Author: Mark Roberts, Retired Firearms Safety Instructor / Provincial Range Officer (Ontario)
The Set Up
You have signed up for a shoot, paid the entry fee, and marked the date on your calendar. The night before you set your gear out and try to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for what you are hoping will be a good showing on your part.
You’re new to shooting but have been methodical in your approach. You have resisted the urge to buy a gun and gear to make sure this sport is something you like and want to commit to on a competitive edge. You ask people in the sport, watch some videos and then engage a coach to get a good start, so buyers regret and self-induced bad habits are reduced. The coach has determined what type and level of shooting you want to pursue and provides pointers, corrective feedback and a regime to practice. The coach cautioned that buying top tier gear might move you from the 85th percentile to 90 in the higher-class levels, but it won’t establish the good form and attitude leading up to success in competition.
You set a budget, make your purchases, and then practice. Sometimes with the coach, sometimes on your own, and sometimes with others. You notice your drive and abilities to shoot well seem to improve when you shoot with others who are simply better than you. You have a benchmark and you are excited to join that cadre. You focus on each bird as if it were the only one of the importance. You provide yourself with an analysis of both the hits and misses, while being receptive to, but not distractive to any feedback from your group.
Your self-awareness is keen and associated self-correction processes are working.
The Day Of
The alarm awakens you the day of the shoot. A flood of expectations and anxieties blend like the milk stirred in your coffee.
The cub is much busier than you have seen when practicing, and that adds more to your doubts if you are ready to make your abilities publicly known. Everyone else seems focused, showing a purpose to their actions – just like your coach has suggested you do as you approach the stand. You are intimidated by their custom guns, eye ware and gear and wonder if you made the right decision to engage.
Yet, you fold in line with everyone else, meet your squad and head off to the first stand. You’ve done everything right in your mind, yet you are lecturing yourself instead of being in yourself. You call for the bird and miss it. And again. There is some silence from the squad, yet you may hear a murmur of calm encouragement to focus. You score 2 out of 6 for the stand, hang your head and follow behind the others to the next stand fearing it may be even worse than the last. You wonder what the others are thinking of you, and invariably you may even begin to think your poor showing is a reflection of your general character. ‘Why did I do this to myself?’, you mutter.
There is another in the squad that has noticed your behavioral change and casually mentions that he thinks your timing, position, gun mount, and swing is quite good. You offer a thanks, and state, ‘my coach helped me with all that, but a kid off the street could have shot better than what I just did.’ His response surprises you. ‘If you have the physical basics, there must be something else in play’. You remember what your coach told you about blending your body with your mind when shooting at the most critical point just before the kill point.
The next stand is like taking your second parachute jump. 10 times more terrifying than the first jump, because you know how terrifying it was. You set up, call for the bird, but you’re still a bit disjointed between mind and body as you hear the trap, and yet for a brief second, both are synced and you kill that bird as neatly as anyone in the world could manage.
Sure, you miss more birds, but you know you did well for your first competition and can’t believe you have won first in temp C class. With a case of shells under your arm as your prize, you head home with great expectations to win B class as your next marker. You’re hooked, but you never ask why this suggestion of success often overcomes the promise of failure.
Our Competitive Nature
All organisms with the ability to adapt use predictive schemas to manage themselves in their environments. All of them, and all of us, are constantly competing with the external world. When our bodies exert themselves, the muscle cells call for more blood. When the amount of oxygen is reduced, the cardiovascular system is called on to increase flow. Our pulmonary organs take the call and increase their efforts. When the glucose levels become depleted, the liver processes more. All this mundane operational stuff is done subconsciously because it’s routine. Yet, if the internal resources fail to meet the needs of the exertions, signals are progressed up to the cortical (higher reasoning) centers of the brain. It awakens from its slumbers to find an external solution to the ‘call to action’. It may provide a plan to eat derived from hunger pangs, call to step aside from the approaching bus instead of trying to outrun it, or when shivering, it may signal the time to find an extra layer of clothing or shelter, etc.
Of course, this type of competition is not entirely the same as our new shooter was experiencing, but it’s very close. The similarities lie within a friction, or comparison between what is and what is needed. To artifically tease our internal reactions help dictate our responses.
Similarly, when we compete, we compare our abilities to others’. To establish both standards and hierarchy from a social standpoint. But why would we care about social standing?
As a species, we are at the very end of our hunter gatherer epoch. At the turn of the last century, 98% of Canadians were involved in farming activities. Today, the number is about 2%. While we all need to eat, the manner in which we attain our food has changed. But why?
Archaic family groups found most of their protein through hunting and that was primarily done by males. Females did most of the ‘gathering’, but there was a significant shift in how much family group protein was being contributed (evidenced by anthropology study of teeth). Females discovered the conservancy of effort by introducing animal and plant domestication that outstripped the male’s ability/need to provide game protein. In conjunction, the competitive nature for access to females for reproduction changed. Females no longer selected entirely for physical ability during competitive displays by males, because husbandry did not require it (it could be said that females began to domesticate males too). They began to select for the ability to pose novel solutions to problems. In short, females began to drive males to use their heads more than their muscles to provide/protect the group.
Competitive Sports: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
There is little doubt that the vestigial remnant of physical prowess is still an integral part of our culture in sports, yet most are enhanced by strategy instead of brute force. (And if anyone wonders if the ‘selection’ process has been neutered entirely, I recall the time my gun club in Ontario hosted the Toronto Blue Jays for a fun shoot. I had never seen such a collection of stunning beauties accompanying the players around the course!).
Of course, we see this shift to enhanced strategy in our shooting as well. Humans of all ages and sex can be competitive because the need of problem solving outweighs the need to power a shotgun to our shoulder. This is a good thing. Anytime a brain can be challenged and engaged to solve problems, it is a boon for us in general. It makes us get out and shoot. It helps form friends, routines, goals and keeps the hobby viable for the providers. It makes us confront our frailties and hopefully address them in a controlled, fun manner.
Yet with every benefit, there are cautionary tales. If we fail to connect self-awareness with self-correction, we become frustrated, angry and either leave the sport or make others experiences less enjoyable. If we fail to form a schema to process failure or define our character by winning alone, we may direct that internally or externally with negative outcomes. No one wants to see fits of rage with thrown empties or pouty behavior.
The 14th Stand
Can a shooter compete within/by themselves? Yes, but it’s not the same. If you want to truly compete, explore your limits, or realize your place as HOA on the board, you must do it with others. To experience pressure, failure, joy and exhilaration is no different in the way your predictive brain calculates the speed, angle, distance and rate of change of a target between where the bird is and where it will be when you pull the trigger. It’s magical when it all comes together.
Have fun and get better.