Rifle Qualification followup

I received a text from Lisa on the day she was qualifying. I immediately had flash backs to the month of softball in the past where I could not hit a ball other then to pop up to third base and another time where I absolutely could not hit the golf ball with my driver. Both things, that for the most part, had always come easy to me. So I shared her frustration when she texted that she had failed and couldn't shoot anymore. I sent her back a text that said, "you can shoot; just not right now."

Just a couple days earlier she had commented on how easy it was and she couldn't understand why so many had trouble hitting targets. From the start, many months ago in recruit training, Lisa seemed to be a natural. She finished second in her class and except for a rifle jam during the moving target testing she may well have finished first. She is doing ok with it and I'm confident that she will bounce back in a few weeks when she has to return to the range to qualify again.

It does beg the question though. How does something that seems so easy suddenly become so difficult. I've both experienced this and also seen this many times in golf. You are cruising along and suddenly miss an easy putt. You tell yourself to just relax, etc. But then you miss again and suddenly nothing seems right. It is one of the most helpless feelings in the world. Irritation becomes frustration and frustration becomes anger. After many years of examining this I've concluded that it is mostly mental. We have a tendency to over think things. Our brains will run on auto pilot when we have trained ourselves with proper technique. It is when we start overriding the "auto pilot" that we get in trouble. When I was in HS my golf coach gave me a book called Inner Tennis. It was written by a psychologist that worked with athletes. He theorized that there were "two" minds. The inner mind (auto pilot) and the outer mind (analytical/emotional.) The outer mind being the one that that we use when we worry or let other emotions get involved. His solution was to keep the outer-mind occupied by distracting it with other things. For example, in hitting a softball you just count to three. The pitcher releases the ball (one), the ball reached the top of the arc (two), you swing at the ball (three). It seems overly simple but is really quite effective.

So later on we talked a little and I sent Lisa an email explaining the various things that might have gone wrong and how she could learn from experience, both good and bad. I'm sure Lisa will do well again, just as I eventually broke out of my softball slump. Failures like this are painful to watch; especially as a parent. Among other things I shared with her this quote which I think is helpful when our confidence is low.

"Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward." ~Henry Ford