Competition Shooting Techniques

[SteveZ]

Maybe I will when I get back from vacation!   

When is the Texas State IDPA Championship?

[SteveZ]

I'll do my best, but the last couple lead up matches haven't been so good for me.  I need to cut down the mental mistakes.

Stay focused in that you shoot with confidence and know how to solve the shooting problem.  If you have a bad stage, don't dwell on what went wrong...pick something that went right and remember that.  A bad stage is in the past, dwelling on it won't help you in the future.  When shooting a stage...don't mentally tell yourself "don't do XYZ".  Your mind doesn't understand "don't" and will focus on what you don't want it to do.  "Don't hit the no-shoot"...results in your mind focusing its attention on the no-shoot...and guess what...you'll hit it.  Mentally program how you want to shoot the stage...and then execute the program.   Try to not watch less experiened shooters shoot the stage....if you see them have problems wih something and your not confident in your abilities, it can start the "gee...I hope I don't have problems with that too" ball rolling in your head.  Also...don't watch the two shooters before you...what they do isn't going to help your plan at all.  Develop a plan and stick with it.  

And remember.......HAVE FUN.  Thats why we do this! 

[Bob Mayne]

I'll do my best, but the last couple lead up matches haven't been so good for me.  I need to cut down the mental mistakes.

Stay focused in that you shoot with confidence and know how to solve the shooting problem.  If you have a bad stage, don't dwell on what went wrong...pick something that went right and remember that.  A bad stage is in the past, dwelling on it won't help you in the future.  When shooting a stage...don't mentally tell yourself "don't do XYZ".  Your mind doesn't understand "don't" and will focus on what you don't want it to do.  "Don't hit the no-shoot"...results in your mind focusing its attention on the no-shoot...and guess what...you'll hit it.  Mentally program how you want to shoot the stage...and then execute the program.   Try to not watch less experiened shooters shoot the stage....if you see them have problems wih something and your not confident in your abilities, it can start the "gee...I hope I don't have problems with that too" ball rolling in your head.  Also...don't watch the two shooters before you...what they do isn't going to help your plan at all.  Develop a plan and stick with it.  

And remember.......HAVE FUN.  Thats why we do this! 

Great advice Steve!  This is such a good response, I split the topic and started a new thread on this.  Funny thing is, last week, I made some mental mistakes on a stage and the guy shooting right after me did the same thing.  He said to me afterwords, "I saw you do it, said I wouldn't do the same, then ended up making the same mistake."  Thanks for the tip. 

[SteveZ]

Depending on the level of your competition, you may find yourself the "victim" of competitor mental games.  These can actually be quite humorous when you recognize them.  These are attempts by your competition to get into your head and mess with you. Here are some examples (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Brad is shooting against you in a match. Brad comes up to you and says "Gee Bob, have you changed your load because it seems you're getting a lot more recoil than in the past. Normally you control recoil really well but it seems like your getting more muzzle flip now".  You haven't changed anything but now you start thinking, maybe my grips wrong and that's what Brad is seeing, I must be doing something different and I should correct it...I should focus on my grip more.  Brad knows you haven't changed anything. You're recoil control is fine but Brad has just planted doubt into your mind.

Brad comes up and says "Bob, did you hear that Bill (who you know is a really good shooter) blew this stage and got 3 misses?"  Wow..if Bill blew the stage it must REALLY be difficult.  Of course Bill didn't have any trouble with the stage but Brad is hoping that by planting the thought someone who you know is a good shooter had trouble...then you might have trouble with it too. 

Brad offers some "friendly advice" and says "Swinger T1 is really fast. After you open the door you need to shoot it quick or you won't have enough time".  In reality there is plenty of time to shoot it but Brad is trying to pressure you to shoot quick and get a miss when you don't need to.   


Brad says "I shot this stage in 18.25 seconds".  Wow...that's a pretty fast time. Brad must really have been on it to shoot it that fast. If I have any chance of beating Brad, I need to shoot it fast too.  What Brad didn't tell you is that he also got 2 misses and a no-shoot.

A couple years ago, I was shooting my last stage of an Area Championship and had a pretty decent match going.  One of my competitors who we'll call Bob (maybe that's his name...maybe its not) a nationally sponsored shooter comes up to me on the last stage of the match and started the "mind games" angle.  He says "Steve, if you win this stage, you'll win the match"  (oh boy...the pressure! It all comes down to this single stage. If I can just win this stage, I'll be first in my division. Whoo Hooo!). I didn't fall for it. I said something like "well whatever happens...happens".  Bob goes away and comes back couple minutes later and says "Did you hear that Bill blew stage 6" (Bill was also in the running for winning 1st OA.  If Bill blew stage 6, now I have an even better chance for winning the match if I can just win this stage!!!).  I said something like "that's too bad for Bill.  He's a good shooter".  Still not getting the response he wanted, Bob tries another angle.  Bob says "I shot this stage in XXX seconds" ( a pretty fast time ).  I responded "that's fast Bob.  I'm just going to shoot it and see what happens".  I shot the stage...everything went well, no problems. I had a reasonably decent time. 

And here is what really happened.  Bill didn't crash and burn on Stage 6, he actually won stage 6.  Bob did have a fast time of XXX on the stage...but he also had a miss and (of course he didn't tell me that part of the story) Bill won the match, I finished second to Bill (at 99.7%) and Bob finished 3rd at 91.2%

So watch out for the mind games. Especially when your competition starts telling you things.

[Bob Mayne]

GEEZ...my head's spinning.  A good read, I'm going to proceed to forget about this now.   

[SteveZ]

It can be used for good....or evil! 

Have a good vacation and good luck at the match.