Becoming A Shooting Machine!

[Steve Anderson]

When people talk about the best shooters, they always say, "He's a machine."

What creates that ability to execute without emotion? Isn't that what a machine does and is?

Like all good shooting, and improvement of any kind, it comes from having a plan and sticking to it absolutely every time without fail.

 

http://andersonshooting.libsyn.com/how-to-achieve-emotionless-excellence

[jessesmith121]

cant emotion drive you to excellence as well?  There are examples of this in history.  People being driven to greatness by emotional triggers or events.

[bigboy69]

I believe some things just come more naturally than others. Say for myself, I can pick up things easily when I do them as in handling the weapon, stance, sight picture, stuff like that. But I do find it harder for me to learn or memorize the stages. Maybe it's because I don't do it as often as shooting steel.  So when I learn a stage, I have to walk it a lot to memorize it while others can show up look at it and walk it for 2 minutes and they have it memorized. Others want to strive for greatness and it will drive you/them to be better, but you have to put in the time. So, for steel shooting at the end of the year I go to the prize table. So the higher you finish the better the prize. That makes me want to shoot better, so I get a better prize.  For USPSA, the better you get the higher the "status" you get.  And yes stick to a plan and execute, don't change the way you're going to shoot something when you get to the line.

[jessesmith121]

I'm not good at any of it... so I'm happy with my sample of lucas oil

 

[rowdyb]

Emotions are only good if they help. Which seems to be rarely. I would rather compete devoid of any emotion.

[Dranoel]

Practice until every basic function of shooting is perfectly automatic as making a right turn in your car or walking up a flight of stairs. When you don't have to "think" about controlling the gun, your mind is more open to dealing with the details of the stage. When you get to that point, there will be nothing in your head when the timer beeps but the center of the first target.

[hello0o0o0o]

I think it has equal to do with emotion as it does efficiency of action.  I’ve always watched max m and said that exact thing.  “He’s an absolute machine”. He has no emotion and does everything in the most efficient, clean, repeatable, structured way possible.  It’s weird to watch because it looks so simple.  As if you were watching a simulation of what it should look like.

 

However, people like speedy or even tilley, I can see emotion in the way they shoot,  I can see the effort they use to break position and do things aggressively.  It doesn’t look robotic, it looks human. 

 

Every shooter has their own particular style so don’t get caught up in trying to emulate the “machine”.  

Shoot and find what your peak performance looks like.

[pskys2]

If you have fun being a machine, do it. 

If you have fun feeling like you're going 100 miles an hour with your hair in flames (safely) do it.

If you want to win.....have fun learning to deal with pressure.

[GunBugBit]

We all bring our own personality into our shooting and everything else we do.

[loubob]

Emotion can light your fire but it is not dependable.

[gargoil66]

Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning.  Yuri Hanin.  97/2000.

 

Basically that every individual has a zone of emotional arousal where they perform at their optimal level.   Hanin had Olympic level athletes describe their emotions when performing and identified specific emotions and their intensity as either being helpful or not helpful.  Probably the key to this as opposed to the notion of 'Flow State' is that it is possible for people to input those optimal emotions dependably when they want to.  In other words, before competition, so as to enter the competition at an arousal level where they have performed optimally.  So far no one has been able to enter a 'Flow State' on demand but can enter a relatively ideal arousal state pretty easily.  

 

Some shooters do much better when anxious, others will blow it big time unless they get as calm as possible.  I think most probably do better when their adrenaline is up and they are wound up a bit but it is so individualized that no blanket statement can be made.

 

GG66 

 

 

[Halen]

On 3/30/2019 at 12:14 PM, pskys2 said:

If you have fun being a machine, do it. 

If you have fun feeling like you're going 100 miles an hour with your hair in flames (safely) do it.

If you want to win.....have fun learning to deal with pressure.

 

I think your last comment resonates with me the most. This will be my first year shooting competitively and I'm looking forward to how I'll respond. I'm expecting the first year to be one large learning experience. 

[pskys2]

15 hours ago, Halen said:

 

I think your last comment resonates with me the most. This will be my first year shooting competitively and I'm looking forward to how I'll respond. I'm expecting the first year to be one large learning experience. 

Enjoy the ride!

[Kwontanamo]

often times when i shoot a stage really well, I get in the mindset of "I've shot this stage a hundred times. I know how to do this". a large part of that comes with doing an effective walk-through of the stage and walking it exactly the same way I would shoot it. This helped build my confidence on the stage regardless of someone before or after me shot and moved like a bat out of hell. For instance, I shot with Nils Johansson in nationals one year and the guy is cool as it can be. He's very deliberate and efficient in his movements. Never mind the fact that he's 10' tall and takes 1 step to cover the entire stage.