As you spend more time in this sport, your interactions with other shooters also grow. This is a sign that you are feeling at home in the range. It becomes a comfortable place to come and go everyday as you see faces regularly. Your interactions become more frequent but will be very less about shooting discipline and more and more about social topics on one hand or on the other hand you discuss techniques related to shooting.
Your urge to interact with other shooters is a result of you being a social animal. The first signs of you losing purpose are emerging here. This is a professional sport and your desire to become No.1 in the sport is now fast vanishing.
You may ask, how mere interactions are going to affect my goals?
My answer is, the most likely outcome of you holding an electric wire with flowing current in standing water is electrocution. Let me explain.
What shooters don’t understand here is the fact that your social topics and interactions about new mobiles, new accessories and matters in school or office are now entering the “range”.
Range is the place where you have come to become a professional in a precision sport. “PRECISION” is the key word.
Precision has no standard deviation like accuracy. As Google maps show, location is accurate to 60 meters or 100 meters. Your target is a mere ” . ” (Dot) and you need to be precise to hit it.
Anything you speak or any activity you engage inside the range is going to have an impact on the outcome of your efforts which require you to be at the pinnacle of mind and body control. Every thought you get or even every small body movement you ignore due to such conversations running in your head will adversely affect your shooting and also will not allow you to think constructively as to what was the actual mistake.
Also, There is no bigger threat to your career than discussing techniques with co-shooters no matter what experience the other person has. If your co-shooter has time to interact with you about techniques, it means they are not being professional. It is not only a mistake on their part but also you both are assuming that the coach has no answers to your problems.
The difference between the two solutions – The one you receive from coach and the one from the co-shooter is that, the coach gives you a customized solution and follows up with your problems whereas a fellow shooter gives you a biased opinion which gets affected with your own wrong judgment, which no one follows up with.
You have entered a dangerous territory of undermining the abilities of your coach, which will lead to loss of trust based on many subjective interpretations you make of your interactions with co-shooters and other shooters during competitions. Remember, there will always be better shooters than you and many more who would give anything to shoot your scores.
Co-shooters can only think of problems from one perspective, that is their own. Coach can keep track of many things but the changes you make in your technique due to interactions with co-shooters or something you heard online is something your coach cannot even dream of.
Techniques a coach discusses with athletes in any sport are very private and personal, limited and personalized to one athlete – “YOU”. It is not meant for you to share it with others as they are very different from what you are as a person and in their ability to understand your perspective.
Next illogical question from my students will ask me is – should I stop interaction completely and maintain radio silence with co-shooters and behave like robots minding the task at hand.
My answer to that question is, “YES”, but again you are a social animal. Greeting warmly or enquiring how was your day or having interactions outside the range is not a concern.
Remember to maintain relationships as much as you can to contribute to others growth in sport and share only that knowledge, of which you have in excess of your coach’s knowledge in the range. If you have more knowledge than the coach, then you are in the wrong place to begin with.
The major reason you will start interacting with co-shooters or seniors or shooters from other ranges are due to following reasons:
- Self-doubt;
- Seeing limited progress in your own shooting;
- Expecting results beyond your ability;
- Expecting results too early;
- Comparing ourselves with others;
- Thinking that by following the technique of a good shooter or using accessories that someone uses will make you shoot better;
- Thinking that another weapon is superior to yours;
- Thinking that your problem is the most unique and another shooter might understand it.
But all of this has nothing to do with techniques of shooting nor will serve any purpose. In any case, why do you think your coach does not have an answer for your questions? No doubt is irrelevant and no doubt is to be ignored. Just ensure that you do not let these doubts affect your training. Ask them to coach at an appropriate time and get it clarified without mixing up with other problems or challenges you face. You can only solve one problem at one time, like, Lift, Drop, Alignment, Grip or Trigger. Remember you cannot cook more than one variety of biryani in one pot and expect to taste different.
If you do not talk to the coach about challenges you are facing but feel comfortable asking other shooters for any reason as simple as “Why ask my coach such silly questions?” again you are creating an unnecessary situation that can mount your problems. Also, by not accepting your coach’s advice and repeatedly failing at the same challenges will hurt your confidence. It is better to fail when your coach knows your problem than to fail without keeping them in loop.
One more point, I would like to touch upon before concluding is many students repeatedly say very confidently that they do not see any movement in the gun while dry or wall practice, but see a violently shaking front sight during live firing. Answer is simple, it happens because you fail to pay attention to movements during dry firing and nothing else.
In conclusion:
Do not treat shooting like your studies in school or colleges. Even there, remember those who spent time and by-hearted answers taught by teachers stand to get more marks than those who went around asking friends if they have studied a particular topic or know the answer to that question before exams.
Nothing will happen during a match that has not happened in practice, and nothing will happen in practice that has not happened during dry fire. Pay attention and be focused when learning and make your efforts count.
You can always trust your coach, his success is hinged upon your results, so you need not bother about your results but focus on the program set by him.
Kung Fu Panda is a great movie serving good point in the case, social interactions were for fun which did not affect their respective training, and no warrior taught techniques to other and all learned from the master and his technique of teaching each student was also different.
Learn, enjoy and become great.
- Santhosh Nagarajachari