Smiling when shooting

[jetfire]

Of all the whacky things I have discussed over the years, I am not sure why this particular one bothers Caleb so much.

Oh that’s because I normally avoid your posts but clicked on this one because I curious.

To be fair the OP has an extensively recorded skill-building and performance-recording history. So you can understand why many of us pay attention if OP and SO have noticed improvement and take time to share their experience. Actually, a double take in this case since another forum shooter has experienced a positive effect.

No matter how hard you wish, the plural of “anecdote” will never be “data.” Sorry not sorry, dude.

To be fair we've only been given your personal assumptions, photo pseudo research and wilfull disregard for the facts above. Most high level athletes - including the shooters you pictured - have their own pre-shoot zen rituals that mean nothing to anyone but them. But it means everything to their performance.

Personal assumptions based on an entire career of doing this for blood or money. And please, pretty please enlighten me on the habits of top level shooters pre-stage rituals. Actually don’t, because I was literally just talking about this with a legit grandmaster the other night, but whatever.

To be fair we do need your personal help with increasing the sample size of the Smiling Metacognition-Improvement Learning Exercise. It is a high order skill exercise and it is imperative that you be really smiling. Will you help?

Get hyped, get stoked, get smiling and shooting!

Yeah that’s gonna be a no from me, dog. I may have taken two years off from the shooting sports to deal with “real life” but my handgun game hasn’t atrophied so bad that I’m going to resort to bullshit gimmicks. And that’s the thing - if this thread was just “hey you should try to relax before you shoot” I would have just nodded and moved on. Of course you want to shoot as relaxed as possible. That’s a no brainer. Of course all the good shooters have a pre-stage ritual. I do to.

But I’ll tell you what, if you see an NFL kicker smiling from ear to ear while he’s lining up the game winning field goal, I’ll retract all my commentary about how dumb this whole thing is.

[StraitR]

It seems pretty obvious that "smiling" was being introduced as a tool to stimulate subconscious relaxation. Not sure why the subject is so offensive.

[HCM]

As long as smiling while shooting doesn’t slip into “you can’t have manslaughter without laughter” it’s all good.

[jtcarm]

I don't know about everyone else, but I shoot competition mostly for fun and partly to develop skills for real life.

Yes, a big component of the fun is improving and shooting well, but if I wanted to spend my free time being deathly serious, I'd just stay at work.

[Lost River]

Every time I am spotted smiling while shooting, people start using words like "Psychopath".

And words hurt.

Look at the bright side:

Using only the letters in "Psychopath", you get.....



Happy

Chaos

Patsy (or pasty)

Poach

Sappy

and.......... TACOS!


I sense that a great short story (thread related, so as not to disrespect or to hijack George's thread) could be strung together with the crew of wordsmiths we have here.


See all the tertiary benefits of smiling while shooting and having people think you are a psychopath!

Cheers!

[SeriousStudent]

Mmmmm - tacos.......

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Smiling and showing teeth is a primate aggressive sign. Shooting is an aggressive act and leads to a dopamine release to reward us for successful aggression.

Thus, smiling is your primitive killer instinct reward systems.

I see this when a new shooter successfully 'kills' a B-27 with a big, scary, feral grin!