Where Confidence is Born

Fitting Guns in Sunny Florida

We spent a week in Florida, and the weather was incredible this time of year. That’s why we go there every year.

We shot with quite a few students, both private lessons and clinics, and had some real breakthroughs. The anticipation circuits in the brain continue to amaze me – and even in older people. We had an 80 and 79-year-old in a clinic, as well as an older woman. They picked up the seeing the bird behind the barrel concept quickly.

I adjusted another woman’s gun that had just been so misadjusted it was ridiculous. The comb was way too high, with not enough cast. Her shooting eye was to her left of the rib and 3/8 inch high over the rib. I lowered the comb almost all the way down, or only 1/16 inch up, and moved the pins over to the right to give her the most cast available. Then it was much better.

She was trying to keep her eyes square to the horizon for some reason. When I said it was okay to have some head tilt, she exclaimed “It fits perfect now!” Then I showed her why a little head tilt is not only okay but desirable.

In fact, there is a post on the forum and I put up some video just to show how much is okay.

The amount of misinformation out there on so many aspects of this game is incredible…

The OSP Viewpoints Seminar

I shot for two days with Rich Cole and Brian Featheringham of Cole Gunsmithing and owner of Gulf Coast Clays, Colin Burrows, and two of their members Bob and Charlie in the first OSP Viewpoints two-day seminar.

What an experience to watch each person come alive with excitement when they began to hit targets that they had never hit before, including a 70-yard right-to-left looper and an extreme right-to-left screaming quartering chandelle at about 50 yards. The looks on their faces were priceless.

We like the two-day format, as it gives us the full first morning to discuss all aspects of what they are about to learn and do.

Where Confidence is Born

I said something I’ve never said before to a student in an email today. The need to practice alone without coaching supervision will build the ability to correct on their own. And this is where confidence is born!

It must be born before you can nurture it and make it grow. But I’d never said it that way or realized at this level how important it is to self-correct. This is why the OSP system is so lethal.

Confidence is the absence of doubt. Fear is the father of doubt. But there can be no courage if there was no doubt first, so fear is normal and it enables you to become confident. Confidence and competence cannot be practiced. They are the residue of practice, and one begets the other.

You become confident as a result of not worrying about what the targets will be like and knowing you have a system to apply to all targets, even the ones you’ve never seen before. Then you become confident. You are not afraid to miss because you have corrected the misses so many times on your own with no help from anyone else that the fear in others’ minds becomes a weapon for you!

False Hope and Your Own Potential

Perhaps the biggest revelation for me is that any practice without the preload and a plan builds false hope. And regardless of the result, you are not gaining any experience.

You would think it’d be a great thing to always have me or Vicki or some of your shooting buddies with you when you shoot to tell you where you were or what you did wrong. But we would eventually become a crutch and you’d never really push your potential. Eventually, you must do this on your own and for yourself – not for any other reason.

If you’re not doing this completely and totally for yourself, you will never experience any satisfaction, confidence, enjoyment, or success for that matter.

Sometimes I am really surprised at what comes out of my mouth when I am in my little zone. It’s a testimony to what can really come out of the mind when you’re deeply in your zone and you have no fear about what you are going to write, think, say or do. It just flows.

We are getting more used to just letting it fly when in front of larger and larger groups of people. It’s becoming fun to get into the zone and see what comes out. The real meaning of the phrase “no fear” is becoming clearer.