SiG Lady Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Sometimes a time-loss moment (read that: pure panic) can be a 'magical' moment if you live thru it. I took a turn too wide (motorcycle) on a neighborhood street long ago and came face-to-face with the back of a restored classic car (someone's expensive toy, no doubt). I had a nanosecond to decide whether to abruptly meet with the hard object (classic car) and face a lawsuit or hop the curb and bury my face in the geraniums and a wooden fencepost. Let's just say I went home with dirt on my face. I leaped the curb, smelled geraniums, scrunched myself on the fencepost and the bike came down on top of me. On one hand, the little old lady watering her flowers in that yard honest-to-God NEVER EVEN NOTICED that this all was going on (and old people wonder why we get so annoyed at them and their obliviousness behind the wheel!!); on the other hand, outa nowhere came Superman (tall, dark, handsome,etc., etc.) on a huge motocycle who was there when I turned over on my back to see if the sun was still shining. Gawd, where did this dude COME from???!!! Naturally he helped me up and we discovered that neither I nor the borrowed motorcycle was broken. The little old lady kept watering her flowers (what planet was she on?) and Superman stayed there until he decided I was OK (what planet did HE come from?). I never saw this guy at the intersection when I turned the corner and had the mishap. Who was this guy......? Where did he come from...??!! Needless to say, TIME had pretty much 'left the building' during all this. It was more a matter of a DECISION in an amount of time that was incalculable. Another "Moment"--> Was about to shoot at a rapid-fire small target in league one night and was a little nervous about it for some reason. Up stepped one of my known-to-be magical friends and he leaned over my shoulder... the buzzer went off... he just kept saying, "...nice 'n slow, nice 'n easy.." until all 12 rounds were fired. (Normally, fellow shooters do not chat with shooters who are on the firing line). I not only finished before the buzzer, but accomplished a perfect-score target. The sensation of TIME coming to a halt was absolutely palpable. It was just me and Barry there for about 10 seconds. I was so relaxed and confident (I actually KNEW it was going to be a perfect target at that point) that it HAD to be a 'Zen zone' moment. HAD to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 I think almost everyone has one or two of these experiences. The first I can remember ... I must have been 12. I grew up in Bucharest, Romania and the section in which my family lived was basically miles and miles of high rises with some roads, paths, and playgrounds between the buildings. My grandparents lived about 3 or 4 miles away so it was not unusual for me to bike back and forth at least once a day, weaving between all the high rises using back roads and lawns. I've never been a great cyclist, but a childs mountain bike sure beats walking. One night I was rushing home trying to beat the street lights coming on (the par time for my days at the time) and I crossed a medium sized playground using the cement path which snaked through it. At one point this path made two 90 degree turns one after the other, one left, one right ... and I completely forgat they where there. I was going as fast as I could as I entered those turns and I became an spectator to my bike and my body leaning left to the point that I could feel the air channel between the ground an my knee, then leaning just as far right and then leveling off and continuing. I almost fell of my bike 10 yards later. I had to stop, look back, and I must have had the biggest grin ever on my face. There was no one else to see it, but I remember it to this day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Damn, we are all sorta lucky to be alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Damn, we are all sorta lucky to be alive. Maybe it's an accident I'm still here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 on the other hand, outa nowhere came Superman (tall, dark, handsome,etc., etc.) on a huge motocycle So, get to the good stuff. Did anything, y'know, interesting happen between you and Superman after that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 Don't I wish!!!!! This phantom Bat-guy vanished as mysteriously as he appeared. Damn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 Obviously there are more gay men in the world than I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted June 14, 2006 Author Share Posted June 14, 2006 My first MM, in shooting... Way back in 1981, I was practicing for my first Bianchi Cup, with Robbie. (He was with me but he wasn't going to the match.) My 5" stock 45 shot like absolute crap at 50 yards, so we had put the top end off Rob's 45, which had an ultra-trick 6" Barsto barrel, on my bottom end. The crazy thing was it functioned perfectly, and, it shot a whole lot better than mine. So anyway, we're shooting the 6 shot/15 second string at the 50 yard line (prone). (On one target because we didn't feel like setting up two.) I shot a 6 shot string, and when I stood up - the weirdest thing happened to me. I'd never experienced anything like it. My entire perceptual realm "materialized," or "reappeared." That about all I can say about it. I remember the first thing I related it to was how it looked like on TV when they came out of hyper space, on Star Trek. Everything went from this blurred, mixed up state, to a world with fixed objects. I can't remember much except for going - "whoooa" - that was bizarre. Right then, thinking back on it, I honestly could not have told you if was down there (prone) for 15 or 60 seconds. (Normally I could tell you exactly how long I took to shoot the string.) The sense or perception of time, I was so familiar with - completely suspended itself. (We timed each other with stop watches then, so Rob told me I was under the 15 second time limit.) But the most fun thing was when we walked down to look at the target - it was 6 x's. (The x-ring is a 4" circle.) I couldn't shoot that group with that pistol off the bench, in any time limit.... As I was learning, some things are better left unexplained. That experience changed my whole approach towards shooting. And later, I realized - everything in life. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted June 14, 2006 Share Posted June 14, 2006 (edited) Another great story. You know, if we come up with enough of these one of the kids on here will have a lot of material for a Doctoral Dissertation. I just hope they jog my subconscious to understand that is what I want it to do.... Edited June 14, 2006 by AikiDale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted June 14, 2006 Share Posted June 14, 2006 We're all just too damn' cool... and living in what might just be one long, convoluted Magical Moment........ Carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9146gt Posted June 14, 2006 Share Posted June 14, 2006 Pit stop Indy 500..Pit this lap tires and fuel..spotter he's on pit lane..slow down at the mark pit speed limiter on..car in the pits behind clear out ..slow lane 5..4 ..3.. 2..1.. in hit your marks..reset fuel.. fuel to 7..sway bars..weight jacker..set launch...car down....Go!go!go!... clear high.. traffic in 2...after about an 8 second stop and now on the other side of pit wall did I tighten the wheel???remember taking the wheel off car going up, tire on,fuel in ,car back in gear, engine on launch control (rev limiter flames out exhaust) did tighten the wheel ? well it did not fall off!!! Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted June 14, 2006 Share Posted June 14, 2006 (edited) Damn, we are all sorta lucky to be alive. Maybe it's an accident I'm still here... It's no accident in my opinion. I think you're supposed to be here for a reason Dale! I should have been road kill but wasn't. I had my license for two wheels a couple of years before I had my license for four. Used to ride a little Honda 80cc dirt bike with my dad every now and again. Anyway, during my misspent youth, I was a little mod scooter girl - Vespa P200E with a full set of chrome crash bars, luggage rack, and 2 sets of mirrors ala Quadrophenia. The thing probably went no more than 70mph down hill with a tail wind. I was on my way to Balboa Park in San Diego for a school function wearing a little wool pencil skirt, hose and heels, a blouse and leather jacket, and my full jaw helmet. Just before I went to take the clover leaf to get onto I-5 southbound, a little voice said "Take the backpack off the luggage rack and wear it." I pulled over, grabbed the backpack, but instead of putting it on normally, each strap resting on one shoulder, I put both straps over my right shoulder. Now I take the clover leaf and start accelerating to get to freeway speed. I move over into the number four lane and all of the sudden I got a little shake going. I speed up a little thinking it's the rain grooves grabbing my tires. But instead of improving, it gets worse. I'm trying to drift the scooter towards the emergency lane. I pull in the clutch and let off the gas to slow down. That was a mistake. The cotter pin holding the rear wheel in place apparently backed out and so now I'm in a full wobble. I check my mirrors and there is tons of rush hour traffic behind me, the speedometer says I'm doing 45mph, and I'm not anywhere near the emergency lane. My tire must have grabbed a deep groove in the pavement because suddenly I'm in a front wheel skid and the scooter is turned nearly ninety degrees. I get catapolted off the bike. Without thinking as I see the pavement coming up to greet me, I bring my chin to my chest and I roll onto the shoulder with the backpack on it. Since it was loaded with papers, it acted like a cushion and took most of the force. I rolled three times and on the next rotation I managed to get my feet under me and found myself running because of the momentum. I look over my shoulder. I expected to see a car hitting my scooter and pushing it towards me. Turns out everyone stopped in time and other than my ditched bike, there weren't any accidents. I ran over, pulled the scooter up, and wheeled it into the emergency lane and then sat on the curb. It was kinda surreal. I could feel my skirt flapping in the breeze and I was aware that I had some major runs in my stockings but it was as if time had stopped. I think I was in shock as I have no idea how long I'd been sitting there. Some motorist finally pulled over and came up to me and said, "are you okay." Everything rushed back to normal and I did a quick self check. I had no broken bones - almost nothing wrong other than a skinned knee and a small bit of road rash on my backside. Uh, that explains the breeze and my skirt flapping. Okay, so I take my jacket off and wrap it around my waist. Because of the crash bars, there's only a bit of paint scraped on the scooter and I lost maybe an ounce of gas. Two of my mirrors are toast though. I check the rear wheel and use a screw driver to bend the cotter pin back to it's correct position. I then very slowly and very carefully drive the thing back home. So to me there were two magic moments; listening to that inside voice surely kept me from serious injury and instinctually reacting when the bike dumped. Had I thought instead of reacted, I'd have just ended up as a slimy skid mark. So is there a membership card for the "I shouldn't be here" club? Edited June 14, 2006 by carinab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 Siggy, so your Guardian Angel is tall, dark, and handsome. Go figure. Carina, that's an awesome story! And I make it a point to always heed that little voice too. Brian, this is a excellent thread! For a shooter, shooting, competition, risk, and the camaraderie that it brings offers an opportunity to focus on "that one thing". Thanks again for providing a great place to share. Do you guys get as much of a laugh as I do out of that "Capital One" commerical with the GA who's never quite on the ball? I'll admit that my share of magic, almost tragic, moments have made me into a bit of a mystic. So I wonder, if I do have one, will we sit down sometime and recount all the times I knew about and all the times I didn't? On "accumulating" : The thing about nearly getting schmucked is, that it does focus you entirely in the present tense. All the exterraneous accumulated garbage that usually fills our heads fades away and there is only "here and now". The trouble is, I can't get there by trying. I cannot help but wonder if we live in a society that places so much value on "thinking ahead" and "controlling our destiny" that we miss the greatest gift of life? Hey, maybe that's why we call it "THE PRESENT"? For certain, competition is a firey furnace where all illusions get burned to ash. We must desire to win in order to truly compete at the highest level of our ability. But winning has to be the farthest thing from my mind in order for me to shoot at the highest level of my ability. Here are some things that accumulate in my ego. Fear of failure. Doubting that I know how to execute the required skills. Thinking that I should have practiced more. Resenting something about the match or stage. Allowing wins and losses to define my self image. I guess I need to go back and read Brian's and Lanny's books again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 Perhaps God created motorcycles to teach us to pay attention. Your story Carina reminded me of another bike wreck. It was a dark and misty, almost but not quite rainy evening in Sarasota. My plan was to turn right, then left into the gas station to fill up then through the gas station to the Publix to pick up a couple of things on my way home. As I made the right hand turn I realized the gas station was closed, but turned left and began to accelerate a bit on my way to the grocery through the gas station lot. The pavement was dark from the rain and the sun had gone down. No light from the gas station because it was closed. All this conspired with my inattention to keep me from seeing what I needed to see. The #%@$^@#^@#%^ who filled the gas station tanks had left the manhole cover off when he was finished leaving a tidy hole for my front tire. Between my Guardian Angel and martial arts training my body was kind enough to roll...several times. My consciousness went from going to the store to realizing I was rolling. Never before and hopefully never again does Dale go down that hard and fast. Needless to say the bike just stopped and I did not. I was uninjured. Had to call my wife to bring me a hammer to pound a foot peg back into place so I could kick start the bike. This was not really one of those warm and fuzzy magic moments it was more of a WTF??!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 I got a real good laugh today. Fortunately nothing expensive was damaged. I was in a classroom with a bunch of pipeliners crowded around and about 100K worth of expensive test equipment on the table. (Pipeliners can break things as well as any rinocerous) All of a sudden, some duct tape that was holding our experiment together let go and a cheap fan fell to the floor with a mighty crash. The instructor, ex-navy guy, jumped outta his chair and screams: WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT! OVER? The look on his face was priceless! I was thinking, HEHEHE, Yeah! He just had a magic moment! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 "Siggy, so your Guardian Angel is tall, dark, and handsome. Go figure. " Not quite sure what you meant by that, but... He was also wearing a pair of mirror-surface sunglasses so his identity was REALLY mysterious (but it did not hide his obvious good looks). I ought to try and photoshop the visual I still vividly carry of that moment... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 I just meant that, well sure.... any GA assigned to look after the Sig Lady would have to be......you know.... classy, mysterious, with enough seniority to rate the best assignments. Definately a Duncan McCloud type! Judging from some of the scrapes I've survived, I figure my own GA is probably a hot looking Warrior Princess with a big-ass sword and bit of a temper, who really knows how to ride the back seat of a scooter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ima45dv8 Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 My first shooting related MM came at a local match about 3-4 years ago. Most of the hot shooters on the squad were running this particular field course stage in about 22 seconds, clean. I hoped to, but..... It had some wide transitions with open invitations to break the 180 about halfway through, and more than a few of no-shoots overlaying shoot targets, and targets stashed behind short no-shoot covered vision barriers. Overall it was maybe 20 yards from front to back. At the buzzer I executed what was not my best draw, and couldn't get the first shot off. I spent several seconds squeezing the checkering off the grips but it refused fire. After I realized I had missed pressing the grip safety far enough to disengage it I relaxed my death-grip a bit and the gun went "BANG!" Just a few seconds before I had been looking forward to that round going off but with all the trouble I was having I think it actually scared me. Everything I had planned went straight out the window at that point, and the last conscious thought I had was that it was late and I better get moving. Literally, I *ran* through the stage shooting and reloading (skinny gun in Lim10), not really aiming the gun at all. I felt like I running through wet sand and couldn't get any speed going. Saying it was slow motion is an understatement. Then the RO announced my time and it was something like 21 seconds. I thought "no way!" and grabbed the timer. I hit review and my first shot was just over 4.5 seconds. Then it dawned on me that I had shot the course in about 16.5 seconds. Confused by what I was seeing on the timer, I stumbled after the RO while the stage was scored. Somehow, I had shot it clean! Something was terribly wrong. As I thought about it later, and a thousand times since I realized that what was wrong was my self-limiting belief that I couldn't shoot it that fast and still score well on the targets. I still struggle with wanting to learn how to get out of my own way and let that little guy inside steer the ship. With apologies to our friends in AA, it's like a quest to "Let go and let Gun". For one brief, panic-induced moment my outer conscious got distracted and was left behind when I went shooting. I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to learn how to dump his butt at the buzzer -- on demand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted June 15, 2006 Share Posted June 15, 2006 ..."Definately a Duncan McCloud type! " Yes! You nailed it! Thank you! Oh, and your Warrior Princess should probably have red hair if she knows what's good for her! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpolans Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 I've had a few of those moments in shooting. The first time, IIRC, I was shooting in the German Nationals back in 90 or 91. The stage was made of about a dozen poppers, half red, half black. At the beep, you were to flip up a card in a card deck and shoot that color popper first, do a mag change, and shoot the remaining poppers. I remember flipping the card and seeing the color and feeling as if time had stopped for a second. Then I started firing at the poppers. It felt as if the gun was practically floating from target to target and I was shooting in slow motion. I was hearing the gun and seeing the brass eject, seeing the dot lift and return, but it felt like everything else was very quiet and still. When it was finished, it turns out I shot one of the best stages of my life and placed 2nd on the stage, WAY above my usual finishes. If only I could do it on demand... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMS42 Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 My Magical Moment was more of a series of things that were good or went well after the initial baddie. It's kind of a long story so I'll try to only hit the highlights. It was July 21, 1957 and I was 4 days short of 15. I was water skiing when the boat pulling developed some sort of problem. Another boat stopped to take me aboard. At the question "Are you in?" I answered "Yes", but I wasn't all the way in. One foot was inside the boat and the other was still on the ladder. The driver had just idled back and he pushed the throddle forward and turned sharp to the left. I was on the right side of the boat. This threw me off and put me in the boat's path. The prop chewed me up and also the ladder and the Mae West I was wearing. The good things were that I was pulled into the boat and almost right away and while heading for shore, towels and bankets were used to stop the bleeding. On shore I was transferred to a fast station wagon and a tourniquet was placed on my right arm. We then headed for the nearest hospital--Sheridan, Montana. The lake was about 30 or so miles of dirt road before the highway and about 10 miles of paved road. Along the way they stopped the car at a tiny crossroads and used the phone there to call the hospital. The hospital had two doctors, one young at about 40 something and he was out digging worms to go fishing. He would have been gone if they hadn't called. The other Dr. was in his 70s. He said that he would not have been able to handle the 5 hours that I was on the table being sewed up. Some other things that turned out good were the cuts. The one in my right palm was a flap cut at an angle. Had it been straight I would have lost my fingers. The wrist cut was shallow. If it had been as deep as the other cuts all the tendons and veins and other stuff would have been severed. The cut in the lower bicep was very deep, but didn't cut the artery. The left chest cuts went into the ribs rather than between them. The cuts in the belly did not cut into the stomach lining. The cuts all started with a scratch then went into a deep and long cut. I had a scratch and small cut near my throat that had it gone into the same length and depth as the others would have severed my windpipe and left cartoid artery. The hospital ran out of cat gut and ended up using silk to sew up the inside of the arm cuts along with the external stitching. The hospital only had 2 units of plasma on hand and I got that plus a quart of whole blood. One pint came from the guy driving the boat who also the guy behind the wheel of the car. The guy in back with me said that he looked up one time and the car was doing over 100. I was in the hospital for 10 days. At home I used an old roll away bed because I couldn't lay flat and the bed could be propped up. I couldn't walk standing straight for a long time and had no grip strength in the right hand and no strength with the left arm. To pull draps I would grap the cord with my left hand, put my right arm over the left and push down. So a lot of things went well afterwards. I got my first antelope on September 20th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 Man, if you had lived in Florida we'd be calling you Manatee! How long before you went water skiing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p99shooter Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 I think I've found a common thread in these posts: If you rigorously train your mind at anything (shooting, motorcycle riding, boating), your subconscience will "take over" when necessary. I'll relate a story of when that happened to me while, of all places, in a physics class in grad school. I was in my 3rd year of grad school working on my master's in physics. The class was about applications of group theory in quantum mechanics. It was an elective open to both math and physics grad students, and I think a few undergrads signed up too. The class started out at a good size of about 25. After one week, it was down to about 15. After the second week, it was down to < 10. The professor was great and easy going, but the material was very difficult to get one's head around. I was meeting regularly with the professor outside of class to get some help, and took the lead in the class group project. One day, the professor asked a pointed, difficult question in class. I was stumped, as well as the rest of the class. Then, I let my mind drift on its own, going into an almost trance-like state. I heard a voice in my head say "The answer is -------." I trusted it, and without thinking said it out loud. The professor responded "That's right." The funny thing about it was, immediately after I said the answer, I *forgot* what I said, or even why I said it! It took me several moments to start my brain back up again and think of an explanation as to why that answer was right. It happned another time in a grad-level math methods class. That time a student asked the question, and prof couldn't answer it. Again, I just blurted it out, trusting some feeling that was telling me the answer, without really knowing for sure that it was right. I wanted to share this because all the other examples mostly involved some kind of physical activity; but it can happen with purely mental ones too I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMS42 Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Man, if you had lived in Florida we'd be calling you Manatee! How long before you went water skiing? Went for a boat ride that Labor Day Weekend and water skiing the next July. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 For one brief, panic-induced moment my outer conscious got distracted and was left behind when I went shooting. Eggggcellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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