Acting in a milisecond is always unconsciously
Thought patterns ...
- Thread starter dquarasr
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Acting in a milisecond is always unconsciously
I don't know where the line is but you are right, at a certain point we are not weighing things, we work off of endstink which may be the unconscious or perhaps muscle memory. I'm not too sure. People hang names on things but I don't know what is right as far as the things they believe.
There was a steel plate match before Katrina. Five eight inch plates at twenty-five feet. Max Michelle and a few more shot this match every week. They got the time down to 1.71 seconds before the hurricane ended things. That is to start in the surrender position, draw, and shoot the five steel plates. That doesn't leave much time for thinking. The buzzer sounds, action starts. I was a bit slower than some but fast enough to receive respect.
Thing is, there was little or no thought before the buzzer, none afterwards. I do the same thing on a pool table when practicing alone and my stroke is a bit gimpy. Step in and fire, one stroking over and over. Before long with no thought things start clicking.
Speed thrills!
Hu
1.71???
Holy shit.
Story time. Those not interested have been warned.
With my bad ears I am slow on the start. I can't go on the first click without risking a DQ. I have to be sure what I am hearing. Once I start I roll pretty good.
I have a bad habit of starting to do something for fun then finding I can compete at it and I spend my time tuning for competition or competing. Partially for entertainment and partially for practice I had added a "mad minute" at the end of my practice sessions.
One quiet day it was just me and a federal agent on the firing line. I put my usual target at ten yards to finish the day. A standard police B-27 silhouette. I was shooting a high capacity .45, 1911 of course. I loaded fifteen rounds in two magazines.
Fiifteen shots center, reload, fifteen shots head. This was done at speed, about three to four shots a second. All told it took ten or twelve seconds. When I got through there was a hole about the size of your wrist in the X ring and another the same size in the head, no fliers.
I hadn't done it to impress anyone but when I turned to pick up brass I couldn't help noticing the fed was literally white as a sheet! No blood in his face! Not likely at all but he realized if he ever ran into a bad guy that shot like that he was dead.
He started coming once or twice a week to practice and got quite respectable himself. Better than any LEO in the area including the instructors. Better than anyone other than a game warden that is. The game warden is Jerry Miculek's brother and was the class of the field shooting competition back then.
Talking about speed, some of the fastest competitors could run faster than some submachine guns! Max shot for the military and then Sig last I knew. When he was twelve or thirteen he was a little pudgy, the kind that gets bullied at school which struck me as funny. He was one of the best in the world with a pistol even then!
All of the different forms of competition don't directly translate but I have learned that competition itself is a skill set and some of that skill set always transfers. Speed doesn't translate to pool but accuracy does. So does the mental game.
Hu
Losing a lot of money only matters if losing that money matters to you...You most definitely can if playing for large coin!!
Lose and you're walking home to an empty house.
Increase the element of risk involved.
You'll figure it out real quick!!
Well said!!
A competitor is a competitor in all things.
I think it comes down to personality types. You're either an Alpha, or a Beta.
How much time do you think you lost on the pull bcuz of your hearing??
.10 or more??
Less??
The electronic timers of the time clicked a tenth of a second before they buzzed. I couldn't hear that click so that was a tenth lost right there. Then when the timer buzzed I had to be very careful to identify the buzz, starting on a false sound would disqualify the run at the least.
There is a strange contrast when drawing a gun fast on signal. If the hands start down early it is a DQ but naturally you want the first part of the signal to start on. The click is short, clean, gives a clean signal to launch on. The buzzer is a long comparatively soft sound. It is similar to other noises in the building. Not hearing the click before the buzzer cost a tenth as already mentioned. Then pausing to confirm it is actually the buzzer costs another tenth or two.
Average cost per start was probably a quarter second or more. That is a lot to give up when talking about around two seconds flat for a total run.
There was another place I lost time too, stopping on each target. Faster to sweep across the targets firing as you swing onto and past a target. Stopping is better practice for self defense in my opinion and that was the real objective for me, practicing for real world.
In the shoot off at an event we could start with a round in the chamber. The winner was determined by the fastest of three runs. I was putting seven rounds in my pistol figuring that two misses were a half second or more lost. I was saving weight with fewer rounds loaded that wouldn't do me any good anyway.
I had shot all seven rounds one run, rare. I assumed one in the chamber and the next run was met with the dreaded click. I had aligned properly, my stance was perfect from earlier runs. The buzzer sounded, I had a near perfect draw, the gun came up perfectly, and I snapped the hammer on an empty chamber. Stunned by the very rare failure to fire it took me long fractions of a second to figure out the problem. Put me out of the competition.
I racked the slide and brought my pistol up. Unusual for me, I just panned across the plates shooting as I went. It was poison fast, maybe a quarter second between shots on separate targets. Afterwards I asked a very facetious "Did I win?" Needless to say I wasn't in the same zip code as a win! The match was stopped for a few minutes while all of the young guns checked my splits between shots though, those splits were wicked tight. A semi-auto was claimed to jam if shooting under .15 second splits. My Hubilt pistols would cycle at 0.10 seconds without issues. I have seen them cycle properly at 0.08 seconds but that was just somebody playing putting bullets in the berm, no aiming involved.
I set four records with Hubilt guns. While they were local records, nationally and internationally ranked Masters and Grandmasters shot those matches so I was pretty pleased. I could build guns, had built close to a dozen, and I could have stayed busy just doing trigger jobs. My trigger jobs were well respected locally and my guns ran like seven day clocks.
Early morning bragging but I have never let time of day interfere with bragging!(grin)
Hu
Well deserved!!
Brag away my friend!!
The subconscious is always listening and it doesn't know the difference between what you say as truth and what you say as modesty, even false modesty.
I hired a man. Good worker in all respects. His only flaw as I saw it was that he tended to blow his own horn a bit much. One day I talked to him about it. He said, "plenty of people out there to talk bad about me, why should I help them?"
He had a point. Years later others got credit for my work since I low played what I did and they considerably overstated their contribution. I thought back to my old employee and while I didn't brag I settled for much more neutral positions and didn't dismiss or downplay what I had done.
We are often the only one on the site that knows about past doings. We have had legends on here quietly operating under an anonymous handle. Most people give and gave their posts little weight not knowing who they were and their past accomplishments. Most have died or just faded away but I used to get many a chuckle when somebody was tugging on Superman's cape and didn't have a clue!
Hu
Thanks for that Hu.
At your age, you don't need to be flying anymore my friend. Time to retire that cape.
Thanks for that Hu.
At your age, you don't need to be flying anymore my friend. Time to retire that cape.
I was reading a little about shooting guns last week. The things that were innovative and known to only a few of us are common knowledge and accepted practice now. I suspect the same is true of pool practices.
I have pretty much stood still for decades, the rest of the world hasn't.
Hu
Welcome to the club bro.
Somebody call for Rip Van Winkle?? I think the biggest problem I had, besides the terminology, was the new games, equipment and rule changes. So many new and better things came while I was away.
Welcome to the club bro.
Somebody call for Rip Van Winkle??
The secrets to the world aren't secret anymore! The circle track racers were the worst, followed by pistol shooters. I would be talking to a racer in private. "I have learned a great secret, I will tell you but you have to promise not to tell!" They tell me the secret. "Dude, that was published in the national magazine last year!"
The thing is, all of the secrets are different ways to get you close. If you can't make the adjustments for the particular playing session you are in all of the secrets don't mean diddly!
There was a beautiful two rail "Z" style bank to get you into the side pocket when it was blocked. It wasn't too hard on the old ten footers fifty-sixty years ago. I watched two very good players, fair to say world class shooters, alternate a half-dozen or so shots at a time on a modern clean shallow cloth table. After dozens of tries neither shooter ever pocketed a ball. That was one of the early shots I learned and I could drop it consistently on the old equipment including a crap cue off of the wall!
I tried the shot a handful of times on a modern table. The pocketing percentage is so low it is foolish to try the shot. On the other hand it is a great one to get your opponent to waste time on!(grin) I shoot it once in a blue moon when circumstances are perfect including some balls positioned to make the pocket play big.
Which reminds me of a saying I used to use to annoy opponents. I think it might have been Cisero Murphy that said dead balls were harder to see than to make after seeing them. When making one of these shots where the shot was harder to see than to make I would repeat Paul Newman's(Butch Cassidy's) words from the big movie of the day, "I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals!"
Actually relevant to the mental game, another trick is to carefully study the rack a minute or three when it is opponent racks. Spend enough time studying the rack and the opponent will always ask what is the problem. "No problem, just looking for something to exploit." That word "exploit" has a nasty ring to it and some of the best known slug rackers around get very careful racking for me after that!
While on the subject of the mental game, how to make your opponent go mental that is: When I catch somebody cheating and there is no ref or other recourse I have found it blows minds to act like I am cheating. Block the view of the shot from my opponent, then jerk my head around to look at them as if checking if they saw something.
I can often draw a scream of "FOUL" "Really, what did I do?" Now they will start guessing since they haven't seen something that didn't happen. If it had happened they couldn't have possibly seen through my body to call the foul. With a referee that might draw an unsportsmanlike call. Without one, the call goes to the shooter!
Ultimately pool is a gentleman's and ladies game. If it is call your own fouls you can simply ignore them as some do. Many events have the opponent calling fouls but also state that the opponent has to stay in the chair while a player is shooting. Ever see an official referee sit in a chair for the entire match?
I am never the one to start cheating but when the other person starts the cheating game I can bring things to levels the other player never dreamed of. "Cue ball fouls only" doesn't really mean that. However when somebody tries to abuse that rule I rake the table next game just leaving the cue ball and money ball on the table and them lined up for a tap in. "Cue ball fouls only!" If the other person wants to play we quickly arrive at working rules after a little yelling and crying.
Hu
Well! I haven't read all 7 pages and have cruise through most of 5. My assumption is that a story should fit. 
So "one time at bandcamp" Well last night at APA leagues, I was proverbial Hit by a truck playing a 9 ball match. It having a balls count score just doesn't fit My 9 ball history.
My opponent crushed me on ball count. We were even on the 9 balls count.
I subsequently got the opportunity to prove my point in my statement of, "9 ball is the young man's game and 8 ball the old man's game."
The jui jitsu like choke 'em out er uh got the tap out results of ball in hand with hanging 8 ball type occurred more than once
Pluss an 8 ball Break, it's been some time since I broke in the 8 ball. The BCAPL making it less than a win took all the fun out of the 8 ball break. I musta had 5 breaks (I don't count stuff when in battle.) And was hittin em good.
The is the on topic part.
THE FEAR FACTOR. was generated in the 9 ball match that had me firing in a couple of long range "lucky shots".
Musta been 5-1 maybe 5-0.shrug.
I rest my case your Honor is a statement I have made many times before THE JUDGE.
The 69 or 70 GTO Judge with competition clutch was available for 900 on a local lot. Right when I was shopping for a Family car. Musta been '71.
So "one time at bandcamp"
Well last night at APA leagues, I was proverbial Hit by a truck playing a 9 ball match. It having a balls count score just doesn't fit My 9 ball history. My opponent crushed me on ball count. We were even on the 9 balls count.
I subsequently got the opportunity to prove my point in my statement of, "9 ball is the young man's game and 8 ball the old man's game."
The jui jitsu like choke 'em out er uh got the tap out results of ball in hand with hanging 8 ball type occurred more than once
Pluss an 8 ball Break, it's been some time since I broke in the 8 ball. The BCAPL making it less than a win took all the fun out of the 8 ball break. I musta had 5 breaks (I don't count stuff when in battle.) And was hittin em good. The
is the on topic part. THE FEAR FACTOR. was generated in the 9 ball match that had me firing in a couple of long range "lucky shots".
Musta been 5-1 maybe 5-0.shrug.
I rest my case your Honor is a statement I have made many times before THE JUDGE.
The 69 or 70 GTO Judge with competition clutch was available for 900 on a local lot. Right when I was shopping for a Family car. Musta been '71.
I have always maintained that it is OK to sleep while you drive as long as you keep driving.
"You shoot good kid but you shoot lucky too." Is a favorite quote. Can't be sure but probably from The Hustler. A required study.
Well, the current technology has self driving taxi in Vegas.I have always maintained that it is OK to sleep while you drive as long as you keep driving.
The cars are smarter now and provides an opportunity to rest but not sleep. The rumble strip helps keep the driver at least awake.
When in my chair as my opponent shoots is a time to rest. Often my eyes, as the one hour drive has me looking into the sun.
Playing me first is not an optimal choice. An up hill both ways kinda challenge.
Resting the mind always starts with a quick unbiased ass says mint of , "how did it go?" Was it a miss? Or perhaps a safety. The missed shot needs an honest and direct conclusion to free the mind to get on with the battle. That is If I get another chance. Making a strong statement early gets weak replies later.
Playing me first is not an optimal choice.
An up hill both ways kinda challenge. Resting the mind always starts with a quick unbiased ass says mint of , "how did it go?" Was it a miss? Or perhaps a safety. The missed shot needs an honest and direct conclusion to free the mind to get on with the battle. That is If I get another chance.
Making a strong statement early gets weak replies later.
I don't "enjoy " missing but I want to still project an image of strength and confidence. Sometimes I chuckle at my mistakes.
"What are You on and why aren't you sharing?" Is a favorite question.
"What are You on and why aren't you sharing?" Is a favorite question.