Have you ever been at the range working on a particular skill, see steady improvement and then suddenly start sucking? It happens to all of us. The causes can vary, including things like muscle fatigue, mental tiredness, distractions and changing what you’re doing. When you suddenly start sucking again, it can be frustrating and even angering. If it’s something you were working on for a long time, the anger can lead to doubling down and working harder, followed by sucking even more!
But, there’s a sure way to break the cycle, and a recent post on social media reminded me of it:
Really, this is a universal part of the human experience. It’s easy to get engrossed in something you’re working on and start seeing things go wrong. When you double down and concentrate harder, you can see things get worse and worse. The vicious cycle can cause you to make increasingly big mistakes until you’re not only getting it wrong, but facing danger.
Why does this happen to us? Well, it’s all in the environment humanity evolved in (or was created for, if that works better for you). Going back thousands of years, most of humanity didn’t live in cities. Hunter-gatherers, small-scale farmers and herders weren’t faced with complex legal frameworks, machines or any of that. If someone did something to scare you bad enough, the appropriate response was to club them until they were no longer a problem. Anything that got in the way of becoming a vicious, simple killing machine in that situation could get you killed.
To make sure you’re focused, the human brain does some seemingly dumb things when adrenaline dumps. Tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, and loss of fine motor skills all happen. Higher brain functions shut down. You get the tendency to want to destroy almost anything that moves.
But, this doesn’t only happen when someone is trying to kill you. Anything that can get you emotionally worked up can start making you act like a caveman. In the mechanic’s example, if you find yourself cussing and swearing at the engine bay, it’s good to take a break and clear your head a bit. Coming back at it rested and fresh can help you to slow down a bit and get it right, come up with a better approach or simply not have tight muscles that kept you from being able to get the job done.
This applies on the shooting range and is perhaps even more important there. I’ve seen in many classes that when people don’t get enough breaks, the learning and training process breaks down. At worst, it can lead to dangerous situations (like an elderly man who started repeatedly shooting the ground in front of him when he got dehydrated and lost track of what he was doing).
So, when you’re training and you notice that things are suddenly not going well, go sit down for a few, have a drink (preferably nothing alcoholic!) and relax for a bit. After just five to 10 minutes, you’ll probably find that you’re suddenly doing great again!
Haven’t shot a gat since January. My skills were undiminished. I do clean my gunz & dry fire at times. YMMV
RE: “In the mechanic’s example, if you find yourself cussing and swearing at the engine bay, it’s good to take a break and clear your head a bit. Coming back at it rested and fresh can help you to slow down a bit and get it right, come up with a better approach or simply not have tight muscles that kept you from being able to get the job done.”
Things were much less stressful under the hood before electronic fuel injection came along and idiotic regulations screwed thing up. You cannot save the planet by adding a couple of bushel baskets full of wires and gizmos and gadgets to a piston engine. The greenies keep all the materials and energy it takes to manufacture all the wire and gizmos and gadgets swept under the carpet. They don’t want milquetoast America to factor in the additional factories, materials and people driving to and from work to make the gizmos and gadgets. So called environmental friendly vehicles are an expensive joke that can be seen in wrecking yards across America. Some look like you could put a key in them and drive away unfortunately the cost of repairs is what brings many to the scrap yard.
All a motor vehicle needs to run is a one hot wire distributor, mechanical fuel pump and a carburetor. Like our stress-free 468CI BBC Nova. That’s a .060″ over 454.
Yet the sky on a clear day in S GA/N FL is way bluer than in the 70s, 80s, and 90s…
Blue all the way down to the horizon.
In the 1940s a clear day on the Gulf meant vis of 40 miles. By the late 70s, that fell to 12-15 miles.
What we do, counts…
xzx…Blue skies today? Then how come we all going to still die from climate change? Are you trying to say there weren’t blue skies from the 40s to 90s? You should get out more often.
Let’s say you have a mower and a gallon of gasoline to mow an acre. The government comes by and says xzx you need to put pollution controls on your mower before you can mow. You use the gallon of gasoline reserved for mowing to go round up the pollution controls, the pollution control assembly workers used gasoline to go to and from work, the manufacturing facility used lots of raw materials and fuel to make the controls. Now you go fetch another gallon of gasoline to mow and enjoy what you foolishly perceive to be blue skies.
In my part of world 2-stroke mowers and other garden tools won’t be able to sold new. I’ll admit to using Ryobi battery powered garden tools because I can get jobs done faster without constantly fighting the machine.
But my mower is an old-fashioned 2-stroke 25:1 mix petrol mower. My son says he much prefers the petrol mower over the corded electric mower his mum has. It can be hard to start but once started runs fine. Note Ballistol is great to get mowers started.
Note, don’t use ethanol blend fuel if you can avoid it. Ethanol is hydroscopic and absorbs moisture from the air. I ran mine on 98 octane and it works much better.
Fuel treatments work great for 10% ethanol gas, in my experience, which is limited to chainsaws, generators and utvs. That said, nonethanol gas is easy to get right now, so why not.
All one has to do is read the various manufactures Technical Service Bulletins and Emission Recalls to realize how over-complicated the current generation of Internal Combustion Engine has become. All due to evermore demanding emission standards constantly being enacted. Smaller, highly stressed turbocharged, direct injected, multi-cam engines with computer controlled valve timing AND valve lift, they truly are more complicated that a Swiss Watch. What makes things worse course is ever one of those components are built to a cost. And every year that parts cost is negotiated between the Vehicle manufacture and the vendor/supplier. Shave 8% of the cost of that fuel pump or loose the contract. do you think the quality will go up on that next batch of pumps?
God forbid you get a load of bad fuel, use the wrong oil, or just get unlucky with a bad fuel pump (Low Pressure & 1 or 2 High Pressure), Cam Sensor or Actuator, Fuel Injector, or one of a hundred other potential maladies.
After more than 45 years in the vehicle repair business, I almost welcome takeover the Electric Vehicle, as they have completely FUBARED ICE engines.
Electronic fuel injection and variable valve timing were some of the best things to happen to internal combustion engines and they were put forward by engineers that wanted to bring fuel efficient vehicles to their customers. At the same time gaining a competitive edge on the competition. It also helped the environment. Keep the fucking government out of it and the market will do just fine.
This ^^
That shitty Nova engine got 250 horsepower in a deathtrap car with no safety features. My 2019 Camry has 301 hp in a car that weights the same, and corners like it’s on rails. I don’t miss re-jetting and rebuilding and retuning cars. All that “bushel of wires and gizmos” tells me exactly what is wrong and how to fix it.
“Stress free Nova” ahahahahahahahaha
I spent countless hours f’ing with a carb because I’d let my quad sit a few months without running it. I have owned fuel-injected vehicles a combined total of 74 years without the slightest hint of an FI problem from any of them. I can’t recall a single relative, friend, or colleague having any either. I’ll take “can’t fix it myself when it never breaks,” thank you!
It is good to see you back at the keyboard, Jen!
I encourage new shooters to shoot more often for shorter session lengths rather than long sessions on fewer occasions.
…unless each range fee is $20+ like the two nearest ones here are. Doubling upon the trips and sticking around for half the time adds up quickly over the course of a year.
Take a break? Naw…
“If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking ‘til you do succeed”
Curly Howard
Said Kamala Harris…FIFY
when they were “dating’ Willie Brown called kamala ‘Holley Double Pumper’ because she was so good at using her hands and sucking his gas like a carburetor
when they were “dating’ Willie Brown called kamala ‘Holley Double Pumper’ because she was so good at using her hands and sucking his gas like a carburetor.
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