HenryC470 Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 I was studying my handgun shooting. I was working according to Brian' book, in which he recommends "observing" your shooting. He goes into a lot of detail about what he means by "observing", and if you're interested, I recommend his book. One of the keys is to let mental impressions of an event happen, but not to verbalize them. Anyway, I have caught myself flinching, and got a good mental impression of why I was doing it. The flinch hasn't anything to do with pain in my hands. My revolver has nice, soft rubber grips, and it doesn't hurt with full-power 357 Magnum loads. I shoot 158 grain lead bullets to just over the 125,000 IDPA minimum, and recoil is negligible. The impression I had as I involuntarily tilted the barrel downward was that I was trying to direct the muzzle blast away from my face. That was a couple years ago. I still flinch sometimes. I had occasion to discover why I do something else recently. I was on my way home from shooting, and I thought maybe I'd stop and have something to eat. Then I realized I wasn't hungry. Okay, so I won't eat. A minute later, it occurred to me again to stop and eat. This time, I observed why I wanted to eat. It wasn't that I was hungry (I wan't). It wasn't to have something that tasted good (I'm not a gourmand). It was this: I enjoy the ability to pull money out of my pocket and get something to eat. I don't know how a psychoanalyst would handle this. I don't know if that makes me "materialistic" or "a small man who spends money so he can feel like a big-shot". I just don't know. I do think I have the beginnings of knowing why I feel like eating or decide to eat without being hungry. That's all. H. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RKooi Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 I was studying my handgun shooting. I was working according to Brian' book, in which he recommends "observing" your shooting. He goes into a lot of detail about what he means by "observing", and if you're interested, I recommend his book. Thanks for the recommendation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 Nice post. There are a lot of life leasons to be learned from shooting and vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 If you are eating without being hungry, eating is compensating for something else in your life..ie, it comforts you when you are depressed, angry, sad, etc....or to offset poor performance in shooting, sports, etc, or to compensate for something bad that happened, you got a ticket, your SO is mad at you...something like that... oh, damn, that is what Dr. Phil would say.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 As adults, many of our activities don't have much more significance than habit. Lately, I've been seeing deeper and deeper into that... be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 I finally realized why I was a compulsive overeater: my parents. My folks were both Depression babies, and back in those days, lack of food was extremely common. Only the wealthy could afford enough food to be fat. In fact WWII was the first time most young men ever experienced eating 3 squares a day. Thus, the practice of eating until you were absolutely stuffed was a very practical one, as it was unclear when you'd see a table full of food again. There was no practical refrigeration for things like leftovers, so you either ate it yourself or gave it to the dog or slopped it to the hogs. Fast forward 3 decades.... The people that learned to gorge themselves while the eating was good taught their children the same lesson: eat until you're absolutely stuffed. The problem was, that the table was always full of food, and it was full 3X a day. I'm relearning a lot of things these days. How to eat is one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 My coach would throw out catch phrase fairly regularly - some of them good, some great, others incomprehensible. However, one that stuck with me was "Habit is the best of servants or the worst of masters." He always chided me to be careful of the habits I developed as it took only 3000 repetitions to create an automatic response but quite a few more than that to change it. I know it's true because my reloads have gone from tilting a single stack mag to the back, to flipping my wrist to dispose of non drop free glock mags, to practically throwing my mags into my STI (which in comparison to the other two is like stuffing a needle in a trash can). It used to bother me when I realized I was doing something incorrectly (i.e. a bad habit) because I saw making the change as being a lot of work. Then I realized a "trick of the day." Instead of changing an old habit, make a new one. Then you can do a lost less repetition. And it's true most of the stuff from the microcosm of shooting is applicable to the larger realm of life. Do you need to understand why when things get stressful you crave ice cream or how you developed a certain personality flaw? Looking at the self help section at the book store would make you think so. But you probably do not, just recognize "it" and make a new habit 180 degrees opposite. Eventually you may tilt back 40 degrees to where it's balanced. Now if I can regularly apply all these lessons, maybe I'll progress to being a better person and a better shooter. Soooo much work to do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric nielsen Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Carina - that's a great post. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Carina, I liked that post a LOT...until the very last line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Everyone is a work in progress....What I meant was I recognize I have a number of new habits to start. No worries, it'll happen eventually. 5% doesn't seem like much (to get the M card) but it can take time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 What I meant was I recognize I have a number of new habits to start. Good post. And, good thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 We can all improve our eating habits... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerkf Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 Carina it sounds like you're saying to stop fixing blame and start fixing the problem! Unfortunately, I just recently read Brian's book and regret not having picked it up earlier. The good part for me was that some of the mental and philosophical sugestions were things I'd heard before in my martial arts training. Too bad I forgot them or didn't directly relate them to shooting. I guess life lessons can be applied to anything! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 That was what I was saying but not as succinctly.... Why use a few words when you can use whole lots? Brian has the gift to parboil an idea down to the bones. I'm starting to think that wanting to find out why is just another way to "avoid fixing the problem." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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