Here at P-T, we have long touted the benefits and necessity of on demand performance. This was not something discussed much in the training community prior, and is rarely discussed now. Which should come as no surprise, as people like to think of and talk about their best performances, not their normal or worst ones.
Closely related is cold performance, which is something I have never seen discussed anywhere. Thankfully, much like appendix carry (maybe, maybe not), cold performance seems to be catching on in the training world, as I have been told of two trainers in the past week who have now started talking about it. Cold performance is not glamorous, but it is necessary. To that end much of our coursework focuses on building it, and we train for it diligently.
Related, it is very unfortunate to shoot badly in front of other shooters, especially at a class. No one likes to do that, including yours truly. At this last class in California, I shot as badly as I ever have. Not fun.
When I got home I went to the range and shot as well as I ever have. While that was a relief, it did not explain my poor performance on the wrong coast. I’m sure many of you already know why. I’ve been told it was the jet lag. The lack of sleep in the hotel. Age. My dislike for California politics. My stubby gun.
I’m not ruling the influence of any of those out, lol, but I think it was more fundamental than that. Shooting in front of others is always harder than shooting by yourself on your home range. Not exactly high stress, but some level of performance anxiety may certainly be at play. In my case, I have been very consistent in my cold performance in front of classes, so I don’t remember feeling any abnormal stress. But it is there, to be sure.
One way many instructors make sure to demo correctly in class is to dial their performance back a little bit. Sometimes this is an essential teaching technique, like shooting a group slower than needed so that the students don’t shoot faster than they can. Other times it means they will draw a hair slower than normal or shoot splits a drop slower. The idea is to prevent fumbles or misses. In an institutional setting, where instructors are not generally high level shooters, it makes some sense I suppose.
I have never really subscribed to this theory for my own teaching though. I tend to do things at my correct and normal speed, rather than slowing down. I think that if you train correctly (and hard) and you are training for on demand performance, you should be able to perform on demand. That doesn’t mean I am pushing to my ultimate speed. That level of speed is reserved for my own training, and would not be appropriate for demonstration purposes. I do things as fast as I can and not faster. Certainly not slower.
This also means that sometimes I am not as good as I might be “normally”. In years past that difference was almost unnoticeable, but last week, I certainly noticed it. To my way of thinking, the only thing to do is train more and train harder. So for the next few months, I am ramping up my training pace and intensity. I hope to see a difference within 2 months, which is the time I have allotted for this experiment. If you are not happy with your shooting right now, I encourage you to train harder as well. Pick a time frame that is realistic and see what improvement you can generate. When my two months have passed, I will see where I am and decide what to do from there. Training is never ending.
