Competition Bad Habits? Do any exist? Competing Anonymously possible?
I've only some a couple competitions a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago now?? Just a few matches and I didn't have much money at the time, ammo was cheap but the match entry fees were like 20 bucks! Plus I didn't have much free time then, birth of our youngest, and each match wanted you to do a special safety class or something that they only offered at specific times/dates and lasted a few hours and man Ill tell you I was really offput by the bureaucracy aroudn it. I get it, safety is important but back then I was buying cases of 9mm at walmart for like $75 or $80, and the $20 match entry fee was just more than I could justify for running a few stages so I never did it then but now I have more time and a bit more money so I am thinking about it again because it looks fun and useful!
I'm sure competition has changed a lot since then and everyone here really likes it so I'm thinking of tryin it again. But I have two hesitations.
1 is can I compete anonymously? I have no chance of being a world champ, no real desire, the competition is just to get some stress and practice skills. But my old lady doesnt want people to know I own and carry a gun and well with everything being on google and facebook now, she makes a good point. Her job and family is very anti gun (from Los Angeles). So for a competition, can I just go, pay the entry fee, tell them my name is John Doe, run the competition, not have my picture taken and uploaded to their facebook group, not have my real name associated with my score? Maybe thats paranoid? But man everything is online these days and even just photos the match organizers might post to facebook will be facial recognition matched to me. Even if I have to show them my ID im a bit scared by that because if Equifax and the Office of Professional Manaegment cant keep their records secure, how can a volunteer running a match be trusted with my drivers lisence info from leaking out? And newspapers have been publishing CCW names in some cities that's scary to me, but not scary enough not to have one!
2 is what bad habits might come from competiting? If any at all? Ill give an example of something Im familiar with, is I have done muay thai for a couple years back in the day and also some straight up mexican style boxing. When Im just boxing, Im bladed stance because you have to protect your body. But when Im kick boxing, its a square stance so you can get hips open to kick. And I havent done any MMA or wrestling but I know they do square stance so they can sprawl.
Well I used to do some gym competitions in boxing and I fought bladed as you are supposed to. But for a real life street fight self defense, hips square is the way to go for kicking and spawling. I guess I could either compete in boxing the wrong way with squared hips and lose against a guy of equal skill but say "well its okay because its practice for the street reeal world" but no, I always stood bladed and then when I got into muay thai it was hard for me to adjust, so the bladed hips was a "Bad habit from competition" of boxing.
Would anyone say Im less good at self defense because I boxed competitively a bit? Probably not, Im sure a competitive boxer would beat the piss out of a regular person in a street fight even if he was standing bladed.
I hope you can see what Im getting at, not that competitive shooting is bad but it is a game so there might be some bad habits you do for the game that are less than ideal for real life. Not that you should avoid competition because Im sure it's good and if it wasnt for the price back in the day and nowadays the privacy aspect Id be doing it already!
What I want to know is, what should I keep an eye on that I might start doing or I might see competitive shooters do that is actually a bad habit for the street and I should be cognizant its a thing like blading in boxing competition. Yeah its possible to stand square and compete in boxing but you cant get to a high level that way (to my knowledge), so maybe theres some gamer-based stuff that is less good for the street but necessary for the artificial game of shooting comps?
Competition Bad Habits? Do any exist? Competing Anonymously possible?
Shooting matches isn’t a 1:1 equivalent to the realities of a gunfight, but it’ll make you a better shooter. Since you already seem to be aware of this, you should be good.
To use a similar example to your boxing, think of training non-stop for one specific lift. You’ll get really good at that specific lift, but you’ll also get stronger overall.
And I used to shoot IDPA anonymously. Not for security reasons, I just wanted to see how I’d do and wasn’t interested in ranking or moving up. When my (now closed) range hosted matches, I could pay the fee and shoot. I just wasn’t listed on any match results.
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