Competition set back

[Dismas316]

A bit of a long winded whine, so bear with me. Little back ground to try and put things in context. Started competing this year and it's been a blast and clearly has contributed to biggest strides in my shooting ability. Since the beginning, I have steadily gotten better with each match. I think one of the turning points was over the last month or so, I have focused heavily on mindset, which has enabled me to start finishing in the the top 10 in all the matches I've been shooting in. In the past there was a good level of intimation but once I figured out that from a skill level, I as as good if not better then most, and to trust in that, my shooting result went leaps and bounds. My confidence level was sky high and I was going into matches expecting to finish in the top 5. I had reached a point that I could trust my skill and my focus was simple.

Prior to the buzzer going off, I would overthink all the things I needed to do and as soon as I heard the buzzer, my mind would go blank and I would just be praying and spraying. Once I started to really focus on mindset more than shooting ability, I geared my mind to understand that I had the skill to do well and to trust in that. I simplified my pre-shooting routine to very simply, grip the run strong, see my sights on target, and press the trigger. I began to be very aware of my sight picture and would tell myself to just get the sight on target quickly, and with a good trigger press, let it go. I began to be be much calmer and "in the moment" and my scores went down dramatically. When the buzzer when off, I no longer had the issue of my mind going blank and I had gone from "overthinking" everything to just trust in my skill, grip the gun hard, and see my shot.

Well this past week I shot another steel challenge and got "blasted", finished bottom half. Out of the 5 stages, I had 1 that I finished top half, but the rest were pretty bad. The worst part, I felt that my shooting speed and accuracy were pretty good in 4 out of the 5 stages. I did have one stage (1st) that was easy but I shit the bed and fell apart and had two misses which crushed my score. Still I keep my mind focused and to not dwell on the bad stage like I normally would, and recovered. I shot pretty well in rest of the stages and thought I had rebounded enough to put of a decent showing, well not the case, depressing when I finished 27 our of 34 shooters which was by far my worst match.

Needless to say my apparently fragile confidence took a pretty big hit. I have another match on Sunday and not feeling it at all at this point, which clearly is not a good recipe for success. I say all of this to ask, how do you guys (and gals) shake the thought that "maybe I really do suck" after all!! lol. I'm usually pretty good about getting back on the horse but feeling a little snowflackish and not very confident at this point, which I f-ing hate.

I've competed long enough (in other sports) to realize that set backs/slumps are part of it but for some reason just not feeling it (the confidence). Actually I think I know my problem as I am writing this (and reading it), it actually has provided me with the answer that I know is there. (As I read this, I just gave myself a swift kick in the ass) But since I spend the time venting (whining), would still like to hear any feedback. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[GJM]

I compete against myself not others.

[GuanoLoco]

I compete against myself not others.

I am more interested in things like:

Did I feel like I shot to my actual skill level?
Is my dry and live fire practice translating into match performance?
Would I have been better off shooting this match or practicing?
Did I learn something that I need to integrate into future match performance (do X, don’t do Y)?


I should care more about my standings, but frankly I can’t control anyone else’s level of skills or ability to perform or their mistakes/gun issues/etc. so it is more of an individual journey for me. OK, I care about a couple of buddies, and a same-classed individual or two that I track who are shooting Limited or Open (I shoot Production).

Other than that, I really don’t care.

[DacoRoman]

Your situation reminds me of Jordan Peterson's quote: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, and not to who someone else is today."

Try to incrementally improve by putting in the work, and improving yourself. Forget about where you are ranking.

[olstyn]

I'd be lying if I said that poor (or exceptional) performance in a given stage/match doesn't have an emotional impact on me in the moment. Obviously a particularly poor performance is disappointing, and an above-average one is exhilarating, and there are definitely fellow competitors who consistently do well whose scores I tend to see as "measuring sticks" for my own performance. That said, I try not to get too hung up about where I finished in the overall field at any given match as long as there is a long-term trend of improvement.

It sounds like you do have that long-term trend of improvement, so regarding your recent poor performance, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get out there and do it better next time. :)

[RJ]

Your situation reminds me of Jordan Peterson's quote: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, and not to who someone else is today."

Try to incrementally improve by putting in the work, and improving yourself. Forget about where you are ranking.

This. This. This.

I’m in D class. I belong in D class.

When I make C class, it will be a good day for me. “For me”. Which is what it’s all about.


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[BN]

I should care more about my standings, but frankly I can’t control anyone else’s level of skills or ability to perform or their mistakes/gun issues/etc. so it is more of an individual journey for me. OK, I care about a couple of buddies, and a same-classed individual or two that I track who are shooting Limited or Open (I shoot Production).

Other than that, I really don’t care.

^^^ This has been huge for me over the years. I don't care about the results until the match is over. My first match win, I had been out late the night before. Only got a little sleep, but I was just happy to be shooting. No concerns about anything but the shooting. :) Another time I finished 8th overall at the IDPA Nationals. That year I had been having some sort of heart palpitations and was worried that I was going to need surgery. I was planning on who to give my slot to. It turned out I just had a potassium deficiency and was told to drink orange juice every day. I was just happy to be alive and shooting. No cares, just shooting.

Dismas, you've been doing this for 6-8 months? Lighten up a little and have fun. It sounds like you are doing great. Just a minor setback at one match. Learn from each experience. What did you do right or wrong. Work on both, because someone somewhere is also trying to be the best. ;)

[nwhpfan]

Being 10th out of 50 doesn't mean much if the guys in front of you aren't any good. When better shooters show up, you'll fall down the list. Looking at Nationals, you see guys that are GM's and M's and they win, or finish top 10 in their section match. Then go to Nationals and finish in the 40's.

At the top is always the "limit of performance." What is possible. Now at a place like Nationals their is a copule people that perform at that level.

Compare yourself to what is possible.

Shot's less than 10 yards should be sub second. Transitions across a bay should be .5. So to really evaluate yourself at an extreme high level these are the benchmarks your striving for.

On coruse like Smoke and Hope - there are enough scores out there to know where you really stand up.

[ranger]

I have had demanding jobs. I actively shot USPSA and Sporting Clays. I realized that "shooting" was my hobby and that it should be fun. I focused on having fun and doing the best I could with the amount of time (and money) I had available.

Due to career demands, I took a sabbatical from competition and frankly never went back. I got tired of driving long distances and standing around all day to shoot 3 - 6 stages that only took a very short time (if I did them right!). I still shoot and practice but quit competing.

[Duelist]

Sometimes, you’re not going to win.

Somewhere, out there right now, a guy is practicing. No matter how hard you work, if that guy and you show up at the same match on the same day, he’s going to eat your lunch because he’s just better than you are, and it is not a shameful thing to know that.

A match is a test of you, your equipment, and your training. Someone wins. Everyone else either “loses” or takes their score as a measure of their progress. You decide which.

In my local club matches, if an average number of certain guys show up, I’ll be about tenth. If they all show up on the same day, I’ll be lucky to be 15th. If none of them show up, I might be in the top five. Once, I was second. When ringers show up from out of town, we all are shoved down in the stats.

Matters not what others do. Matters what I do. If I do something stupid, I learn. If awesome guy from out of town shows up, I watch him and learn. If doofus with a Sigma in a sausage sack shows up, we mentor and make sure he doesn’t put holes where they don’t belong.

[olstyn]

In my local club matches, if an average number of certain guys show up, I’ll be about tenth. If they all show up on the same day, I’ll be lucky to be 15th. If none of them show up, I might be in the top five. Once, I was second. When ringers show up from out of town, we all are shoved down in the stats.

Matters not what others do. Matters what I do. If I do something stupid, I learn. If awesome guy from out of town shows up, I watch him and learn. If doofus with a Sigma in a sausage sack shows up, we mentor and make sure he doesn’t put holes where they don’t belong.

That sounds pretty much exactly like my local matches, except that I'm guessing the skill pool is a bit deeper at yours than mine; I'm usually in the upper end of the scores in Production, and I'm only a middle-to-upper C class shooter. My usual squad spent a lot of time last summer mentoring some new folks, and it was gratifying to see the ones who were willing to listen and learn progress from mildly scary to safe and improving their scores. Some of them had some pretty lame DQs along the way, but nobody got any new holes, so I guess it came out OK in the end. :)

[45dotACP]

I have pretty much accepted that I suck.

But I suck less than I did yesterday. Getting the HF of your stages (and classifier/standards stages) is a fairly reliable indicator of if you suck more than usual or if the other guys are just on fire.

Case in point:

If I compared myself to a bunch of other dudes it would be counterproductive. I can shoot a local USPSA match and sit in the top 20 of 80 shooters and then run on over to a place like Alpha Range where a huge number of nationally competitive shooters hang out and wind up in the bottom 20 of 40 shooters while still shooting the same hit factors.

But here's the kicker. Some days you will suck more than others.

In a perfect world, shot timers would to be able to directly upload all of their stats to Practiscore for the most detailed look possible at your shooting skills on a given day, but the best we can do til then is a hit factor score.

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[Jim Watson]

I don't wax philosophical about such stuff, it is a human activity and results will be variable. Some days I am on, some days I am not.

If you are shooting Steel Challenge or other standardized event like bullseye, you can chart your scores and know how you are doing. When I was shooting F class, every shot was recorded for score, group, or velocity, depending on what I was working on at the time. Also nice to know how much time on a rifle barrel, they don't last forever.

But if you are shooting one of the novelty events, USPSA, IPSC, IDPA, CAS, various local offshoots, you seldom shoot the same stage and probably never shoot the same match. USPSA Hit Factor varies a lot depending on the stage layout. Maybe 45dotACP can tell something if the MD is in a rut and uses the same Classifiers a lot. Or you can set up Standards to practice on your own time. But mostly I go by my placement relative to shooters of known ability and of the match as a whole. If I beat A, B. and C, I know I am doing well. If I beat A but not B and C, I figure he is down worse than me.
And of course I remember the gross stuff, like shooting Ds or 3s, or worse, a miss or no-shoot, or conspicuously blowing a reload, or missing my spot on the next array, or catching a Procedural. I don't guess you guys do stuff like that, but I am the Captain of Team Mediocre after all.

[BigD]

I have had demanding jobs. I actively shot USPSA and Sporting Clays. I realized that "shooting" was my hobby and that it should be fun. I focused on having fun and doing the best I could with the amount of time (and money) I had available.

Due to career demands, I took a sabbatical from competition and frankly never went back. I got tired of driving long distances and standing around all day to shoot 3 - 6 stages that only took a very short time (if I did them right!). I still shoot and practice but quit competing.

Why did you tell us this?

[GJM]

If you primarily want to win, USPSA is a lousy sport. In my experience, folks too focused on winning or placement burn out. You have to love the process to enjoy USPSA over a long period of time.

USPSA matches are a great reality check for the value of your practice, and what your skills are. It is easy to think you are better than you are when just practicing alone, with a few friends, or going to timmie classes. USPSA is the most challenging and satisfying shooting sport I have participated in.

[GuanoLoco]

It is useful to assess that motivates you.

I have a friend that badly desires to WIN, preferbly HOA, and things like Division and firearms are chosen to help him achieve that goal. Production, Single Stack, etc. will never be a thing. If he wins all is well, if not it is a bad thing for him emotionally.

Other friends like matches over practice, and are driven to win, but happy to win in their division. If they win, that is great, but if not, there is some serious long-lived dissatisfaction that drives them further and further.

For me, the half-life of motivation from a win is too brief to be useful, and I simply don’t experience enough pain from a loss for it to be reliable motivator. On the other hand, a practice session where I am laying down new Personal Bests, or where I experienced a breakthough of some sort, or was very pleased with my performance or improvement, or I matched Dry Fire par times with live fire results ... now this turns my crank all week and I can’t wait to get another shot at it.

So, what turns your crank?

[YVK]

I have a hard time disconnecting the developmental value of shooting competition from desire to win or place as high as possible. I think it is hard, if not impossible, to become a better shooter through competition without caring about measurable results, and results are measured in classifications and placements. However, these things, in my mind, should be important between the matches. During the matches I try, to the best of my ability, to only think how to shoot this stage in front of me with the least amount of suckage, and move on to the next one.

[GJM]

At local matches, who else is there definitely effects your placement. I have joked that I shoot better in MT than in AZ, which really is the fact that the AZ area has a high concentration of great shooters.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I compete against myself as I won't win against younger and faster folks. I test my skills. My goal is reasonable accuracy at a speed that I can perform. So, in a past carbine match I was delighted to be the most accurate with only 3 down. Time was slow though. The last match, not so hot on the move and some bad jams. So something to work on with the gun and movement. I like jams in the sense that I'm not bamboozled by them and can clear reasonably efficiently.

As far as placement and competition group, I once came in second after a national champion with revolver. I was also last (just two revolver shooters that day). I was happy that my accuracy was in range of the champ.

My squad has gelled into supportive guys - some old and some young. One is just a demon winner. One is older than me and slower. We all help each other out.

I guess my goal is to guarantee that I can run the gun accurately and reasonably quickly (not champion level). Is this cognitive dissonance that I won't win - perhaps a touch.

It's like weight lifting (when I was doing heavy weights), I would never match my friend is was the real deal heavy lifter but under his watchful eye I made real progress. Progress counts.

I also think classes from pros who can evaluate your technique is very useful. I've said before that Tom Givens gave me a great clue. When I screw up in accuracy, I find that I retrogressed to that flaw and correct.

[Dismas316]

It is useful to assess that motivates you.

For me, the half-life of motivation from a win is too brief to be useful, and I simply don’t experience enough pain from a loss for it to be reliable motivator. On the other hand, a practice session where I am laying down new Personal Bests, or where I experienced a breakthough of some sort, or was very pleased with my performance or improvement, or I matched Dry Fire par times with live fire results ... now this turns my crank all week and I can’t wait to get another shot at it.

So, what turns your crank?

This is pretty much my sentiments as well. For me it really is how well I actually shot vs comparing with others. Like you, if I run drills where my times/accuracy is good I’m very happy.

Perspective.. Got back on the horse today and shot another match. Funny is going into it my perspective was less concerned at all with where I place but how well I shot and ran the match. So my perspective was a little different going into to it. Weird to hear myself say this but I was pretty pleased overall with how I shot today. I went pretty fast and I actually had 3 mikes on 3 different stages which usually would send me through the roof but outside of really those 3 shots, generally speaking was pretty good. Not all A zones but fast, with good groups, just had those 3 that were pretty bad. Stages were fun with high round counts in each.

Haven’t seen yet where I finished, I don’t expect to have done well overall but my take was it was really fun stages today, my speed was pretty good. Like always, the different between me and a really good shooter is just consistency. I felt like the speed I ran the course today was good but I just have to get consistent.

I really have no great expectation of finishing first, I’m not that delusional, I just tend to be pretty competitive and hate loosing anything but again, if my perspective it set correctly, it usually works out for me. I tend to get ahead of myself and as I have gotten older (slower, can’t see as well, etc,) I tend to think I can do things I did when I was younger. Sucks getting old. As most have mentioned, when I stop worrying about where I finish or comparing myself to others and just push myself to continue to improve, that’s all that really matters.