What's your game?

[Camille Eonich]

When you're at a cowboy match whether it be SASS or NCOWs, what is your game when you get to the line?  Are you still in character?  Are you a doctor that doesn't handle guns much and just shooting as best you can to try to save your own life, are you a gun fighter that knows your way around trouble and so you are calm, cool and collected? 

Is it our life or theirs?  Do you have to be faster and more accurate than all the others or are you slow and steady and hope that they get going to fast and miss you when they are shooting back?

What's your shooting fantasy?

[PJ Hardtack]

Camille

When I got into IPSC, I was fresh out of Regular Army and I regarded it as a martial art form; a continuation of the survival shooting I was used to in the military.
For some reason, that attitude didn't come with me into CAS. It just didn't seem right with the type of guns used by John Wayne, Alan Ladd, Richard Boone, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, et al.

I once took part in a visualization work shop specifically aimed at sports performance. The presenter was an Olympic coach and he was an advocate of the visualization technique. He proved his point with actual results, making believers of the sceptical. He said that being "in the zone" was almost like an out-of-body experience and wanted to know if anyone had ever experienced that. I had.

I was prepping for a national IPSC match and wanted to do well in a difficult stage. I practiced and rehearsed it until I was blue in the face. I fussed over my gun and ammo to the nth degree. When I shot the stage for real, it was like I was doing it in slow motion, but I knew I was doing it fast and well.
I was acutely aware of everything going on around me, including the presence and comments of the ROs who were having a hard time keeping up with me. I won the stage.

The  coach was of the opinion that I was as well prepared mentally and physically as possible, essential for getting into the 'zone', and asked me if I was pysched 'up' or psyched 'down'. I asked why and he said that if I wanted to repeat the process, I'd have to get into the same head space. In fact, I was dead calm the whole time and afterwards didn't even have an elevated heart rate.

During the stage, it was as though I was 'up there' watching me 'down there'. I've only gotten into that 'zone' on rare occasions, and only a couple of times since.

It takes a lot of effort and concentration to get there, but it works.

[Shotgun Franklin]

I guess the character has become me or maybe I was always the character. I'm an old Peace Officer in real life and a gunfighter at SASS.

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[Modoc]

An Itinerant Range Detective who has made friends and enemies along the way.  Better than average, but not a top shootist who still makes mistakes and hopes to survive and get out of trouble quickly

[Marshal Deadwood]

I imagine all the gongs as hordes of mother in laws coming at me.

Makes me shoot a lot faster. I still have the temptation to save one round for 'myself.'

Deadwood

[Camille Eonich]

I imagine all the gongs as hordes of mother in laws coming at me.

Makes me shoot a lot faster. I still have the temptation to save one round for 'myself.'

Deadwood