Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 33

Thread: Pistol shooting — talent vs technique

  1. #21
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Nov 2019
    Location
    Kansas
    I have come to a few conclusions on this kind of subject. I am a relatively intelligent person. My "I don't give a shit" GPA in high school was a 3.61, scored a 25 on my ACT, a 90 on the ASVAB, with a GT score of 122. Not genius, by any means, but relatively intelligent. I also have concluded that I have the ability to learn. Hand me something that I take a bit of interest in, and I can excel. I went to school to learn to shoe horses almost eight years ago now, and found I have a knack for it. In those first few years, I competed a fair bit, and went to every certification I could muster to pass my certified journeyman farrier.

    So when I started getting serious about pistol shooting, I found that by simply watching videos and with a bit of gear (some target stands, a shot timer, targets, lots of mags and ammo, and an internet connection), I could get significantly better.

    However, I have started to feel like I'm flatlined. As in, I need some direction. I've gotten to the place where to get where I want to go, I need to make myself afford the time and cash to do some training, and have finally found where I can start to do some level of competing. it's progressive, and sometimes it feels like I'm going slow as mud, but being in my 30's, there's things that feel like they shouldn't be the challenge that they are.

    Just my musings on the matter.

  2. #22
    A few disorganized thoughts:

    I think some aspect of improving is going to come from knowing how to practice which is definitely a learnable skill.

    Most people don't know how much practice it takes to get really good at shooting. Once a top competitive shooter makes it and people start interviewing them about their practice, they might say they dry fire 15-30 minutes a day and live fire 1-2 times per week, which seems very doable for many people. Some like Maria Gushchina, barely even dry fire.

    However, most of them spent significantly more time in practice in the years leading up to their competitive peak. Ben Stoeger mentioned in an interview he used to dry fire 30 minutes to an hour each day. Hwansik Kim has mentioned on podcasts that he used to dry fire for multiple hours per day when he was getting started in USPSA. As I understand it once you build up myelination it's fairly easy to retain it, but building it takes a lot of effort.
    Last edited by Eyesquared; 01-22-2020 at 11:45 PM.

  3. #23
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Savannah, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by Eyesquared View Post
    I think some aspect of improving is going to come from knowing how to practice which is definitely a learnable skill.
    I think there's a lot of truth to this statement. I've always shot a low round count compared to most GM level shooters, in part because of just lacking enough time to get to the range more than a couple times a month. As a result, I've had to learn how to be as efficient as possible with how I practice. I wouldn't say I am naturally gifted, because I know how bad I was when I picked up a pistol for the first time, but I did know how to practice, drill, and visualize and had some mental management skills from my youth sports experiences at a nationally competitive level. I know countless people trying to advance in classification who are stuck in C, B, and A class though who have been there for 5-10+ years and who shoot significantly more rounds than I do on an annual basis. I would classify their actual work ethic to be at least equal to mine, but I think a lot of the disparity comes down to quality of practice rather than quantity of practice. You can have an exceptionally high work ethic and dedicate time and resources to practice, but if you don't know how to practice or you just go to the range and do the same thing over and over, you're not going to move the needle much.

  4. #24
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Midwest
    LONG WINDED

    IMNSHO based on the athletic observations of myself and hundreds of kids when coaching my own.

    People can get to the 85-90% level if there are willing to put in the time

    People can get the 91-92% level with that plus good coaching

    People can get to the 93-94% level with work+ coaching+some natural talent re eyesight/coordination reflexes etc.

    People get to and maintain the 95% level on demand/cold/all day every day the whole day with all of the above but even more natural gifts.

    Most of us will plateau at the sub 90% level no matter what because we just do not have that drive plus the God given gifts.


    I once interned with a guy who played for four years at a D1 college baseball behind an eventual MLB longtime player. I asked him what was the difference between him and the eventual MLB guy.

    My intern buddy said he hits an off speed pitch 4 or 5% points better than me. And if you hit us each 1000 grounders for a throw into first, he makes 995, I make 988 or 989.

    My take away was that the margins at the top are thin but huge in terms of the curve and achievement they represent.

    FWIW
    Last edited by vcdgrips; 01-23-2020 at 11:41 AM.

  5. #25
    Member StraitR's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Basking in sunshine
    Rob Leatham talks about having both talent and drive (to train) in Wilson's "Gun Guy's" Episode 21...


  6. #26
    Site Supporter LOKNLOD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Oklahoma
    Quote Originally Posted by vcdgrips View Post
    My take away was that the margins at the top are thin but huge in terms of the curve and achievement they represent.
    Excellence is an asymptote.
    --Josh
    “Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.” - Tacitus.

  7. #27
    I'll throw out that I think Talent vs. Technique is a bit of a false dichotomy. Myelination is a great term and highly relevant. The research I've seen suggests that at the very least, the human entity is *much* more theoretically adaptable than people often accept, because most people are operating on a pragmatic metric that implicitly absorbs the concept of effort vs. reward trade-offs that are inherent in the human motivation. In other words, it's socially convenient to talk about talent as a fixed thing, even though, when you get right down to it, there's almost nothing fixed about it. The idea of talent generally encompasses not just the biological but the motivational, which, when put together, form something more static.

    However, very, very little about the human body is truly static. Shifting DNA, changes in body composition, flexibility, tendon/musculature, and so forth, all point to the body as being at least theoretically capable of significant biological adaptation over time. In a very real sense, there appears, based on what I've read (I don't do this research professionally), to be a very real correlation between the overall "intake" of the body and the mental aspects to changes in the body itself. It seems that Peak IQ is among the hardest things to fundamentally change, if it can be changed at all. However, given the modern diet and exercise programs, as well as the mental exercises that most people have today, most people are nowhere near their theoretical peak IQ, and therefore, have room to expand even there.

    After that, there's a ton of theoretically alterable things, but some of them are very hard to change, and very hard to intentionally change. Moreover, you can't just change something by "work." Work is too general a term. You need to combine sufficient effort (exponentially more effort depending on the types of changes) with sufficiently accurate direction. You need to be able to diagnose the most problematic or limiting present conditions, and identify the most efficient remediation for those limitations. That's, IMO, actually the hardest part.

    Most people are capable of doing insane amounts of work given the right set of circumstances, with a lot of biological potential. But it's very difficult to acquire sufficient introspective faculties to the degree that you can truly be efficient in learning. Thus, a terrific amount of effort to improve occurs with less than optimal results, leading to lots of work, but less progress. Having the coaching and outside assistance necessary can be really important, but there are some domains that are much easier to coach than others, and so there are some domains in which natural talent appears to be "stronger" than in other domains.

    I'm convinced that in the vast majority of domains, given a person with a reasonable timeframe to learn, has at least the potential to do extremely well in almost all areas. However, the earlier you start down that path, with accuracy, the better. There will eventually be a fundamentally limiting biological element that occurs, and sometimes that happens in the form of someone who started too late and gets too old to truly excel. But outside of that, I think the true fundamental limits of ingrained biology are probably closer to the point where almost everyone *could* get into the "major leagues" of whatever they pursue, starting young enough, at least theoretically. Now, after you reach the top echelon of performance, there are likely to be people who will out-perform you. So, I imagine most people, given a total reworking of their life, with significant effort, could compete at essentially what would be termed an Olympic level on many things (I think age is one of the most limiting factors here), but they might still end up losing to someone who is just biologically a little better, and thus, they wouldn't necessarily make it to the Olympics.

    But that's just the extreme edge of capacity. I think it's useful to have that edge, but the reality is that the vast majority of people are not going to have the necessary motivation and drive and necessity to make the huge changes that would be required to achieve those high levels. So, given careful training and work, you can still get far, but without that total makeover, which also includes having the ability to find the people who know how to address the limitations you have (sometimes those people might as well not exist they are so hard to find) to move you in the right direction, most people cannot reach that upper echelon.

    In short, what I think is more likely to be the case is that people are much more capable of climbing that exponential excellence curve than they often think they are, but most people won't go very far along that curve on any one thing because of the costs involved with getting there. Those people who make that cost trade-off will often simply say that they don't have the talent, but the truth is probably that they either lack the trifecta of will, time, and direction necessary to get there. I think a lot of people will say that might as well be the same thing as "being born" with talent or not, but I think there's an important psychological difference.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's View Post
    I think that's pretty well established and "prodigies" are just people who got their 10k-ish hours in at a young age. Obviously if you're 6'3' you're never going to be a world class jockey, but aside from that sort of thing it's just dedicated and meaningful practice. Which is why I will never be world class at anything. I simply don't care enough.
    That's pretty much me. I had a goal to out-shoot my Dad, of whom when I mention was an incredible rifle shot words simply do not convey how amazing he actually was. I couldn't get to that level with a rifle, but I did with a pistol - by age 13. Goal achieved - consistently beat dad at shooting. I can't say I lost all interest at that point, but my primary motivation was gone and I just didn't care enough to get into competitions, or train my ass off.. etc. So, I'm a decent shot but would be eaten alive in any form of pressured competition. I can draw from concealment and fire a shot on target in approximately 2.7 days or so.
    You will more often be attacked for what others think you believe than what you actually believe. Expect misrepresentation, misunderstanding, and projection as the modern normal default setting. ~ Quintus Curtius

  9. #29
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Location
    Deepinnaheartta, Texas
    Quote Originally Posted by JAD View Post
    That’s consistent with my life experience. I will hire a hard worker with common sense over a wunderkind all day. Some of the hard workers turn out to be secret rockstars, but few prodigies surprise you with their work ethic.
    Well put, sir. I couldn't have said it any better.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by JAD View Post
    That’s consistent with my life experience. I will hire a hard worker with common sense over a wunderkind all day. Some of the hard workers turn out to be secret rockstars, but few prodigies surprise you with their work ethic.
    Fact. The world is littered with guys who trounced everyone on the sporting field from pee-wee to high school and then could not make it at the college level or beyond because they never had to work. Some incredibly spectacular flame outs. There seems to be an inverse relationship between natural talent and the ability to work hard. The very small number who have both are at the top rank of any endeavor.

    My experience is that the “journey man” level in any activity is occupied largely by those with some talent but a heavy work ethic. Seems like we need to re-define the term “potential”.

User Tag List

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •