Overconfident?

[hopalong]

I see on the forums all the time to "see what you need to see", but confidence has so much to do with our shoot too.

Kind of like the trust your sights, timing thing on some of the other threads.

Here is one to ponder on....

At the TN section the classifier was Long Range standards, won't go into stage description.

2 weeks before I went to a local club match and there they were in all their glory.

so we shoot this thing and I shoot a clean stage (no mikes) and only have 2 d hits and shot it in a total of 32 seconds with change.

So instead of doing much concentrated practice on this "stage" I do some other drills, Including the plate rack out to 50 yds.

Come match day it is drizzleing, had been raining, but not real distracting.

not really worried about this stage as I had shot it well 2 weeks before and the 50 yd plate rack went ok.

End up with 7 mikes one each on standing and kneeling (ok if no more) and 5 on prone... the guys in the squad said I started fine up in the A zone but as I shot they steadily went down and off the target.

I did end up shooting the thing in 29 plus change so maybe a little adrinaline?

Long range stuff does not scare me as once a week we shoot 12 inch plates at 100 yds.

Any suggestions? I think I was a little overconfidant and maybe did not pay enough attention to the job at hand?

Anyone else do stuff like this?

Hopalong.

[EricW]

I'm going through a similar trial right now. I did a lot of work on steel over the summer, which dramatically improved my steel shooting. Paper shooting went in the toilet. I don't know if "overconfidence" is the crux of the problem, but it's certainly part of it.

My plan: dump my fiber sight and go back to basics.

[hopalong]

Funny thing you mentined that Eric,

I normally shoot steel good, love shooting it but right now it is my achilies tendon...

Maybe more of that "overconfidence " thing?

Hopalong

[EricW]

Sam,

I dunno if that's the right word...maybe. What's happened for me in an effort to speed up is that I've started to accept less visual input before I trigger the shot. It works on easy steel for me. Not so for 20 yard paper. I finally figured out that I'm simply not focusing on the front sight anymore. I ditched my fiber for a serrated brass bead (as a dryfire experiment) and that was the clincher. It's overconfidence from the aspect that I *thought* I was seeing everthing I needed to see, but the cold hard truth is that I stopped doing that somewhere along the line this summer.

Overconfidence?

Self-imposed ignorace?

Foolishness?

Laziness?

The only saving grace is that I've learned enough here at shooting Mecca to diagnose the problem. Now...I just need to go fix it.

[firewalker]

Sam have you asked what other things changed between those times?

The reason i ask is shooting my wheelie today i was missing shots i never miss before....then I had to ask myself is was i paying attention to my sights? and in the end i found out that i did not have the grip i was used to taking when shooting..as a resuly my sight picture and follow thru looked weird The only positive thing today for me was I relearned some hard lessons before it really mattered...

Frederick

[DogmaDog]

I'd have to guess that even pushing the time down by ~3 seconds (10%) was enough rushing to really wreck your program. Not overconfidence, but succumbing to match pressure to shoot faster, rather than allowing your shots to go off when the sights look right.

You were trying.

It's always amazing to see how little time it takes to just allow it to happen rather than to try to make it happen.

I can shoot a 2 second Bill drill, or I can shoot 6 shots as fast as possible in 1.7 seconds. The difference in points is huge (I'll score about half the points trying to go fast), but the difference in time is so small.

DogmaDog

[jnshapiro]

It's difficult to just let go and let it happen. At least it is for me. I tend to be a mechanical shooter and analyze (yes, I know it starts with anal ) everything I do. But I'm gradually making progress. It'll happen, next match (I keep telling myself that ).

Keep at it! Remember, I think I read this in Brian's book, when you wake up in the morning, you are as fast as you will be for the day. No need to push it.

Joel

[spook]

I think I was a little overconfidant and maybe did not pay enough attention to the job at hand?

Just because you made something happen once, doesn't mean you can make it happen again "just because you want it to". You'll have to put in the same work as you did in practice. I think if you'll slow down to your regular speed (you were 10%(!!!) faster on match day) you'll do fine.

[benos]

After some years of training, especially when the practice sessions are going "easily," practicing specific courses of fire before a match can be counter productive.

Over and over, shooting the same targets at the same distances in the same places breeds a sense of familiarity with the COF, which is the problem. As our body/index "adjusts" to the familiar, "set-up-on-our-home-range/shoot-it-over-and-over" COF, we tend to stop paying attention to what is fundamental as habit takes over. Now we're feeling all good about ourselves, but we've really just built a sense of false confidence because when we get to the match and only get to shoot the stage one time for score, our metal environment will be quite different than it was in our all too familiar practice session. So really we haven't trained to shoot the match at all, we've trained to practice. Keep that in mind when practicing. Think of ways to practice that will encourage an "on demand" mentality. Move the targets around between every couple runs, changing distance and distance between them. Vary target size. Change your starting position. Do some pushups right before you shoot. Shoot every run like your life depended on it. Forget about shooting a good "score" in practice. Because when you get to the match you will not feel anything like you did in practice.

be

[Singlestack]

I will never practice a stage again.

So far in 2004.....

I practiced the classifier before the Area 6 3-Gun and bombed it at the match.

I practiced the classifier before the Ga State match and bombed it at the match.

I practiced Long Range Standards before the Tn Sect. match and had 7 mikes. The day before I was shooting 40yrd upper A zone shots with ease.

I practiced Reload Standards before the Nat's and wound up with 45 points when it counted.

Think of ways to practice that will encourage an "on demand" mentality.

Thanks be

[benos]

One more thing I thought of... In general, IPSC-type shooters tend to not do well when practicing specific stages. If we did, we'd probably be Bullseye shooters or "carnival match specialists."

But it's not good to think that practicing stages is always bad. If it was... go try to beat a Bullseye or Olympic-style shooter at their game.

I think it's difficult for the IPSC shooter's typical mentality to get really focused on one COF.

So if you choose to train for a specific COF, ask yourself how you would approach it if that was the only COF you were ever going to shoot.

be

[Detlef]

hopalong,

for many years, my scores got better the more I shot/practiced a stage or string. I am now looking at quite the opposite, quite to my own amazement: The first time(s) through are more often the best ones than not. I attribute this to *paying more attention*, and lack of *rhythm shooting* or *going through the motions*. Most IPSC shooters of reknown will tell you that they never practice stages, they practice fundamentals. In a match whatever stage was published is never quite set up like you practiced it. I now practice stages only when they are fixed time to get the feeling of the time constraints relative to my shooting ability, or when a special skill is involved that I had not encountered before (shooting with wet hands, upside down, while dangling from a rope, weak-hand only pick-up of gun off table etc asf..).

I don't know whether *overconfident* properly describes what you experience, I guess it is more lack of attention to what you see and feel because you saw and felt it before. And that's a killer as every IPSC shooter will testify because it's never quite exactly the same...

--Detlef

[wide45]

I think it is like bombing a reshoot. If you are thinking "do it just like the last time", you have set yourself up for failure. If you are repeating a performance, you are not acting on what is happening now.