Salvaging the match...

[Ron Ankeny]

I had a horrible match today. I went to heck in a hand basket and fueled the fire by wallowing in self pity. I have blown stages before and just shook it off and gone on. But today, I was fatigued, mentally worn out, and I wanted to just take my toys and go home. All I did was whine and complain all day long.  What do you do to pull it together when all else fails?

[Shooter Grrl]

OH wow - I just went through this Ron - at a big match even!

You have, IMHO, 2 choices.  First is to take a small break - just a couple of weeks, but absolutely NO shooting - no dry firing, just put the guns away.  2 - 3 weeks is all it will take.  Then take out the Limited gun and go play

Second, is to overcome yourself mentally.  We all have within us the power to change our minds.  Use that power and convince yourself that it is still fun and that today was just an aberration...

Good luck either way you go!

[Ron Ankeny]

Shooter Grrl:

Yeah, I am taking a break. In fact, I sent an e-mail to the rest of our club members tonight letting them know that I would still help out, but I am going to kind of vanish for a little while.

What I am wanting to know is what do you do to get through the match. I knew everything was falling apart, but it got worse instead of better. What does a person do to finish the day without embarassement or mutating into a pain in the ass?

[Flexmoney]

Ron,

I think, with you, you are into the journey a bit more than the destination.

I am going to chew on that thought myself...see how it applies to me.

[sincityshooter]

I think everyone has been there before.  I learned the hard way last year.  Being match director, I became aggravated at the smallest things.  I couldn't get myself focused.  Actually I didn't want to put forth the mental effort.  However, I dug deep and tried my best.  That lasted for the first stage, but after a mistake it was all down hill.  I would go nuts, shooting too fast and not concentrating at all.  This year I started with a new plan:  I use a bad stage as a challenge.  Even if I don't have it together, I'll find something to focus on (maybe movement or really focusing on the grip).  That usually get's me by.  I finish the match with a couple solid stages and I can go home without total humiliation.

[Shooter Grrl]

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What I am wanting to know is what do you do to get through the match.

---

 Can't answer that Ron - I haven't FOUND that answer yet either.  And believe me, I whine better than you ;0

[shred]

What I try to do to avoid the self-pity bugs after tanking a stage is to get my copy of the scoresheet and write down on it everything I messed up and therefore need to practice.  That I fold up and stick in my bag.  

Somehow that gets my mind into an "I'll work on/worry about that later" mode and I can keep going better.

[Steve Anderson]

I actually tend to do better after a bad stage. I can usually pinpoint what happened and make the correction immediately.

A bigger problem for me is getting Lazy/Cocky/sloppy after a really good stage. I start thinking everything is easy and sometimes screw up.

Correction:

I used to do that...not anymore.

SA

[Nik Habicht]

Ron,

I'm the king of fouling up entire matches right after shooting well for a few weeks.  How I get through it is to remind myself that this is what I do for fun.  I can't shoot at or above my ability level at every match, it's inevitable that I'll have a match or sometimes a series of matches where I can't do anything right.  That's when I try to switch to having a good time with my friends and just seeing the stages as a fun way to blow off steam.  I shoot matches to relax, if I want stress I'll go to work.

As far as recovering from a performance perspective, sometimes slowing down and focusing on calling As works.  Some days I can't do that either.....

[davecutts]

I was going to start a new thread, but decide instead to drop this here.

I yesterday shot my first decent match in what feels like months.  Coming in to the summer, I was on a roll and my confidence was sky high.  I was running stages fast, and making between 85 and 95% of the points, I got my B (L10) card and shot a couple of mid A level classifiers, and then everything went to you know what.  I started to shoot wayyyyy tooooo fast for my skill level, I was getting at least one mike one every stage (let me stress the at least part of that last statement).  Hey but my times where smoking right?  Interspaced in there were some really killer runs great times and points.  Needless to say I was not a happy camper, basically my mental game went to hell my confidence killed me and then bit me in the butt.  So what changer this week ... I'll start with last weekends match On ONE stage I had six mikes, and I was pissed.  I had been working on shooting accurately in practice for a couple of weeks so I wanted to know why I was missing so much.  As usual the answer is right in front of me all the time.  I was tired of hearing alpha mike, Charlie mike; I figure I wasn't waiting for the front sight to make the second shot.  So when I went to practice this last week I did my usual slow fire group shooting, and then shot a bill drill like I had been shooting matches WFO.  Ugly indeed 3 A's 2 C's and a D, but hey it was quick.  Shot another one and six A's all I did was watch the sights threw return (calling shot is a fleeting thing for me sorry Brian I try, but it's not always there for me yet).  I finished up a shooting double the number of rounds I would normally shoot, and went to the match Saturday with a plan.  On my first stage I kind of reverted to blaze mode and got two mikes but those were to only two of the match. I shot a solid B classifier, got decent hits, at fair speeds all through the match  

I have been working hard to get my A card by the end of the year and I think my mental game is what’s been holding me back.  When I crash I’m done for the day, and confidence level relates directly to performance level.  Realizing that this confidence is what got me into trouble has been a valuable lesson.

Well maybe this means nothing to you all, but I had to get it out for myself.

[SiG Lady]

Seems we touched on this briefly on another forum, another thread...  Performance embarrassment has happened to me (the nervous novice newbie that I might be) and I've had to just f***ing get-a-grip and carry on. I examine my errors, make a list of 'em if need be, practice on 'em later, compliment my match mates on their successes meanwhile and generally act like a professional. If I over-complain or "whine" (we all do it a little bit sometimes) I've blown my professional demeanor and shown my ass. I just openly admit my level and don't try to convince anyone I'm better than where the bullets actually land. My colleagues have seen me shoot in practice and in a couple of matches; they already know why this or that went wrong for me on some stage (because the same thing happened to them!), so I don't have to whine about it too terribly much. Now I might feel mortified as all hell about an apparent failure that happened, but it's unprofessional to indulge in too much complaint. By that I mean it draws attention away from the exceptional part of you.

Many of my shooting colleagues, bless their hearts, find lots of good things to say about my shooting when I least expect it because we're there to support each other... and we do. And I let them likewise know when I think they're doing something exceptional.

Yeh, the "embarrassment" is hard to swallow; but I get rid of it totally by finding another shooter near me who did well and offer a compliment. It totally turns my energy around and scores points of a different sort.