Hammerman Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 When I'm at a match, my 1st stage is usually one of my highest placing stages, the most nervous feeling stage and feels like the slowest stage. Does this happen to anyone else? It seems like the less nervous I get as the day goes on, the more chance I have of getting a mike. My times are usually pretty fast through out the whole match unless I have a major screw up. Any ideas to why this is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted June 22, 2017 Share Posted June 22, 2017 My first stage at a big match is nearly always one of my worse, and then it generally goes downhill from there. I guess being nervous will heighten your awareness leading to that feeling that time is slowing down. Nervousness for me leads me to actually slow down which is probably the reason that my first stages usually suck more... or perhaps I just need more cph4 (been watching too much "Lucy") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MemphisMechanic Posted June 23, 2017 Share Posted June 23, 2017 (edited) On 6/21/2017 at 10:05 PM, Hammerman said: ...the most nervous feeling stage and feels like the slowest stage. Feelings don't matter. [/Stoeger] The human mind weighs stress/panic/anxiousness heavily when determining how much time has actually passed. It is actually very bad at determining how fast things are happening. Don't trust your brain's perception of fast/slow. It's a lying little bastard that's trying to trick you. What I'm getting at is that your first stage is probably one of your slowest. As you relax you'll actually go faster with your mind perceiving it as the same speed. Or you're aware errors are likely during stage 1, and you're paying much more attention to your sights. Or both. Edited June 23, 2017 by MemphisMechanic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasref Posted June 23, 2017 Share Posted June 23, 2017 You start to get comfy with and maybe thinking that you could have done better if your time was faster. Next stop.............trying to outshot your gun. Sight picture gone. Trigger control gone. Stage plan at this point could be gone due to frustration of not doing as well as you think you should (mikes, no-shoots, less "A" hits). Final stop...........self doubt and beating yourself up because what looked so promising is now in the trash. The above is my observation of me, but I'm probably not alone here. Just a thought. (That might help). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willis103 Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 First stage jitters. You are simply more focused on what you are doing due to being nervous. As the day goes on you might go into auto-pilot until you get the mike then you're focused again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbu Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 I'm guessing that you are trying to out run your ability to gun it on subsequent stages where the first stage you ran it as fast as you were able to see it. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacobThomas Posted August 3, 2017 Share Posted August 3, 2017 Mine is for sure the opposite of being my best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quirk Posted August 16, 2017 Share Posted August 16, 2017 I'm a shooter with only 1 sanctioned match of experience, an IDPA match. Before we started I asked a friend - a Master level shooter - for advice and he said, with great seriousness, to shoot all zeros (As) at the first stage and "don't worry about your time." I followed his advice here, and shot all zeros with a respectable but not outstanding time. Whether it was luck or not, that apparently gave me confidence and I did much better than I expected on the rest of the stages...very low points down and ever improving raw time rank as I cycled through the day. I'm no competition psychologist, and I'm sure folks will argue about these things and there are different recipes that work for different personalities. But that's my recipe even with club matches now: I focus on hits for the first stage and find myself moving pretty fast anyway, and my times improve thereafter with still good hits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluedevil008 Posted October 25, 2017 Share Posted October 25, 2017 The nervousness probably keeps you within your abilitiess. The challenge is to do that for the entirety of the match. Shooting consistently well, not winning every stage is key to shooting an overall good match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonka Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 On 6/21/2017 at 8:05 PM, Hammerman said: When I'm at a match, my 1st stage is usually one of my highest placing stages, the most nervous feeling stage and feels like the slowest stage. Does this happen to anyone else? It seems like the less nervous I get as the day goes on, the more chance I have of getting a mike. My times are usually pretty fast through out the whole match unless I have a major screw up. Any ideas to why this is? Good for you. My feeling on my first stage is just to survive it. I do my best no to really screw up, no noshoots or misses. But as you mentioned it sometimes turned out good in the end Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 (edited) First stage nervousness is usually due to you artificially making that stage more important than the others. This nervousness issue usually compounds in severity depending on how "Special" the match is (Club match vs National match). A common train of thought for this is "I don't want to screw up the first stage because I want to have a good match". This type of thinking is closely linked to measuring your overall match performance as you shoot each stage and succeed or fail. Both of these mental games we play serve only as distractions that can negatively impact your performance. Stop treating the first stage in a match as any more or less important than any other stage in the match. All of the stages are important and we can only shoot one stage at a time. Having this mentality also solves the issue of treating each stage completed as a calumniation of match performance. Your performance is what it is based on how well you have trained your skills. If you want to perform your best on any given stage then you need to leave all of the distracting mental baggage behind and fully focus on the task at hand, not what you want as an end result. If you deploy a process that mitigates mental distractions and maintain a solid focus on the present tense then you create a situation where you are allowed to perform your best. Here is a good example. I give every single stage I shoot the same respect, effort, and mental focus regardless of what match that stage may be in. To me, its as simple as me vs the stage and nothing else matters. Doing this allows me to perform my best on each stage regardless of where that stage may be. When I am at the Nationals, I am not shooting "Holly crap, this is the Nationals" stages. I am simply shooting another stage which is literally no different than one in a club match, practice or the Nationals. Edited October 26, 2017 by CHA-LEE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoMiE Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 When you practice, set up a small speed shoot stage and treat it like the first stage of a match. You usually don’t get any warm up shots at a match so put that into your practice routine. Then when you go to a match whether big or small, it’s just another stage like others have said. Positive mental attitude goes a long ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyScuba Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 First is always worst. I need to slooow down, still new- lots to learn! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe4d Posted October 31, 2017 Share Posted October 31, 2017 I always Hero or Zero,, there is no in between... Go for it,, or go home, If you go for it you might win,,, if you dont you WILL lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfvsgoat Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 I still have first stage jitters. I know it's in my head and I have yet to shake it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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