally tuned in to feeling? Interesting..... Ofcourse we have to see! But what if there is something out there that most of us are not tapped into? What if there is an awareness above sight? I think there might be and I'm going to continue to explore it. I think it might be possible to shoot with "the force" I'm half joking and half serious. I'm interacting with something in my training...that I don't know exactly what it is or what it means...but I know it's powerful. I'm hoping some of you Zen minded people will know what I'm talking about!

Yep...I knew I couldn't be the only one. Thanks for the validation.

"J" Motion ? What letter of the alphabet would you describe the motion of the gun meeting the left hand and then moving forward to the target. The letter "L" is to abrupt...it's more smooth like a "J". You're just messing with me right???

I wasn't really being fair in my first post. I didn't tell you what I learned from the experience. One of the things that I want to improve is the movement from where I put my left hand onto the gun and then press out towards the target. The 'J" motion. Dry firing in the dark allows me to really see what is going on with the dot at the J point. I also did reloads in the dark. I do this skill pretty well in the dark. Taking the lights out also lets me feel more. By taking my sight away I'm more in tune with the motion of my body. I'm drawing and indexing by feel. It's hard for me to believe that I've stumbled onto a training technique that someone else hasn't thought of. I'm sure there are others who have tried this technique. I don't know if it is a valid technique but it's teaching me a few things and that's all that really matters.

I like to sometimes dry fire in front of our large master bathroom mirror. The other night I went upstairs to do so with my OPEN gun and went into the bathroom but did not turn on the light. I had my dot on because I was doing some other dry fire work downstairs before I came upstairs. I stepped into the dark bathroom and saw the glow of the dot in the mirror and said to myself, "I wonder if I can dry fire in the pitch black dark?" SOOO I shut the door behind me to keep all the light out and did it. Interesting stuff. The dark takes everything out BUT the dot. There is no distraction of anything only the dot. That's the cool part. I just did my draws and watched, observed, and then thought about what I was seeing and what I could learn from it. Anyway....has anyone else tried this out? What did you learn?