Calamity Jane

[Micah]

Indiana State Sectional Match

Calamity Jane

First Open C

Shooter Grrl

High Lady Open

Congrats to Kathy on a good match and best of luck at Nationals.

Today is about pondering, reflecting, contemplating, and writing what I want to say in my head.....I've got A LOT to say.

Jane, congrats on your victory! It was an absolute pleasure meeting you this past weekend. Thank you for being such a gracious host

[Calamity Jane]

Indiana State Sectional Match

Guns, Games, and Good times

It happened just as the tee shirt said. We had guns, games and good times. My husband spent many a sleepless night worrying about this match. Dave cares about doing things right. He wanted everything done well for the enjoyment of the shooters. However, no match is successful because of one person. I was inspired watching his team work together. He had individuals working that truly cared about delivering the best match possible. They each had their own special gift to give and EACH one of them was VITAL to the success of the match. They worked themselves to exhaustion and I mean that literally. It reminded me of Band of Brothers. I saw loyalty, respect and resolve in our staff that mirrored that of Easy Company. Gentleman, it was a pleasure to be around you. I want you by my side if ever we go to war again. Thank you.

Dave, I am so proud of you. I know you have grown through this experience. I’m glad you did it and I’m glad it’s over. I’m a lucky lady to be married to you.

I’m thankful for this experience also. We have been to many State and Area matches over the last several years. It seemed right for us to take our turn as host. Sometimes you have to give to get. It was our turn to give.

As many of you know it is difficult to compete and to work a match. My performance was a little disappointing because of this. It was an unrealistic expectation to have a peak performance. It was disappointing not being able to complete my goal but I wouldn’t change a thing if I had to do it all over again. My performance taught me something about myself. I gladly place my sub-par performance on the USPSA sacrificial altar for the good of the sport. We need people who will serve. This past weekend was our turn. We were happy to serve you.

I know where I’m at with my shooting and I know where I’m going. Next post I’ll talk more about this.

Micah...it was nice meeting you also. You are as fun and as energetic as your range diary reveals. So glad you could be a part of our match.

Edited June 19, 2007 by Calamity Jane

[reneet]

Way to go, Jane! I know how difficult it is performing your best when you have anything to do with putting on the match. Good Job and Wishes of a great performance @ Nationals.

[nipplehead]

Jane and Dave, you and your crew put on a great match...the stages and staff were beyond expectations. I felt bad for the RO's suffering in the heat on Saturday afternoon when I shot. I spoke with Dave a few times during the match and really I can think of anyone else I would rather have run that match ...or the next one but him. He is a hellava nice man right from my first contact with him over my scheduling concerns , to meeting you both at North Porter and throughout the Sectional. Great job!!! And considering all the distractions and even without you performed well. Congrats. I shot like crapola but at least my Son who never practices or shoots at all when Purdue is in session got 2nd in C limited.

[m.e.t.]

Jane,

For you to win C class Open when you were running on empty speaks to your skill and dedication. I would like to point out to you all that our R/O staff had 4 class winners. We have some bragging rights attached to that. Many of you have spent days setting up and broke the last shot of your match at 8 PM on Friday. There isn't much left at that point.

As we said to each other on Friday night. This match was our payback for all of the great and hard work we have enjoyed at others expense over the years. You and Dave are the best and I am proud to have been there through the years to watch you both grow in our sport. And I am blessed to count you as part of my shooting family.

Look out Illinois and Kentucky cause Jane is coming to compete.....You go girl.........

Mike...................

[Caspian_45]

Bring it on Jane.

[JakeMartens]

I have to say that I am very proud to have been a part of this match, and I am especially happy for the performance that you and several of the other folks that helped put this match on had!!! It speaks volume of the dedication that no only you and Dave and family have to the shooting sports but for all of us involved.

I hope to see your name up there more and more!!!!

[Calamity Jane]

Thanks everybody! I love the people in this sport.

[Calamity Jane]

Reckless Abandon

We went to the lake this past week and did some tubing with the boys. My youngest son loves the water. He also loves to ride on the tube. He kneels, sits, stands, and lays on it. He is constantly changing his position. The whole time he has a great big smile on his face. He rides that tube with reckless abandon and doesn’t think a thing of it. As I was watching him, trying not to think of the spinal cord injuries that could occur, I tried to think of the last time I pursued something with reckless abandon. To pursue something with a whole hearted childlike trust. I couldn’t remember a time. Life’s experience has eroded my youthful optimism. Somehow over time I’ve turned into the conservative librarian with the horned rim glasses, buttoned up shirt and the bun in her hair. I live a controlled life with controlled risk.

So what’s the problem? The problem is my up tight, controlled, managed risk personality is getting in the way of taking my shooting to the next level. IMO it is time for me to let the hair down, loosen the collar, throw the glasses to the side and start shooting with a reckless abandon. I have the shooting skills to do it. The question is do I have the guts? Associating the word reckless with guns doesn’t sound wise. I don’t actually mean reckless. What I mean is to shoot with a trust in myself that allows me to pull the trigger when I know I can. I’m holding back. No one knows that but me. I know what’s going on behind the gun. For whatever reason, I don’t allow myself to go to the edge. I’m always in control.

My birthday is at the end of July. I would like to give myself the gift of finding a way to shoot with the same childlike reckless abandon that my son has when he rides that tube. I would like to give myself a trip to the edge and be able to live to tell about it.

[BigDave]

Perhaps a few catch phrases are in order here?

"...go as fast as possible and take all unnecessary chances." - especially popular after a few beers (not while shooting, just driving )

Grip it and Rip it!

Free your mind and your a$$ will follow.

Are you waiting for a certain shade of green?

Fuc& it!, let's see what happens!!! - a personal favorite

Jane - you're going to have to just get sloppy with it. The trick will be to keep your attention up while accepting things visually that you probably don't right now - like D hits. Figure out what you can get away with and, most importantly - HAVE FUN, DAMNIT!!!

[Coach]

"Throw a few ground balls. Strikeouts are boring besides that they are fascist."

"The ball is an egg hold it like and egg."

[Calamity Jane]

Mr. Ball says, "Let it go but in control". Sounds like him doesn't it?

Opening bottle of wine and watching Bull Durham now.

Big Dave....you're spot on. I know what I've got to do...but I don't do sloppy very well. I think part of it may be because I'm an intensive care nurse where I deal with people's lives hanging in the balance. Sloppy is never appropriate at work. BUT this isn't work...this is play. Where I need to let go has nothing to do with my movement or the speed in which I move through a course of fire....it has to do with pulling the trigger. Like you said...it may mean a D hit or dare I say it...a mike! Ouch! Insert heavy sigh. It must be done to move forward.

Planning on a live fire practice session tomorrow.

[JakeMartens]

After the load and make ready, close your eyes, run the stage through your mind, then run it in reverse. Open your eyes, nod on the ready and just let it go.

During the the show clear, close your eyes again and let your mind rewind what you just did.

Sometimes it is magic, almost out of body like, when it is on it flows....

If you think about it too much, then you are trying to make it happen. You have the skills and the equipment, just let it go and burn it up!!!

See what happens and then learn from it.

I look at the only 2 decent stages I had at the IN sectional without ammo feeding problems. Stage 2 is where I started that day, my goal was to shoot it clean and as fast I could see my sights moving through. I had a couple of stop and stands, but ended up 7th overall on that stage. I closed my eyes, thought about it then on the beep just ran it, I didn't really think about what was happening other than touching the bases, when I showed cleared I knew I had my hits.

[j1b]

Jane,

You've mentioned the word trust. That's the biggest piece. You can't fear that the world is flat when you're sailing. If you look out to the horizon - it appears flat. Boats that pass you "fall out of sight" All the signs indicate that the world is flat. In your shooting (and sailing) you must trust that the world is in fact not flat. WHen you know it in your heart - it'll come through.

Let it go - trust it - and you will see what is real.

J

[markwilliston]

I don't know if this is in the same ballpark for what you are looking for. We have a couple "games" we do every once in a while at practice, it does help having more than one shooter. 5 yards, on the buzzer, how fast can you get the gun out and pull the tigger. No sight picture, just beep, draw, blam! "A" doesn't matter (on the target is good, but doesn't matter) just how fast can you do it. My best is around .78 what can you do? We also do a modified Bill drill, in that once again, A's don't count it's how fast you can draw and get all six shots off. Murray can do it in the 1.7's, I can do it in the high 1.9's if I am relaxed. Tracey calls that one thel Happy finger drill.... How fast can you do it? It's easier to push the speed up if there are a couple people to practice with. Heck, if you can do it in 2.08, I can beat that!

[Calamity Jane]

Went to the range today with my husband I've got him back mentally...and also as a training partner. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have him "back".

We decided to shoot some El Prez's to end our session and to decide who was going to cook dinner. HE made pork chops...anyway something very interesting happened. I "let go" like I've been trying to describe and I nailed a hit factor of 9.6014...which is 80.8198% according to Ohio Calculator...which means A class. I wasn't trying to shoot fast...I didn't do anything different...I just allowed myself to shoot and didn't try to control myself and make myself perfect....I let go. I could still "see". I did have some trouble with pulling off the third target right before the reload...but that is an easy fix.

Last weekend someone said to me, "You're not a C class shooter, you're an A class shooter." In my mind (and I'm ashamed of this) I immediately said to myself "I'm not A class". Here's what has happend. My shooting skill circle has become bigger and now it is out of balance with my self image circle. I've got to grow my self image circle to match the skill circle. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about...I'm referring to Lanny Bassham "With Winning in Mind". I've got work to do and most of it is in my head.

*** Mark---we did some of your drills today and it was helpful...Thanks

[Calamity Jane]

Pirated from the "Pride and Fear" thread

"That's where it gets tricky. Care too much, especially about the wrong things (score, time, finish, or anything ego-related), and we won't do our best. Try not to care (like when you just say "F' it! - let's let 'er rip"), and we get sloppy and don't pay attention to subtle details. Which is where a good performance comes from.

But if we really pay attention to just what is happening - what you're seeing and feeling - then we usually do pretty good. And by "really pay attention," I mean paying attention to your own mind's thoughts - thereby weeding out by exposing ego-related-"try" thoughts - long before you get to the line, in addition to what is happening as you are actually shooting. Step up to the line with your mind clean (doubt-free), fully prepared, and confident, and what happens will be within your control."

be

League night has resumed at the Ball house. League night is basically a once a week practice where we set up 2 field courses, a classifier, and a speed shoot. We keep score and run each stage twice. Shot it last night and really pushed for speed. I got what I expected. Fewer points with more D hits and a few mikes. I was running 2 seconds ahead of the limited guns. It was fast but I found it to be sloppy and dis-satisfying.

Brian's words sort of triggered something in my mind...Big Dave was also trying to tell me this... When you pick up the speed you also have to pick up your awareness. I don't think I heightened my awareness last night. I always shoot with awareness...but the concept of heightened awareness appeals to me. I'm going to mess around with that. Push speed with heightened awareness. How about this...saturate yourself with visual patience and heightened awareness. oooh I like that....stole both of them from Brian. Now if I just could do it...wouldn't that be cool.

[hopalong]

YES it WILL be cool WHEN you do it !!!!

Hop

another thing..........

Speeding up your shooting and shooting sloppy is not caused by unawareness.........but by not speeding up your awareness to match your shooting pace. I hope that makes some kind of sense

[Calamity Jane]

YES it WILL be cool WHEN you do it !!!!

Hop

another thing..........

Speeding up your shooting and shooting sloppy is not caused by unawareness.........but by not speeding up your awareness to match your shooting pace. I hope that makes some kind of sense

THANKS for the encouragement HOP!!

My limited gun is in Arizona in the hands of Matt Mclearn. It's getting a new long flat trigger and trigger job. I'm thinking I'm going to like that gun a whole lot better once Matt does his magic to it. August 1st the open gun goes in the vault and I pick the limited gun back up.

July's plan is to shoot with Dave in practice, shoot league night once a week, and shoot matches on weekends. July is all about the shooting...no thinking or training....just doing.

[Flyin40]

Here's something I tried at the beginning of the year when I was really working on snapping my eyes and opening up my my awareness/vision. I set up 4 targets up for dryfire and used white pasters. I placed 2 pasters on each target and numbered them 1-8. T-1 would have 1 and 2, T-2 would have 3 and 4 etc. Basically the order I would shoot them. I would then work and snapping my eyes to the each target making myself "See" each number on each target. What this did was first, make snapping the eyes automatic and second, once I snapped the eyes it made me open up my awareness to be able to see each number. When you first start it will be really slow and feel wierd but it helped me. I kinda got away from it and my points have showed it. I have been shooting alot of brown paper the last couple of matches vs. actually picking a spot on the target.

I also would switch up where the pasters were, top left corner of the A zone, bottom right corner etc. My thoughts behind this was being able to mentally visualize where you want to hit based on the available target(partial, no shoot covering half the A zone). I wanted to open up my vision so I could start picking a spot instead and seeing exactly where I wanted to hit and teaching my eyes to lead so by the time the gun gets there the eyes have already found and picked the spot for the shot.

After doing this a month I started to notice thats things were slowing down as I was shooting. I wasn't shooting slower but I was seeing more.

Hope it helps

Flyin

Edited June 29, 2007 by Flyin40

[Nik Habicht]

When you pick up the speed you also have to pick up your awareness. Push speed with heightened awareness. How about this...saturate yourself with visual patience and heightened awareness. Now if I just could do it...wouldn't that be cool.

Just something to consider: Is it that you didn't pick up your awareness, or is it that part of your awareness moved to the emphasis on speed?

[Calamity Jane]

Nik and Flyin...that there is some good posting!! Thank you very much! I'm going to add the white paster thing to my dry fire routine and see what I can see.

I shot with Mr. Ball again tonight. Mr. Ball is brilliant at stage design and practice plans. This month I'm riding on his coat tails. I'm tired...I admitt it. I've been working at this by myself for the last 6 months. It's so nice to have a practice partner who is thinking up the practice plan. All I'm doing now is showing up to shoot. I've forgotten what it was like to be spoiled! (Insert heavy sigh of satisfaction here)

We did the regular group shoot thing and then we worked on transitions...near to far...far to near. The bet tonight was who could shoot 4 steel the fastest....me

I tried to raise my awareness on "seeing" while maintaining speed. Pretty good results but we were doing a lot of stand and shoot stuff. We'll be shooting a match on Sunday so it's going to be interesting to see what happens. My plan is to again let the speed go but really heighten the awareness on seeing. I was thinking tonight that I have 3 speeds.

Speeds

1. Seeing shots great but overconfirming sight (high alpha count)

2. Seeing shots and pulling the trigger the split second you see it (alpha/charlie on all targets)

3. Seeing brown paper (Delta and mikes in the mix)

I want to be able to shoot that #2 speed consistently. Each time I shoot I come a little closer to finding that sweet spot.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Calamity Jane

[Calamity Jane]

I was thinking some more and thought of another way to descirbe the 3 speeds I'm talking about.

1. Seeing clearly

2. Seeing something

3. Seeing blurry

Seeing clearly is too slow...seeing blurry has bad points...but seeing "something" is the perfect blend of seeing the hits but still pushing the speed.

[Flyin40]

I wanted to add some things if your going to try the white pasters. There are a couple things you should know. If you do this you'll will be practicing consciously. I went through some progression to get it subconcious.

Start with the numbered pasters. After your seeing the numbers clearly then you can move on.

Then go to just white pasters. This will move you more towards subconscious shooting. You visualize your dot on each paster prior to shooting it. Make sure you move them around to different parts of the A zone. I even have some partial hardcover targets I use and no shoots.

Lastly you can just use a regular target with no pasters but still use hardcover and no shoots to make you pick a spot on the available target. The idea here is you still should be able to have the same clarity on the A zone you did with the pasters and numbers.

I'm not sure why I got away from this. I haven't done it in my dryfire routine for awhile now. I started it up again this week. After the Indiana match I was just seeing too much brown on a some of the stages. Last couple of matches have been that way. Back to the basics.

I also have done the pasters in live fire but with only 1 paster on each target. Aim small, miss small.

Flyin

[Calamity Jane]

A picture is worth a thousand words.....

The music you hear in the background is my 14 year old, movie maker son playing his guitar....HE ROCKS!!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3363909947505205000