Family Matters

On March 26, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Family2 Comments

Picture unrelated, mostly.

It is a time of change here in the FYH household.

My daughter has her first serious boyfriend, and he has come to visit several times. Last time, I happened to need to clean guns, so I made that announcement and left them on the couch, crouched over their laptops, and set off for the workshop.

Of course, I watched for the young man’s reaction, and there was none to speak of. He didn’t seem to cringe from the idea, nor did he offer to come help, or even ask what kinds of guns I was going to clean.

Nevertheless, as a good father, I’ve thought about what this could mean, and here are my possible conclusions, in order of highest probability to least probability:

> He didn’t hear me, being too engrossed in Facebook or studying civil engineering.

> He heard me, but my daughter had warned him of the possibility of my gambit, and convinced him that he had nothing to fear.

> He heard me, but he comes from a family where cleaning guns is a normal weekend thing, and he was afraid to ask, worried that I might try to get him to clean AR gas tubes all afternoon instead of doing the Facebook thing, or studying civil engineering.

> He heard me, but he comes from a family that is indifferent to guns, and it wasn’t enough to steal him from Facebook or civil engineering.

> He heard me, but he comes from a family that is actively anti-gun, and he decided to wait for another time to bring it up.

> He heard me, but he also saw the 4 or 5 shovels I have in the garage, as well as the 20 acres of woods behind my house, and decided to play dumb.

In any case, I will try to actively engage him next time on the subject, maybe even invite him and my daughter to go shooting with me.

More to come . . . .

A Year Already?

On March 23, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Blogs4 Comments

Photo courtesy of Janell’s Cakes.

It occurred to me last night that I started writing this blog March 22, 2011. Hard to believe it’s been a year already.

Beyond writing about shooting for the everyday citizen, I really had no clear vision or goal of what I wanted to do with this blog when I started, and I’m happy to report that I’ve hit dead on 100% of the time with that.

Thank you to all my readers and followers. If you like what you read, pass it on. If you don’t, let me know, and, better, let me know what else you’d like to see. Remember, though, it has to fit with my vision and goals.

Thanks again!

Time Dilation Under Stress, Courtesy of Walt in PA

On March 22, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Blogs, Competition, USPSA1 Comment

Courtesy of Walt in PA

Walt White at Walt in PA has posted another match report from his recent USPSA match. Check it out.

As I read Walt’s description of his first stage, Stage 4, I began to see a neat demonstration of a curious phenomenon: how time slows down when we’re “in the zone.”

To see what I mean, read Walt’s description of this malfunction he ran into:

It was at this point that I ran into trouble. My slide was locked back but my magazine wouldn’t drop free after pressing the magazine release button. I gave the gun a little shake to try and free the magazine but was unsuccessful. Being the first time I had ever encountered this problem, I acted on instinct. I mashed down on the slide release lever and the slide snapped forward. A press on the magazine release lever sent the empty magazine falling to the ground. I re-inserted a new magazine and racked the slide.

With a round in the chamber and the slide in battery, the gun appeared ready to rock. I raised the gun and fired two last shots on the one remaining target.

As I read this, and imagined it in my mind, I thought it might take him 5 or 6 seconds to clear the problem.

Watch the video though:

You can see that it takes Walt 3 seconds, from 0:29 to 0:32, to clear and bring the gun back up. I think the fact that he was able to describe dropping the slide and trying to drop the magazine shows that he could and think about and clearly see all the details of what was happening.

All this happens because, when we are “in the zone,” or under stress, the body is filled with the “fight or flight” response, and flooded with adrenaline. Our brains speed up, and perception of time is altered. Lots of people have reported this, and I once experienced it during an auto crash.

Just a neat observation. Thanks, Walt.

Great Detailed Match Report from Walt in PA

On March 19, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Competition, Podcasts, USPSA1 Comment

This isn’t Walt, he does this a lot better.

I’m a little behind in my blog reading and podcast listening, but with the warm weather this weekend, I got to do a lot of yard work, and, thanks to noise-cancelling ear buds, catch up some on the podcasts.

In his most recent podcast, Walt White at Walt in PA talked about his first USPSA match of the year, and that led me to the collection of videos and stage debriefings on his blog.

I am a fiend for good descriptions of stages and how they are shot – visualization, planning, and the actual “Red Haze” shooting of the stage, and Walt really delivered. Check out the hat-cam video Walt provides. Coupled with his insightful and no-holds-barred self examination, I found it a really great read.

I am almost convinced that Walt and I are separated at birth. He doesn’t cut himself much slack in reviewing his performance, and neither do I.

On a related note, one of the other podcasts I listened to was Episode 254 of Down Range Radio with Michael Bane. Michael has been competing as long as there have been competitions, and this episode he talked about Winter Range, the big Cowboy Action Shooting match. He didn’t do as well as he thought he should have, or could have, either.

But he talked a lot about how the top shooters are able to shake off a bad stage, and go on to the next stage. Without that ability, they could easily let a poor performance take down their whole match.

I’ve been looking into this concept some, and I plan to write about it some more in the near future. In the meantime, I will take away the good and try to learn from the not-so-good.