The bad: we don't get to the range as often as we should. Not at all. I probably only shoot a couple thousand rounds a year, which means that my marksmanship is (ahem) modest.
ASM826 has a typically perceptive post up, about practice:
When we first sat behind the wheel of a car and drove slowly around a parking lot, it was all conscious thinking. We drove jerkily, over-correcting and when we did take our foot off the gas and move it over to push the brake, it was all done by thinking about it. And we all sucked at driving at that point. In the scenario I described at the beginning, we would have all hit the other car while we were still thinking about stopping.Smart guy, explaining to me how my brain is getting in my way. RTWT.
...
What I realized was that the best shooters are shooting the way we all apply the brakes. Reflexively. Yes, they see the target, make the turns, have a plan for the stage, but when the buzzer goes off, they are shooting out of thousands of hours of practice and muscle memory. Draw, mag changes, front sight and trigger. In essence, their brains might fall out too, but they aren't using them anyway. This insight is going to change how and how much I practice. It may not make any difference in the match results, but I will benefit.
5 comments:
Oh, you mean HAND guns... But a lot is about manipulation skills, not just marksmanship and x-ring stuff.
It's trigger-feel and breathing.
You know, there are options for shooting more...
-subtle hint dropping is my business, and bidness is good...
What I realized was that the best shooters are shooting the way we all apply the brakes. Reflexively.
Um ... there's nothing new or especially insightful about this. First your brain trains your muscles til they know what to do, then your brain gets out of the way and lets your muscles do what they've learned. Same thing for photography, horseback riding, flying an airplane, playing a sport ... just about any complex-but-repetitive activity is learned the same way.
Wolfwalker,
You are so right, I am about the 50 billionth person to figure this out. It's just that I figured it out for me.
I keep reinventing the wheel, you should have seen how relearning I did when I started reloading.
:)
I don't agree with the "muscle-memory" descriptor, muscles don't have memory - your brain has memory. It also has frequently used neural pathways where by repeated electrical impulses crossing it the signal is strengthened across the axons. It's neural pathways in the brain that get beaten-in and conscious memory that steps-back since it isn't required.
And I'm sticking to it. :-)
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