Getting Flustered

[Catfish]

Another interesting note into the log book after today's match.

Continuing the transfer from idpa to uspsa, a little gem popped into my head after having some issues on a field course today.

A good thing about the relatively short COF you'll find in idpa is that I rarely, if ever, had time to get flustered *while shooting*. Something might not go according to plan, but by the time you figured it out, you're done. And you've got lots of time before your next shoot to get your head back in the game.

Now, today, in a 32 round field course, I was a slight touch off on hitting my reloads. And then I got flustered and hurried and ended up finishing the COF with another goofed up reload and then 6 rounds into 3 close up targets and getting the dreaded trigger freeze on the 4th shot.

I figured it out shortly after I'd calmed down and thought about what happened. As I got flustered, I started to grip the snot out of the gun, which led to choking up on the ole trigger.

So, now all I have to do is apply the same mental control *during* a stage that I *already* know how to do between stages.

Adding to the postive outcome of an otherwise crappy event was that (since this was a local club shoot, and everyone else had finished for the day and was back at the stat shack) I was able to reshoot the last portion of the stage that gave me fits and I hit it perfectly. My score on the stage mattered not, and I left feeling pretty good about the discovery that I made today.

[et45]

I bumped the round at the top of my mag on a reload which led to a jam.I got mad as hell and cleared the jam and just hosed the rest of the targets as fast as I could.Needless to say I had a couple of misses.After I finished the RO who was a Master told me that when something like that happens just calm down and get your As because unless you are an A shooter or higher you are not going to make up the time you lost by hosing and missing a time or two.

[Jake Di Vita]

Even if you are a GM you aren't gonna make up time by hosing and dropping points.

[sixx]

that depends. Not everyone is up against grand masters all the time, and even GM's can screw up. If you have no chance of winning at your normal speed (because of a screwup, you might as well go for the "hose". If it was for real, fast, noisy misses have made many an enemy duck and miss.

[BSeevers]

When I mess up I "go defensive" Shoot max points and get out of the stage. Keeps a bad stage from becoming a bad match.

[John Dunn]

A wise man (Bonedaddy), has seen me bobble more than a few reloads, and the subsequent frustrated shooting (hoper launching). One day he asked me, "You know what the difference is between a blown reload and a regular reload?" Most of the time it's maybe 0.3 (Pueblo reload not included). If that turns a 5.3 El Prez into a 5.6 El Prez at a match, you'll still be doing fine.

My recent dry fire has been less directed at speed, and more at smoothness.

[Ron Ankeny]

Even if you are a GM you aren't gonna make up time by hosing and dropping points.

Ain't that the truth. I have found I am better off to do a "controlled restart" and get things going smoothly again than I am to hose and start dropping points. Do the math. Time is gone forever.

[shred]

Jerry Miculek (a GM if I saw one) teaches the same thing.. soon as something goes wrong, you go into 'disaster-mode', which means shooting as many A's as you possibly can from them out. The hard part is training that.

[Flexmoney]

When I mess up I "go defensive" Shoot max points and get out of the stage. Keeps a bad stage from becoming a bad match.

Wise. Very wise.

[38supPat]

that depends.  Not everyone is up against grand masters all the time, and even GM's can screw up.  If you have no chance of winning at your normal speed (because of a screwup, you might as well go for the "hose".  If it was for real, fast, noisy misses have made many an enemy duck and miss.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmmm, funny, in a real match I have never seen a paper target 'duck'

[MattBurkett]

Pat, you must have never shot the Miller invitational. I swear those targets on the boat ducked!!! (BTW that was a long time ago)

-------

Survival mode is what is dictated when everything goes to hell. Get done as best as you can and get your game together for the next stage.

[Duane Thomas]

Pueblo reload not included)

"Pueblo reload"?

[Catfish]

A wise man (Bonedaddy), has seen me bobble more than a few reloads, and the subsequent frustrated shooting (hoper launching).  One day he asked me, "You know what the difference is between a blown reload and a regular reload?"  Most of the time it's maybe 0.3 (Pueblo reload not included).  If that turns a 5.3 El Prez into a 5.6 El Prez at a match, you'll still be doing fine.

My recent dry fire has been less directed at speed, and more at smoothness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are, of course, right. In dry firing at home, and practicing reloads using Matt's dry fire drills, setting the buzzer on par time and going to work. A "blown reload" in dry firing is costing me about 2-4 10ths each. Not near as long as it feels like when it's happening in a match. Hell, not near as long as it feels dry firing! It's all about the perception of time and speed and how the two are not always running along on the same track.

Great input, thanks everyone!

[BritinUSA]

This sort of thing happened to me a lot, I would make one tiny mistake on the course of fire and then the whole thing went down the tubes. It used to affect the rest of the match but I've slowly learned to turn it around.

Once upon a time, in a range far, far away...

A few years ago I was at a match, there was a problem and my mind went into self-destruct mode, everything was going wrong. The strange thing is, I was aware that my mind was destroying my performance, it had happened so many times and no matter how hard I tried I could not shake it off. So I decided to try another tack... I tried to KEEP the negativity to the forefront, it was almost like I split my mind in half, one part was negative and the other part was trying to analyse the negative part.

Almost toward the end of the match - following some of the worst shooting of my life - I figured out the problem. My work requires a high standard, no errors, screw-ups etc.. As I have to strive for perfection in my work, that carries over to my shooting. At work if the quality is not to my standards then I try harder. If my shooting was not up to standards then I TRIED HARDER.

If you TRY to shoot better, chances are you won't. This is because that conscious action gets in the way.

As has already been mentioned in this topic, everyone makes mistakes, the problem is that if we DWELL on those mistakes, we TRY to avoid them, we TRY to improve, we TRY to make up lost time. TRYING is fine for practice as that's how to improve, to push ourselves to test our limits.

But TRYING during a match, that appears to be a bad thing.

So now if I screw up during a stage I'm aware of it but I don't focus on it. It's not always successful but I'm slowly getting better...

DO or DO NOT, there is no TRY.... (quote from a small green jedi)