Trying to shoot like you dont care.

[benos]

This past Sunday I shot a local, low-dollar 3-gun match.....nothing special. On the drive there I told myself this is just a practice session, no goals other than to get some range time. Well, turned in one of my best performances. In fact, some stages turned out to be on autopilot....didn't have to think about what I had to do. Took the time to get the points. Didn't try to win a stage, but did a top 3 overall.

Now, to remember the feeling an revisit it at the next match. It felt good.

Nice work!

Note that what you thought about prior to shooting is what allowed the good stuff to come out.

be

[Sam]

This is one of those deals where my "caring" usually means my caring about outcomes. I must care instead about the shot of the present. This is the only thing that can truly effect my final outcome. When we allow our attention to drift to the scores that will be posted later, we drift away from the beauty of the present moment and the necessity of the task at hand. We all do this to some degree, whether we realize it or not. The resolve to remain present is the most valuable thing.

[9mmalpha]

Fast forward to the last match of the year. My wife is now shooting I spent most of the time helping her. I didnt even do my own walk throughs just helped her. I didnt care how I shot, heck I didnt even have a plan. I came in first over all. yes it was only a local match but there was 1 Master, 3 A's and 5 other B's most of who usually smoke me.

Are you sure your wife did not actually make the course of fire plans for you???? why I have the feeling that she is smarter than you...

actually my personal experience is that , just before the match if my wife permits me to shoot I normally do Great. If she doesnt I perform my worst I thinks she's cursing me while I shoot. Im still working on Mental game. / I observe Todd Jarret last year first time I watch the superquad shoot. what I notice is that " He will walkthough once then will just chat to other shooter like he dont really care about the match". and thats the same thing I saw with most of the supersquad.

Edited January 20, 2011 by 9mmalpha

[chefcs5]

Are you sure your wife did not actually make the course of fire plans for you???? why I have the feeling that she is smarter than you...

actually my personal experience is that , just before the match if my wife permits me to shoot I normally do Great. If she doesnt I perform my worst I thinks she's cursing me while I shoot. Im still working on Mental game. / I observe Todd Jarret last year first time I watch the superquad shoot. what I notice is that " He will walkthough once then will just chat to other shooter like he dont really care about the match". and thats the same thing I saw with most of the supersquad.

Well it was her first non local match and only her 2nd atch ever. I was shooting lim and she was production so I was talking about where to do her reloads and order and all that. I didnt follow the plan laid out for her as I didnt reload every 10 and I took longer shots than she would have so I dont know.lol but when she isnt pissy at me before I leave for a match that usually helps also..lol

[walsh]

GOLF and SHOOTING...my thoughts on the same mindset.

Other than shooting in matches at the club I belong to (PPC) I am just starting to do drills alone at our indoor range for a few months now to start in competitions where moving and shooting are involved.

We held a National Bullseye Match last year and there was a clinic at 6 PM. I brought three guns and ammo. I found out I was to secure them out on the range as this was a classroom setting that included 5 soldiers on a US Army shooting team who had competed. Just one of them spoke to the class.

There were about 8 guys up there who spoke and questions were answered pretty much whenever you weren't breaking the speaker's immediate point. Halfway through I asked which of them played golf and who always broke 80 when they did. They all did. You could have substituted this class for a presentation of the mental game of golf. The last shot didn't matter, the next shot didn't matter, only the round in the chamber mattered. And if it was a stage where you didn't feel right and could start again, you do so as not feeling right is because something isn't right. All of them said they dry fired, but not enough. So I have picked up Steve Andersen's book.

As a complete novice I suspect hitting "The Zone" is doing what you have practiced and believe you can do. Pete Maravich lived in that zone as did Michael Jordan, to name a few. If you are at a driving range you might hit fifty 7 irons within 30 feet of each other from a bag. Easy as can be at the range. If you think about that lake in front of the green when you get out there, without the benefit of a bag of balls to try again if you miss, that lake is your target.

I got to play golf once with Johnny Miller. For those who don't golf, I think he was 23 when he won 7 PGA Tour events in one year, including the unheard of final round 63 at Oakmont. He had a number of key swing thoughts he used depending on how he felt he was swinging and limited it to one or perhaps two when he hit a shot. He visualized the shot working, no matter how how hard, as he had practiced ever shot conceivable. I shot 75 and he shot 67. In college my handicap was between +2 and -2. But the distance between 72 and 67 is ten times harder to breech than the distance between 77 and 72. I played really well while a few puts that just missed could have made his round a 64 or a 63. He said he focused on what he had to do "NOW", which of course, like chess, included the decision of where he wanted to be for his next shot. Included were to know where to miss what he wanted to do, and where he would like to be. Golfer here will know that if the pin is on the right you aren't aiming right of the green to draw the ball in. You are aiming for the center and fading it into the pin. I don't have any experience to add how that might work in shooting, but it probably does in some situations. He said his mental process was, "You make a decision and you live with the results. Thinking and being undecided while engaged in movement causes confusion on all levels". On a hole with out-of-bounds on the right and a lake on the left he told us that Jack Nicklaus was the player he was for so long because all he saw was 20 yds of landing area at 300 yards. Nicklaus dethroned Arnie. And he was hated for years for having done so. But he was probably the player at the top for so long as he was the one most able to focus on what he had to do at that moment in time and not sweat the details. They said of Ray Floyd in major championships, he would get "That Look", in his eyes in the final round when a few shots behind and you just knew that day he was coming after the leader. Here was a guy who partied heavily and who had a strange swing due to his arms being short and his stomach being large. He also didn't sweat the details. The sweat came from hundred of thousands of range balls that had ingrained ability into all top players neuro-psyche make-up. I suspect that the more anyone thinks in any endeavor, the more they are unsure of what needed to be worked out in practice. I just wish ammo was as cheap as your own range bals and could be shot again.

I bought Brian's Book as well as "With Winning in Mind". I also used to study the mental game of golf when books started to come out and they helped quite a bit as well as having a visualization tape made for golf with a sports psychologist. I really don't see much of a difference between both books and Dr. Bob Rotella, who is the author on a number of books on prepping the mind for golf. It seems like in any endeavor if you are thinking too much you haven't practiced as much as you feel you should have. You can also go outside your comfort zone and self-destruct. Ask En Snead who suddenly realized he was three holes away from winning The Masters. He began Sunday's round with a 5-stroke lead. He had a 3-stroke lead with three holes to play but bogied them all and lost to Fuzzy Zoeller in a playoff.

The more I study shooting as I try to gear up for competing, the more it reminds me of golf.

Walsh

[benos]

Thanks for the informative post Walsh.

Back when I was on the learning curve (in the early to mid-80's), there were no books on IPSC-type shooting, so I read any golf book or magazine I could find that disucsssed the mental game.

My favorite was On Learning Golf by Percy Boomer (it's been out of print for years, but with today's resources on the interweb, it might be out there).

be

[walsh]

Thanks for the informative post Walsh.

Back when I was on the learning curve (in the early to mid-80's), there were no books on IPSC-type shooting, so I read any golf book or magazine I could find that disucsssed the mental game.

My favorite was On Learning Golf by Percy Boomer (it's been out of print for years, but with today's resources on the interweb, it might be out there).

be

Hi Brian,

That's fascinating that you picked up golf books! A friend of mine who competes in as many national tournaments as he can at Master level thought your book was a bit esoteric. I told him not if he was a solid golfer and had read books on managing oneself while competing. So that explains it. I'll have to tell him what you did.

I just checked Amazon and it's back in print. I don't recall it as when I started playing in 1968 the only book store near me was a library. When Jack Nicklaus came out with "Golf My Way" (1974) I had already been taking lessons from Jim Albus, who was a top club pro and teacher in the NYC area and he won $6.5 million on the Sr. Tour. None of us ever discussed the mental game then. It was all strategy and technique, which Nicklaus says is different for everyone except in one aspect...IMPACT. I know from playing competitively and knowing how to teach fairly well by analyzing a swing, that everyone who hits the ball dead-solid-perfect is in the same position at impact. And I know from then with my own swing there were a few times in a round where at the very top of my swing I already knew the shot was perfect as there was an elusive feel when the slot you were in of body parts screamed OH BABY!. Ben Hogan said it's a game of miss-hits as he might hit 5 shots a round the way he wanted to. And if you remember the swing of "Mr X" (Miller Barber) you know that his swing is akin to having the sights lined up perfectly when he pulled the trigger. Before that, he was a mess! But he won a fair number of PGA events. Even though I bet many back then couldn't verbalize it, the top players knew the game was between their ears once they had repeatable fundamentals worked out.

Click "First Pages" and you'll find an interesting read from Nicklaus on not getting hung-up on pure fundamentals:

Nicklaus: "Golf My Way"

Walsh

P.S. As was said in the movie "Caddie Shack", it all comes down to "Be the ball". Joe Montana was, IMO, "Mr. Clutch". Give him 3 minutes and 90 yards of field against him in a crucial game and he hit "the zone". I suspect when you were competing that the times spent there were the times you knew the results before you even hit the sights as everything coming up to that moment allowed for it. It's just the way athletic endeavors seem to work. BTW, as others have said, but I'm new, great book you wrote.

[benos]

Thanks for the link to Jack's book; it's one I have not read.

I liked his boil-down to "Impact." For a shooter the equivalent would be having the sights lined up on the target when the shot fired. That's what matters. Everything else, technique-wise, just assists with that.

be

[flack jacket]

GOLF and SHOOTING...my thoughts on the same mindset.

Other than shooting in matches at the club I belong to (PPC) I am just starting to do drills alone at our indoor range for a few months now to start in competitions where moving and shooting are involved.

We held a National Bullseye Match last year and there was a clinic at 6 PM. I brought three guns and ammo. I found out I was to secure them out on the range as this was a classroom setting that included 5 soldiers on a US Army shooting team who had competed. Just one of them spoke to the class.

There were about 8 guys up there who spoke and questions were answered pretty much whenever you weren't breaking the speaker's immediate point. Halfway through I asked which of them played golf and who always broke 80 when they did. They all did. You could have substituted this class for a presentation of the mental game of golf. The last shot didn't matter, the next shot didn't matter, only the round in the chamber mattered. And if it was a stage where you didn't feel right and could start again, you do so as not feeling right is because something isn't right. All of them said they dry fired, but not enough. So I have picked up Steve Andersen's book.

As a complete novice I suspect hitting "The Zone" is doing what you have practiced and believe you can do. Pete Maravich lived in that zone as did Michael Jordan, to name a few. If you are at a driving range you might hit fifty 7 irons within 30 feet of each other from a bag. Easy as can be at the range. If you think about that lake in front of the green when you get out there, without the benefit of a bag of balls to try again if you miss, that lake is your target.

I got to play golf once with Johnny Miller. For those who don't golf, I think he was 23 when he won 7 PGA Tour events in one year, including the unheard of final round 63 at Oakmont. He had a number of key swing thoughts he used depending on how he felt he was swinging and limited it to one or perhaps two when he hit a shot. He visualized the shot working, no matter how how hard, as he had practiced ever shot conceivable. I shot 75 and he shot 67. In college my handicap was between +2 and -2. But the distance between 72 and 67 is ten times harder to breech than the distance between 77 and 72. I played really well while a few puts that just missed could have made his round a 64 or a 63. He said he focused on what he had to do "NOW", which of course, like chess, included the decision of where he wanted to be for his next shot. Included were to know where to miss what he wanted to do, and where he would like to be. Golfer here will know that if the pin is on the right you aren't aiming right of the green to draw the ball in. You are aiming for the center and fading it into the pin. I don't have any experience to add how that might work in shooting, but it probably does in some situations. He said his mental process was, "You make a decision and you live with the results. Thinking and being undecided while engaged in movement causes confusion on all levels". On a hole with out-of-bounds on the right and a lake on the left he told us that Jack Nicklaus was the player he was for so long because all he saw was 20 yds of landing area at 300 yards. Nicklaus dethroned Arnie. And he was hated for years for having done so. But he was probably the player at the top for so long as he was the one most able to focus on what he had to do at that moment in time and not sweat the details. They said of Ray Floyd in major championships, he would get "That Look", in his eyes in the final round when a few shots behind and you just knew that day he was coming after the leader. Here was a guy who partied heavily and who had a strange swing due to his arms being short and his stomach being large. He also didn't sweat the details. The sweat came from hundred of thousands of range balls that had ingrained ability into all top players neuro-psyche make-up. I suspect that the more anyone thinks in any endeavor, the more they are unsure of what needed to be worked out in practice. I just wish ammo was as cheap as your own range bals and could be shot again.

I bought Brian's Book as well as "With Winning in Mind". I also used to study the mental game of golf when books started to come out and they helped quite a bit as well as having a visualization tape made for golf with a sports psychologist. I really don't see much of a difference between both books and Dr. Bob Rotella, who is the author on a number of books on prepping the mind for golf. It seems like in any endeavor if you are thinking too much you haven't practiced as much as you feel you should have. You can also go outside your comfort zone and self-destruct. Ask En Snead who suddenly realized he was three holes away from winning The Masters. He began Sunday's round with a 5-stroke lead. He had a 3-stroke lead with three holes to play but bogied them all and lost to Fuzzy Zoeller in a playoff.

The more I study shooting as I try to gear up for competing, the more it reminds me of golf.

Walsh

Amen! I believe you nailed it on the head! As a golfer, it's the exact mental preparation.

I also use the analogy of the Martial arts. Study, practice (forms/katas/dry fire) Match day is the competition/sparring.

Edited April 6, 2011 by flack jacket

[want2race]

My best stages have been shot while thinking 3 steps ahead of where I'm at. This reduced the "thinking" about shooting. The shooting was all automatic, I was focusing on staying on my plan. Some of the stages at Alabama were very lengthy, difficult stages. If the shot required a more precise sight picture, that was in my plan. My best split times were all autopilot shots. I'm sure I had a good sight picture but my plan included shooting "that target" fast, or "that target" with precision. Immediately after the stage I had no concrete memory of anything specific about the stage. On the fast targets I pulled splits I could never do when trying to go fast. Trigger freeze is the result when I "try".

I almost want to get a hat cam so I know what it looks like to shoot a stage.

[Chris Keen]

Wave your hands in the air ..... like you just don't care!

Oh wait, wrong forum.

I almost want to get a hat cam so I know what it looks like to shoot a stage.

I've been thinking the same thing lately Shaun.

[CHA-LEE]

I think its impossible to "Not Care" and actually do well consistently. I do think its possible to Care a lot about the things that really matter at any one given time but not get wrapped around the axel on things you shouldn't be worried about in that particular moment. For example, when I shoot my best I only "Care" about the present tense. What is happening RIGHT NOW is all I care about. This could be many things, such as calling a shot, acquiring the next target post shot, looking the mag into magwell of my gun during a reload, or pushing of hard with my trailing leg so I can get going to the next shooting position. All of these things are very important to focus on individually when they are happening but would be NO good if I worry about them before their time is due. If I am thinking about a tuff shot that is in the middle of the stage but I am still at the start of the stage I am not able to focus on what I am doing RIGHT NOW. A lot of this revolves around trying to match another shooters performance from a time perspective. For example, shooter "A" sees shooter "B" burn down a stage in 10 seconds. Now shooter "A" is focused on achieving a 10 second or better stage time and injects unneeded rushing into their performance because they feel that they have to finish the stage in a predetermined "Fast" time in order to beat shooter "B". Shooter A is too busy thinking about the end result stage time and allows themselves to degrade their focus and fundamentals because they are blinded by the end goal of a fast stage time. Then shooter "B" watches shooter "A" tank the stage smiles

Ron Avery summed this thought process up well when he told me "Focus only on the present tense when you are shooting. Don't allow yourself to lose present tense focus by shifting your thoughts towards a possible future outcome".

[KyroWebs]

There's a difference between 100% focus and "not caring." Just focus on the task at hand "the stage," and shoot it....now do it again for the next stage and so on. IMHO, if you don't care how you shoot, then you won't be able to give it 100% focus.

I've seen you shoot Chris, and if you'd ask me it's your mental game that needs work. It's hard to be focused when you're the MD for the day and have all sorts of other thoughts cluttering your head. You're always the person to make sure others at the club enjoy their day....and the last person to squad up and start shooting. (Which speaks tremendously of our character BTW!) Now that you have several other people willing to step up to help run the matches at your club, I think this year will be the year you find who you are as a shooter.

Next time you get the chance at a match, spend a little extra time during your walkthrough and burn into your head your plan. Visualize it several times before you it's your turn to shoot. Then when you are up, turn on autopilot and shoot it just as you visualized. To me, not caring means not caring how you do against other shooters. It does not mean not caring how YOU shoot!

[downrange72]

I'm still searching for that "zen" moment. I know my accuracy is decent, but I'm still fighting the buzzer. I can walk the stage with my eyes closed, however something always goes awry. I see the steel falling with one shot, but inevitably I'll throw 2-3 shots at it. When I "stop" and realized that I am snapping my eyes before i break the shot, then boom, steal falls down. I still tend to get in my own way during a stage. I'm working on positive reinforcement and "relaxing" before the buzzer goes off. Iam no longer focusing on how slow the stage is, but on what I did well. If the stage happens to be a disaster, oh well there is another stage, or there is next weekend. I'm taking baby steps and slowly becoming a more positive shooter. I have a few training sessions scheduled in the next 3 weeks that will hopefully get me to that "zen" moment.

When I try to push it, it is a disaster. I will have several mikes. If I stay within myself, the accuracy is pretty good, but the times are much to be desired. The happy medium will come. I just need to get in some quality practice each week and break the mental glue that oozes out when the buzzer goes off.

[benos]

I'm still searching for that "zen" moment. I know my accuracy is decent, but I'm still fighting the buzzer. I can walk the stage with my eyes closed, however something always goes awry. I see the steel falling with one shot, but inevitably I'll throw 2-3 shots at it. When I "stop" and realized that I am snapping my eyes before i break the shot, then boom, steal falls down. I still tend to get in my own way during a stage. I'm working on positive reinforcement and "relaxing" before the buzzer goes off. Iam no longer focusing on how slow the stage is, but on what I did well. If the stage happens to be a disaster, oh well there is another stage, or there is next weekend. I'm taking baby steps and slowly becoming a more positive shooter. I have a few training sessions scheduled in the next 3 weeks that will hopefully get me to that "zen" moment.

When I try to push it, it is a disaster. I will have several mikes. If I stay within myself, the accuracy is pretty good, but the times are much to be desired. The happy medium will come. I just need to get in some quality practice each week and break the mental glue that oozes out when the buzzer goes off.

If you haven't seen it, The Set Topic might help.

be

[downrange72]

I'm still searching for that "zen" moment. I know my accuracy is decent, but I'm still fighting the buzzer. I can walk the stage with my eyes closed, however something always goes awry. I see the steel falling with one shot, but inevitably I'll throw 2-3 shots at it. When I "stop" and realized that I am snapping my eyes before i break the shot, then boom, steal falls down. I still tend to get in my own way during a stage. I'm working on positive reinforcement and "relaxing" before the buzzer goes off. Iam no longer focusing on how slow the stage is, but on what I did well. If the stage happens to be a disaster, oh well there is another stage, or there is next weekend. I'm taking baby steps and slowly becoming a more positive shooter. I have a few training sessions scheduled in the next 3 weeks that will hopefully get me to that "zen" moment.

When I try to push it, it is a disaster. I will have several mikes. If I stay within myself, the accuracy is pretty good, but the times are much to be desired. The happy medium will come. I just need to get in some quality practice each week and break the mental glue that oozes out when the buzzer goes off.

If you haven't seen it, The Set Topic might help.

be

Thanks, I will check it out!

[lugnut]

Not caring is impossible... as some have posted. However, like some have said- caring ONLY about your plan and shooting to you ability (not pushing yourself) is what I'm constantly trying to do. I find it hard to even do that during practice with friends... as results mean a lot to me, even then.

I wonder how we(I) would do in a "match" if the range was completely empty except for us (me) and no one would ever see the results or shots.. including me....

[Supermoto]

I wonder how we(I) would do in a "match" if the range was completely empty except for us (me) and no one would ever see the results or shots.. including me....

it probably be easier for you to focus without people laughing in the background

But what fun would that be.

I care about how I shoot and my results, what other people think.. blah, blah. If I didn't I won't practice or compete. But my little brain can on focus on one thing after the buzzer goes off, that's my sight picture. When I don't focus on that, all the stuff I do care about goes bad.

[Chrome308]

I seem to be best when I'm intensely focused, but not concerned about failure or mistakes. If I can keep the next few moments of the stage at the back of my mind while I'm wrapping up the 'now', I'll tend to go faster and more efficiently.

Its not so much caring or not, but to react cooly and quickly to success OR failure, and not to dwell on either event when I really need to using brain cells being aware of what's coming in the stage 5 seconds from now. Still, I'd obviously prefer to succeed.

Sometimes I'll try redefine success as doing *one* specific thing well, match results be damned. When practicing, I do think 'caring' is involved. That level of processing is just sort of either-or with high-speed exercises. Caring is still important to the development process.

[brandrum]

Maybe you just need to figure out why you do care.?...

[Shawn Knight]

The not caring part comes for me when I shoot for the fun of it. I don't get money, prizes, or anything more than a little medal saying i did good from these matches but I must say that if I try to win I always fail. If I shoot like I just want to have fun or "See what i can do" then I alway do very well. For some people it is the focus on the win or points that drives them, others have that feeling of accomplishment(especially long or poor weather matches), but I think most of us just want to have fun negotiating the "problem" set up by the stage designer. I just want to have fun. I try stuff I have never even thought of before. One match I tried to shoot every target on the move and freakishly enough I had some really good scores. One local match was a hose fest and I tried to shoot as fast as I could make my Glock run and I did very well. It seems when I concentrate on doing well I seem to do poorly but when I try just having fun with the match I have fun and i do very well. I remeber one 22lr steel challenge match I wanted to see how fast I could go and I ended up with a 1.69sec run on Smoke and Hope! Other than that awesome run the match went very well for me because I thought to myself "its a 22 who cares if you win with a 22" and it worked I won the match.

[dchang0]

Kyrowebs put it really well.

It's basically a paradoxical challenge whereby you balance caring enough about each little action under your control and all the sensations in your body (focus) against not caring about the outcome (often not under your control).

The movie "Peaceful Warrior" based on the true story of gymnast Dan Millman explains this the best of anything I've read or seen. "Make the move about the move and not winning the gold," to paraphrase the entire movie in one sentence. The concept of the "warrior mindset" is that you DO care--it isn't just about having fun or goofing off. You DO strive to be the best you can be, to grow and improve as a shooter (or as a gymnast or golfer or human being, etc.). What you do is surrender the need to achieve specific outcomes.

I have tried all three approaches: having fun (not caring at all), caring about outcomes (and basically giving up partway through the match when faced with poor stages), and the "warrior mindset." Of these, the "warrior mindset" produces the greatest love for the sport and growth, as well as frequently producing better outcomes.

Plus, it's just a great way to live life. Most of us wander through life, barely there. How many of us shovel food in our mouths without tasting it because we're thinking about what we're going to do next, or drive to work and realize upon getting there that you don't remember actually driving there because you were too busy gabbing on the phone?

Edited December 3, 2011 by dchang0

[Sam]

Plus, it's just a great way to live life. Most of us wander through life, barely there. How many of us shovel food in our mouths without tasting it because we're thinking about what we're going to do next, or drive to work and realize upon getting there that you don't remember actually driving there because you were too busy gabbing on the phone?

+1!

[reichebrown]

I got my bump to SSP Master in IDPA at a match where I assumed i could not get bumped. There were not enough people in expert to get bumped so I just shot to have fun. It turned out that I beat enough Masters to get my bump. Its importent to have fun at a match for me but I also like doing well.

[sbcman]

Last Friday night I picked up a revolver (625). An IDPA match was scheduled Saturday morning and I originally had no intentions of shooting my new gun in it. But before bed, I practiced a few reloads and had so much fun dry-firing I thought "I'm going to run this tomorrow!"

The next morning I got a target up and loaded two moons for an accuracy check. All was well, so I packed up and headed to the match. The one thing I had on my mind was I had to slow my shots down, as I simply couldn't manage fast shooting in the same way I handle 38 special, which I normally ran. I was completely relaxed at the match. When I came to the line I noticed myself taking extra time to mentally check the COF one last time. I've only been shooting comps since August of 2011, but for the first time I think I realized what "being totally there" on each target meant.

Long story short, I shot the cleanest and fastest match I've ever ran. It didn't necessarily seem fast to me. Took a class and division win, as well as tenth overall out of 60. No one was more surprised than me! I wouldn't say I shot like I didn't care, because I did care. I just cared a different and, in retrospect, more productive way.

Plus, I didn't have to pick brass and speedloaders up all over the place- just a couple of joined clips