Trusting...your speed

[vluc]

a few quotes from our host:

The day (moment) I realized that I could shoot and A, and know I shot it, as fast as I could hit the target, changed my entire perspective.

But until you reach this realization on your own, you will try to slow down, try to go fast, try to call your shots, or try to calculate how fast you should shoot. And all this trying is not bad, because the struggle will eventually lead you to the ultimate realization of what it's all about. When you understand, the concept of speed will be one you will have nothing to do with.

be

Even though it may seem that DVC isn't equal, it really is. At some point you will figure out that in order to win major competitions, you have to shoot points. It doesn't matter where the targets are or what they look like, you still have to shoot points. LET YOUR POINTS DICTATE YOUR TIME. In time, you should know that you can shoot A's as fast as hits, on most targets. Where it's OK to drop a few points is only on targets where shooting the A box poses too big of risk factor. A high hit factor is just a high hit factor; a low hit factor is just a low hit factor. Don't make them different. Shoot points all the time, if you want to win.

[JFD]

This topic surely hits home with me.

"Trying" to shoot fast kills me, and is the one main thing that causes me to perform poorly at a match. It's rare I don't screw up the first stage due to this.

What's sad is that I can shoot our plate rack all day long, easily proving to myself that it's so much faster if I call my shots, even if it feels slow. Of course I still catch myself waaaaay too often trying to hose the plates down, resulting in horrible times. I do mean waaaaay too often. So often I start to wonder what's wrong with me.

I'm thinking I should stick with the plate rack until I defeat this stupid tendency of mine.

[Flexmoney]

Bear,

Nice post.

If I can play off you car example a bit...

Some shooter are the Nascar version...topping out at 220 and handling well.

Some shooters are the Corvette version...call that 160mph and give up a bit in handling.

Some shooters are a Pinto...or a beat-up old truck.

Any of them can go fast...fast enough to get in trouble.

Some days the the suspension and tires are just right, and the engine is roaring along like a beast. Other days...there is a puddle of oil and a few cylinders aren't firing.

But, whatever car you are in that day...it must be driven under control.

I especially like the "application" part of your post.

Cool.

[benos]

What is the practical difference between "no more, no less"? Is it one second?, 1/2 sec.?, 1/4 sec., one tenth?

In that quantum-like realm, where observation and response occur simultaneously, time, as we normally perceive it, vanishes. So I've given up logically trying to figure out how to get there. Instead, I learned to "create favorable conditions" for the time collapse to occur.

I can remember many of the best strings or stages I ever shot, and although of course they're different memories visually, every single one "feels" exactly the same. Every impeccable performance was characterized by a total and complete lack of any sort of trying whatsoever. The perception of passing time - gone. What remained was a state of total visual awareness harmonizing with activity. And I can remember a few times when this state occurred spontaneously, most often it was prefaced by a fairly involved "talking down." Stuff like - Try it, just this once, let what you see guide you... prove it to yourself... seeing is actually faster than not seeing, and yields better results as well... You'll find the targets quickly and effortlessly simply by visualizing the stage... looking right at the sights is best.

I don't know how many times I'd finish a string only to immediately realize - Whoa... I saw everything so clearly and precisely, it didn't feel "fast" at all, and the time was how fast?!

be

[Skywalker]

BE,

I know I (only once during all my shooting) experienced that particular state of mind you're describing.

It happened just after I had completely trashed a stage and got really spanked by the fellow RO for going real close to breaking the 180 several times.

On the next stage I was first to shoot, this, and probably anger with myself for previous crash, got me rid of all those usual thoughts I have before shooting a stage (I have to do this, I have to watch that, if this goes wrong I'll switch to plan B...).

I have tried to experience "the zone" several times, but have never been successful (yes, I know trying is worst thing to do...).

Would you mind to expand on what was your method or preparation to create the favourable conditions for this to happen?

[Bear1142]

Flex,

I totally agree. It's the poor application of our given speed that gets us into trouble. I'm playing with relaxing my "no more/no less" time frames. I find that building in some extra "float" time is helping to keep me more relaxed and not so anxious to constantly hit that perfect needle point of time on every engagement. A "+/-" window of tolorance is helping to keep my conscious mind out of the decision process. Although its tough to allow "flub" time when your striving to be a perfectionist.

BE,

Thanks for the comments. I've experienced that state of awareness a few times, but the "on demand" still eludes me. Too much stimulus combined with too many senses.

Erik

[benos]

Skywalker,

You really nailed it with the word "usual"! Problems are never far from our "usual" thoughts.

Creating favorable conditions is closely related to a topic I did some work on some time ago called "The Set." I can't remember the last time I posted it, so here it is...

The "last trick" I learned, which raised me to a higher and more consistent level, was to maintain a calm, aware state right through the buzzer, the draw stroke, and until I had the proper sight picture for the first shot. This state of awareness not only includes what I see mentally or visually, but how my body, mentally and physically, "feels" during that entire time. Maintaining total awareness during that one second or so is paramount for consistent success.

Maintaining conscious bodily awareness at the beginning prevents me from unconsciously rushing at the buzzer. Don't make any attempt to control anything during that time, simply remain aware.

Every planned detail, every form of control, should occur as you are mentally rehearsing exactly what you are going to do before you shoot. Then, silently maintaining a state conscious awareness allows your training, combined with your plan, to manifest as action. I call this "maintaining the set."

The Set

(I pasted this in from material I wrote some time ago for the new book. And please don't ask when it'll be done. A few of the topics from the sentence below are "stand alone" topics from other work, but you'll figure it out.)

A set gathers things together, in this case – your training, clear intent (the totality of your plan), capacity, confidence, trust, determination, decisiveness, and conscious attention.

This is probably the most difficult thing I have ever tried to explain.

The set is a state of mental alertness or mental awareness that allows all of the topics mentioned above to express themselves.

The more and more I shoot and rehearse for stages, the more and more attention I direct toward the actual state of mind that I’m going to have, the actual way I am going to feel, not only as I start the stage, but as I move throughout the stage. I direct more attention to that matter than I do the actual visualization of the mechanics of the stage itself. To me that set, that state of mind, is what actually allows those things to be carried out. How am I going to feel the seeing?

I visualize what I am going to do, but don’t dwell on it near as long as I used to. The bottom time is the set; it’s what allows everything to be expressed. It allows you to be able to fluidly shift your focus to every area that is needed to get the job done in the best fashion, but it is not a focus on that, per se. It’s a focus on clarity.

Different people may feel that clarity in different places, although I think you’ll normally feel it in one of two places, either the forehead or stomach areas. I feel it in the center of my forehead, about an inch above my eyes. I can produce that feeling in my forehead that instantly stops the entire thought process and turns my attention so highly onto attention itself that there is no room for thought. Some people feel it in their stomach in an area two or three inches below the navel.

It takes an extreme amount of attention to maintain that state. As soon as your attention slips from maintaining it, you will find thoughts are back and your internal dialogue is rolling, controlling, and limiting you.

The set is an aware monitoring of your mental and physical state. It is critical because, if you start from an aware, attentive state, in which your muscles are set just right to do the job at hand - perfectly, with no extra effort – then, by monitoring and maintaining your attention, you ensure you never go "up,” thereby losing your “center.” The set is a method to maintain your center throughout the stage and throughout the match. If you start out tense or rushing, it is very difficult to return yourself to a centered position while you are shooting. It is extremely difficult to do that; I have done it now and then, but it’s much easier to start from the proper frame of mind and then, by monitoring that, ensure that your mind doesn’t go anywhere else, ensure that you don’t create tension by unconsciously trying too hard.

As with many things, the best way to describe what something is, is to describe what it’s not. The set contains no feeling of effort or trying whatsoever. It is a very calm, very deliberate, very matter of fact mode of operation.

The set that you are feeling, is not only so much a feeling of awareness as it is a feeling of the whole attention level; the feeling of your mind and the feeling in your body. It is like a somatic, total body sensation of how you feel when you’re shooting. That feeling, that body feel, is learned in practice; the set is the feeling you have that encompasses all the feelings you have in your grip, arms, stomach, legs, mind, eyes and state of attention. It encompasses all those things into one body feeling. That total feeling is a lot easier to remember without using words than it is to try to think of a list of technical descriptions. When under pressure, no matter how big the strain is, the feeling of the set will not desert you like technical thoughts will. Thoughts are always a little behind the action. If you’re thinking your way through an act, you’ll notice your actions are "sticky."

I’ve had this experience many times and have talked to other shooters who also have had it, that upon completion of an extremely successful course of fire, you cannot remember what thoughts you had. It’s a natural tendency to want to think back and know what you did or what you were thinking to control such a good performance, but it’s that lack of thoughts that produces that lack of memory.

The lack of memory is the result of being in the set. By putting yourself in the most favorable condition to allow the ultimate expression of your capacity, that condition has very little to do with thought, so there is very little memory associated with it. So the bottom line really isn’t a bottom line; it’s that your attention always has to be attentive. It can never park itself in one place or get comfortable in one place, because that will only last for so long before the trick wears off.

The desire to remember what we were thinking as we were performing impeccably, when in fact there is nothing to remember, imposes a sense of uncertainty or fear in the mind. Enter trust. Through experience, we must learn to trust that if we maintain a state of conscious awareness and simply witness what is actually happening, the aforementioned topics will manifest themselves to your capacity.

A way that might help get into the whole feel of the set I’m describing would be if you were holding your pistol out in front of you and everything about your postition felt the most perfect, relaxed and neutral as possible, then direct your mind to absorb your body’s feeling. Feel that set of how you’re holding right there. That total body feel also includes your mental feel, the feel of "relaxed and hard" or of "moving quickly but not in a hurry," "matter of fact," whatever means the most to you. No words! The attention necessary to hold that feeling does not allow words to surface.

The set allows your intent to be expressed at it’s highest, most complete level. The memory of the feeling is so total that it cannot be broken down. As soon as you try to categorize any particular part of it, you make it so complex that you destroy any hope of spontaneously creating it in the present.

You can see how your will functions while performing actions in your everyday life; it’s subtle and it’s hidden, but it’s always there. If you’re alert to it, your will is directing your action simply by your intent or your desire to do that action in the most efficient manner necessary. In its natural state, your will asserts itself very spontaneously. When you drop you wallet, you reach and pick it up. If a that moment you are "present," the chances of not picking it up are slim. (Nor would have dropped it in the first place.) If you’re thinking random thoughts when you reach to pick it up, you may pick it up and drop it again. If you’re reaching for a doorknob, for example, and your hand slips off before the door opens, if you’re attentive to your thoughts you may notice you were somewhere else, your internal dialogue was running.

(By “will” I mean your desire backed by conviction, determination, and decisiveness.)

be

[Skywalker]

WOW, thanks BE for such a comprehensive answer!

Worth printing and framing it: I have food for thoughts for the rest of the year.

Guess now I need to start training in a different way: I mean, I'll have to train "listening" (to my body and feelings) instead of "controlling" (my body and what is it doing).

Thanks again.

[benos]

Guess now I need to start training in a different way: I mean, I'll have to train "listening" (to my body and feelings) instead of "controlling" (my body and what is it doing).

That's a cool way to think about learning, and one that's always worked for me. A thought I'd repeat over and over, year after year - let what your gun is telling you guide the shooting. (Or something like that.)

be

[gmshtr]

I've always been my fastest, when everything else seemed its slowest. Sorry, I'm in a rush. It makes sense to me, though!

Phil

[benos]

And that's definitely obvoius from watching you shoot.

Learning to "slow things down" is critical for success in high-speed sports. I remember "learning how to look" not only saved me from a 100 mph motorcyle crash (while racing), but dramatically improved my learning curve as well.

be

[Turtle]

And no matter how how much you'd like to, you can't force it, or even try. It just happens. That's where patience comes in...

[Matthew_Mink]

I'm kinda struggling with this right now. I know I'm shooting too conservatively again. I'm not trusting the speed I could be shooting at. I think this comes from a lack of practice. When I live-fired a lot, I knew I was shooting at 100%. I knew when I went too slow, and I knew when I pushed the envelope and my hits suffered.