Which is Harder - Overcoming Gobbling or Making GM?

[Sleepswithdogs]

He's right, you may like them, you may move well in them, but they will never support or protect your feet like real shoes will. With your ankle injury it is even more important that you support your ankles. If you were my patient, I'd have a dipsy doodle of a conniption!! (that's serious stuff!!) I'd mail you a pair of ankle covering Merrills if I had any coin to spare. However, you are safe going to your mailbox, I don't even have one coin to spare, today... Tomorrow... That's another story.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[DonovanM]

I'll echo the "Sandals?! What the shit!" sentiment. Apparently you haven't drop kicked one of your mags all the way across a stage on a moving reload yet

Anyway... on the first video, right out of the gate you should have crowded that fault line more. Get all the way in there, put your toes on it. Much better shooting platform and easier to get out of. I fee like either way, you could have been more aggressive on your exit if you had some faith in your traction. Cough. Good entry and exit into the next. In the third position though I don't think you had to get your gun up that early on the entry, and I wholeheartedly disapprove of you being completely off balance. Plus, from what I can see (not a lot) it looks like you may have even been able to get all of that with one setting of your feet. Dunno. Second video was really good I thought.

I will leave you with this: never be afraid to radically change the way you do and think about everything inside of practical shooting. But at the same time, stick with and refine the things that work. It's all about balance!

[Esther]

Thanks for the footwear suggestions, guys. I will route them to the appropriate channels. Donovan - I've drop kicked mags across the apartment in my bare feet. It doesn't hurt that much.

Last night was an uber mega gobble. I know I've made progress since moving to Arlington - I used to gobble 5-6 nights a week, and recently I've had several six or seven day strings of no gobbles (though this last string was only 3). But it doesn't change the despair, self-loathing, sickness, and anger I feel the next day.

It's hard to remember that there will be times that I will be so glad that I never ended it all the times that I wanted to.* When I finish the book that I want to write, when I shoot 85-90% at major matches, I will be so glad I didn't listen to the voice that says, "You don't deserve this." "You don't deserve to be good/win." "Think of all the people whose main obstacles are outside of them."

Donovan keeps telling me that the ability to handle frustration is the single most important factor in changing myself and mastering any skill. He's right. This is just one of those many, many, many frustrating times.

Maybe someday I'll grow out of chasing big goals. In The Black Cauldron, Adaon tells the glory-hungry young Taran, "Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too."

* Don't worry, I won't act on it.

[Ben Stoeger]

Rock the sandals if you want. I do 90% of my shooting in sandals.

[Esther]

From today's thankful email:

3) making a breakthrough in my mag changes (?). I've been re-working my technique for what feels like forever (in actuality, more like a month). First I learned to reacquire my strong hand grip properly (I'd been letting my right hand slide down after a reload, and every millimeter lower you hold the gun, the less control you have over recoil/muzzle flip), then I learned to instinctively keep my index finger outside the trigger guard/along the frame, then I practiced bringing the gun down and towards the center of my body as I "flip" it to hit the mag release... All good changes and necessary, but ahhhhh.... I was getting so sick of doing a mag change ever again.

Then this morning I re-read the part in Brian's book about mechanics only existing for you to go beyond them, and not to get bogged down in the "do this to get that." There was a part he said that just clicked with me: "You can mechanically map it all out, but when it's all said and done, the most important thing is that the arm is relaxed... If the arm just floats back there relaxed, it's amazing how the magazine goes right in."

I'd been trying and trying to get my reloads, but they were so inconsistent. Sometimes I'd nail them, and other times I'd botch them, and I'd started to approach (especially standing) reloads with a sense of dread, like, "I wonder if this one will be smooth..." But if I just relax, and see the mag well and let the focus lock the mag in, it's so much easier. It just happens.

The realization reminded me of when I was a beginning shooter and having the hardest time keeping my weak hand from slipping during recoil. Everyone was telling me to grip harder, I was gripping harder and harder and my hand was still slipping, and then Jeremy saw me shoot and said, "You're way too tense. Feel how little strength it takes to stay with the gun." He had me shoot the gun a few times with my weak hand barely cupped against my right hand, and it stayed there; and then I switched to my normal grip and tensed up again, and it slid off! But now I remember and can find the feeling of keeping my wrists flexible whenever I need to...

Anyway, mag changes are very similar (I think). I need to relax my right arm the angle it naturally tilts, and just look the mag into the gun.

4) Brian and Jeremy (and Donovan, Andy, and Bo) for teaching me about shooting!

Edited October 5, 2013 by Esther

[Sleepswithdogs]

Sounds like mag changes are similar to life. Grip too tight and things slip. Grip loosely, without the tension, and good things come in much more easily.

Edited October 12, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[GuildSF4]

I'd been trying and trying to get my reloads, but they were so inconsistent. Sometimes I'd nail them, and other times I'd botch them, and I'd started to approach (especially standing) reloads with a sense of dread, like, "I wonder if this one will be smooth..." But if I just relax, and see the mag well and let the focus lock the mag in, it's so much easier. It just happens.

Anyway, mag changes are very similar (I think). I need to relax my right arm the angle it naturally tilts, and just look the mag into the gun.

Looking the mag into the gun is good, an additional comment just in case it hasn't been stated, if you do a split second pause right before the magazine hits the magwell/grip it confirms the alignment and allows the old magazine time to get out of the way (yes some people (not me) do it that fast). (The pause can be so short most observers won't notice it.)

[Sleepswithdogs]

Rock the sandals if you want. I do 90% of my shooting in sandals.

Ben; love your videos, love the way you share info, but I think your missing the target here. You're telling a lady with an ankle injury not to wear supportive footwear. You might as well be telling a shooter with an eye injury not to wear shooting glasses because you don't.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[beltjones]

Rock the sandals if you want. I do 90% of my shooting in sandals.

Ben; love your videos, love the way you share info, but I think your missing the target here. You're telling a lady with an ankle injury not to wear supportive footwear. You might as well be telling a shooter with an eye injury not to wear shooting glasses because you don't.

Esther is an adult, and a very smart one at that. She doesn't need some paternalistic advice as to what footwear she should wear. She knows how her ankle feels, so unless you're an orthopedist who has examined her ankle I suggest you MYOB.

I mean seriously, telling a woman what shoes to wear? Has this gone over well with other women you've known?

[Ben Stoeger]

Rock the sandals if you want. I do 90% of my shooting in sandals.

Ben; love your videos, love the way you share info, but I think your missing the target here. You're telling a lady with an ankle injury not to wear supportive footwear. You might as well be telling a shooter with an eye injury not to wear shooting glasses because you don't.

I wasn't being entirely serious.

[Sleepswithdogs]

Rock the sandals if you want. I do 90% of my shooting in sandals.

Ben; love your videos, love the way you share info, but I think your missing the target here. You're telling a lady with an ankle injury not to wear supportive footwear. You might as well be telling a shooter with an eye injury not to wear shooting glasses because you don't.

I wasn't being entirely serious.

Thank goodness!! I had visions of 30 people showing up at the next big shoot wearing sandals! "Well, ahh, Ben wears'em... "

Edited October 18, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[Esther]

Last weekend I shot my ninth - or was it tenth? - USPSA match. It was raining, so two of the five stages got cancelled. My goal was just to call my shots and shoot alphas as fast as my sights returned on target, but on the second stage I got two light strikes and my plan completely fell to pieces, and I resorted to shooting at the targets instead of focusing on shooting each one, and then the next...

In all I had three light strikes in under 80 rounds. I've replaced my striker, cleaned my striker channel, and replaced my light spring with a stock spring. My gun functioned perfectly for ~250 rounds, but now I'm getting light strikes again...

I learned from that experience that when I make a mistake or encounter a malfunction during a stage, there is nothing I can do to regain the time I've lost (I just shoot worse by trying to shoot faster), so I might as well carry on as though it didn't happen. That's a good lesson for gobbling, too. The last few days were gobbly, but there is nothing I can do to un-eat those truffles,* and I don't do better in life by lapsing into a spiral of self-loathing, so I might as well carry on as though it didn't happen.

* Throwing up your food is a really bad idea, for all sorts of reasons.

My good friend Matt recommended an excellent book, Living the Japanese Arts & Ways, by H.E. Davey. There's a section on beginner's mind where he talks about the interesting phenomenon of people getting worse, not better, with practice. Here's Davey:

When we first copy a work of art, it's new. Our reactions to what we're attempting to reproduce are also new, and so are our successes and problems with the particular tehon. But as we continue to copy, layer upon layer of the past piles onto the current moment, making an accurate perception of what we're really looking at, and what we're actually doing, difficult.

I've been realizing that the quality of my dry-fire isn't as high as it could be. Not just that I don't do the most effective mix of drills (though that's probably true too), but that it's become rote and repetitive. I pay a LOT of attention when I live-fire because I have so little practice ammo, and it's a real treat. But dry-fire I do almost every day, sometimes as I'm cooking, talking to Max, or singing along to Drive-By Truckers (or whichever artist I'm currently playing).** And I get into habits, especially with mag changes. It's a real trick/balance to learn from experience (time is necessary for getting proficient at any skill) while still remaining open to one's present moment experience.

I think that my dry-fire can be a lot more productive if I pay attention to it in the same way I do to live-fire.

** "The Three Great Alabama Icons" is my current dry-fire song.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Esther

[Sleepswithdogs]

A thought or two; you are probably shooting reload ammo if I recall, could be primers are not seated fully. We had a run of that and it caused a whole rash of light strikes. I don't remember what gun you are shooting, if it's a G34 there are some very nice lightened strikers that also help.

Carrying on as if it didn't happen may work in light strikes, but I'm not sure it will work so well in other areas. There is much said for learning from mistakes and not making them again, or making smaller mistakes with each stumble. Of course self-loathing is a wonderful form of self-punishment, self-torture, and often leads to another even large set of mistakes. Would seem there could be a ''happy medium" in there some place.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[GuildSF4]

I've been realizing that the quality of my dry-fire isn't as high as it could be. Not just that I don't do the most effective mix of drills (though that's probably true too), but that it's become rote and repetitive. I pay a LOT of attention when I live-fire because I have so little practice ammo, and it's a real treat. But dry-fire I do almost every day, sometimes as I'm cooking, talking to Max, or singing along to Drive-By Truckers (or whichever artist I'm currently playing).** And I get into habits, especially with mag changes. It's a real trick/balance to learn from experience (time is necessary for getting proficient at any skill) while still remaining open to one's present moment experience.

I think that my dry-fire can be a lot more productive if I pay attention to it in the same way I do to live-fire.

I noticed this the other day also, I have been dryfiring working on shooting on the move. Did some at the range yesterday and was pleasantly surprized at how fast I could shoot while moving, no mikes, way too many D's though... Reminded me that my emphasis to needs better shot calling during the dryfire practice.

[TJ1911]

I agree-perhaps less dry-fire time, but with more focus and no multi-tasking might be more effective for you.

[Esther]

Jim - Thanks for the suggestions. I'm actually getting light strikes with a variety of factory ammo.

Steve - Nice to know I'm not the only one. I was listening to one of Ben's podcasts, and he said that while we all warm up (at the safe table) at matches, the goal is to get to the point where you don't need to warm up before shooting well. I'm finding that it helps me to pay attention when I do my first dry-fire run as if, "Now! This is the only run that matters..."

Tim - Yeah. In the rest of my life too.

I really like Paul Buchheit (the creator of Gmail). He strikes me as someone who is not only very smart, but humble and wise and funny as well. Here he says:

Fear, jealousy, insecurity, unfairness, embarrassment -- these feelings cloud our ability to see what is. The truth is often threatening, and once our defenses are up, it's difficult to be completely honest with anyone, even ourselves. But when I am nothing, when I have no image or identity or ego to protect, I can begin to see and accept things as they really are. That is the beginning of positive change, because we can not change what we do not accept and do not understand. But with understanding, we can finally see the difference between fixing problems, and hiding them, the difference between genuine improvement, and faking it. We discover that many of our weaknesses are actually strengths once we learn how to use them, and that our greatest gifts are often buried beneath our greatest insecurities.

and

Until we let go of our mental images of who we are or who we should be, our vision remains clouded by expectation. But when we let go of everything, open ourselves to any truth, and see the world without fear or judgement, then we are finally able to begin the process of peeling off the shell of false identity that prevents our true self from growing and shining in to the world.

I want to be smart. I want to be thin. I want to be a good shooter. I want to be making progress towards my goals. But when I let go of that, I can see the problem that's right in front of me and work on fixing it.

I'm getting a new gun for next season. Its name is Hadrian. More on that later...

[Nimitz]

I've shot with Ben and he does where sandals ... and shoots amazingly well in them ...

[Sleepswithdogs]

Wow E, that's an amazing quote!!

I'm quite surprised anyone is allowed by the rules, to shoot in sandals and even more surprised anyone would choose to shoot in them. Most shooting sports I have been around, one would never be allowed on the range in anything but some kind of shoes. Any kind of accidental discharge into the ground anywhere near a foot, being in sandals would be a bad thing. I know a world class skeet shooter who removed a toe accidentally. Further, sandals have little to zero ankle support, and in a sport like ours where foot work is important, ankle support is also important. All I can say is, if Ben is this good in sandals, think how good he would be in shoes!!! Scary GOOD!!!

Edited October 29, 2013 by Sleepswithdogs

[Esther]

One of the things that strikes me in my conversations with my friend who is quite a good shooter (Donovan) is how imperfect you can be and still get pretty far. One time I expressed frustration at programming myself extra hard to "shoot - move" and throwing in an extraneous reload anyway, and the newly minted GM replying that he still has trouble doing extraneous reloads sometimes too.

We all want to improve constantly, to learn from every shot we fire, every repetition we do; to give our best every day. Some people - Ben Stoeger, for instance - seem to come pretty close to that ideal.

Recently, I realized that over the last four and a half months, even with some truly spectacular strings of gobbles, I had managed to drop very close to my pre-bschool weight and gain some strength, too. I'm always shocked when people tell me that I'm lean and elegant and/or dedicated. "Really? But you didn't see the boxes of cookies and toffee I ate last night. Or the twelve king-sized chocolate bars I devoured this morning in an aftershock gobble." "You don't realize the days I skipped practice - and even matches - because I had mega gobbled so much that I felt like the boa constrictor who sat around for days digesting its prey."

Progress - at least in my experience - is like the stock market. If you look closely it looks like an incoherent scribble of ups and downs, but if you step back you can see the market trending upward (with some truly shocking dips in the middle, like the Great Depression of the 1930's).

As an aside, in the same ongoing correspondence with said awesome friend, I mentioned that the real reason I believe in God isn't purely rational. Of course I believe the object of my faith is true, too (I think that thinking anything is false is automatic grounds for disbelieving it), but when I dig down, my reasons for believing in God aren't rational. They're existential. For example, the consciousness of being very flawed and constantly needing and asking for and receiving forgiveness, and the possibility of still doing great things.

I'm in California now and dug up a notebook in which I'd jotted down some lines in books that had touched me. Here's one (by Fr. Depp, a Catholic priest who was martyred by the Nazis):

"Unless a man has been shocked to his depths at himself and the things he is capable of, as well as the failings of humanity as a whole, he cannot understand the full import of the Advent."

I think that every year, Advent - God condescending - "coming down to be with" - means a little bit more to me.

Happy Advent. Merry Christmas. Onward!

[GuildSF4]

Merry Christmas to you also. Also note that Jessie Duff made GM, so it is definitely possible.

Progress - at least in my experience - is like the stock market. If you look closely it looks like an incoherent scribble of ups and downs, but if you step back you can see the market trending upward (with some truly shocking dips in the middle, like the Great Depression of the 1930's).

A running average function could show this very well... (Have to do that sometimes when analyzing signals that are too noisy to see what is happening.)

[DonovanM]

I believe there are some observations from a recent class with Manny Bragg that belong in this thread - among other things.

[Esther]

Thanks, Steve!

Donovan - You've already heard my observations! Are you prodding me to share publicly?

It's been a cold and snowy off-season in Virginia, and I haven't shot a match and have barely live-fired since November, but I've been consistently dry-firing. I can't wait to get back on the range and to see my friends again.

In January, I took a class with Manny Bragg. It was my Christmas present from Max's parents. If you're curious what the class was like, you can read this review of a class by Frank Garcia. (The differences were obviously that mine was with Manny, not Frank, and 1-day, not 5.) But the focus on the fundamentals and emphasis on learning the feel of doing something - a draw, reload, prepping the trigger before the sights are on target - perfectly, once, and then being responsible for going home and practicing until I can't do it wrong, were identical.

I learned as much about shooting instruction (something I would like to try, someday, when I suck less ) as I did about how to shoot.

On the gobbling front, I still gobble more frequently than I would like (on average, once every five or six days or so), but it's now the exception rather than the rule. I've also been reading - and thinking - a lot about addictions in general, and food addictions in particular. I'm now convinced that addictions are (usually) not an extreme form of intemperance (overindulgence in sensory pleasure), but are rather attempts to attain moral and intellectual, even spiritual, goods that are hard to come by in our culture/society (e.g., freedom from loneliness, lack of purpose, etc.).

The Canadian scientist Bruce Alexander, who conducted the famous Rat Park experiments in the 1970's, theorizes that social factors are much more important than individual, genetic, and biochemical factors in determining addiction. In his studies, rats who were kept in the standard, sterile, isolated laboratory environment became addicted to morphine ("rat heroin"). But when rats were placed in an idyllic, "Rat Park" environment with fellow rats, toys, and aromatic bedding, they didn't become addicted even when morphine was freely available. Even more interestingly, rats who had forcibly become addicted to morphine (in a laboratory environment) "chose" to undergo the physical symptoms of withdrawal rather than continue their morphine consumption when placed in Rat Park. The results suggest that social interaction and "meaningful" activity were more important than the availability of morphine in determining susceptibility to drug addiction.

I'm coming to agree with Alexander that the same is true of humans.

Yesterday and this morning were huge mega gobbles, and I realized that I had been not only feeling lonely, but also angry and ashamed at myself for feeling lonely ("I'm such a loser for not making more of an effort to find community in Arlington.") I then realized that when friends who were stay-at-home moms confided feelings of isolation, depression, etc., to me, I never said (or even thought), "If you were less of a loser and got out more, you wouldn't be feeling this way."

Constructing one's Rat Park environment is hard! There are social factors (our highly individualistic, mobile, pluralistic society) that make assembling a Rat Park generally harder, but there are also situational/individual factors (being at home with a baby, working as an artist or an entrepreneur, being in school with a bunch of similar individuals) that make it harder or easier. Not shooting matches or seeing my friends during the off-season contributes to making me feel more like a rat in a laboratory than a rat in Rat Park.

The answer to what Bruce Alexander calls "psychosocial dislocation" isn't easy. I don't think it's possible - or desirable - to return to a more traditional culture with clearly defined roles and shared values. But finding and building our own Rat Park is a challenge. I'm still working on mine. *

*In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke says to "have patience with everything unresolved in your heart... Live the questions now. Perhaps... you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer."

[Aglifter]

Have you considered Five Finger shoes? I'm very fond of mine, and have never felt more stable in any shoe, than in those. (Of course, I also started Ashtanga yoga about the same time as I started wearing Five Fingers.)

[Esther]

Bradley - Thanks for the suggestion. I upgraded to running shoes for this season, and so far they seem to be working fine (though I might buy black cleats just to match the rest of my outfit ).

I shot my second match of 2014 on Saturday. Here's video from one of the stages. (It's split into two because Kevin stopped the video partway through.)

I went way too deep into the second part and had to lunge back to find the last target in that chunk. I need to work on movement and stage programming (there were a couple stages where I lost seconds from hesitation). And of course, shooting faster and more accurately.

[caspian38]

In my opinion your thinking too much. Just watching you shoot it looks like your chopping your stage into manageable skills. When I have a good run it's all part of a whole, not individual parts that add up to a whole. It's like multiplication compared to addition.

I was blown away to learn that there are no female GM's( is that true ? ),maybe thinking is the problem. When I go really fast and perform well there is not much going on in my head.

This is a touchy subject but if I where a woman wanting to make GM I would take a look at the statistics ,and determin if it's more than just a lack of female shooters... I see enough women at matches to think that at least a few women would be GM's.

I like to shoot a match super fast ,and as safe as possible with almost no thought( I don't check my scores and I don't listen to my times). Then the next match I focus on just the sights and forget about speed. It has helped me break through some barriers in the past ...it's also got me DQed ( pesky 180 ) so be safe about it.

Awesome range diary by the way ... You have gotten some great advice from some great shooters .I read all 14 pages this evening.

Edited April 16, 2014 by caspian38