Shotgunning Is Loud Zen.....

[Dave McCracken]

From Webster's New Unabridged Universal Dictionary....

Zen,!, an anti-rational Buddhist sect developed in India and now widespread in Japan:it differs from other Buddhist sects in seeking enlightment through introspection and meditation....

Think of your last range trip, wasn't there introspection and meditation?

Zen's famous for it's Koans, questions meant to stimulate meditation. Meditation is by and large, thinking without using logic. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is a famous koan.

Now visualize standing on the range, your shotgun in your hands. You call for the bird, You read the line, move the shotgun without thinking, and bust the bird. You know how to, and let the shot happen. That's Zen.

Zen also ties in with Archery. Some of us may have seen the National Geographic Special on Zen Archers, who often train for a decade before launching an arrow. Their training is based on the idea that they have to be able to control themselves before they can control the shot.

Isn't this true in Shotgunning?

We HAVE to do a number of small things right or we miss. We practice until we can hit most of the shot opportunities at our game of choice, and then move on to greater challenges. After Trap becomes easier, we move on to Skeet or Wobble. SC, Olympic Trap and Skeet, and FITASC are the last things to control because they're the hardest.

Every instructor I meet or read about states that most of this game is mental. Most instructing focusses, pardon me, on focus. Again like Zen.

How do you feel about this?

And, what is the sound of one hand reloading?.....

 

[mattw]

How do you feel about this?

Git-R-Done.

 

[fgr39]

I have to agree. It seems that the more I think the worse I do. The times when I just let go I score higher.

 

[charby]

when bird hunting I get more birds in the bag when I snap shoot them. I seem to hit less when I have time to "aim" at the birds, i.e. a slow rising pheasant or slow flying goose.

Charby

 

[Norton]

Good points as always, Dave.

This comes back to our earlier discussion of entering the unconscious state. It's good practice for any task which requires exacting precision with regards to accuracy in repeated actions.

I'm most familiar with it with regards to musical performance and how going "unconscious" allows for better musical expression and technical accuracy, but it's also true of sports such as archery, shotgunning, cycling.

Arnold Jacobs, who was the father of modern musical pedagogy and best known as tubist with the Chicago Symphony for 40 years or so, called his concept of this Song and Wind. In other words, before you played a note you had to have a clear concept in you mind of what it would sound like.

In its purest form, his method of teaching makes very little mention of technical things related to the instrument. Instead, it was his belief that if you got good wind through the horn and then allowed the song in your head to take over, you would have a superior performance.

My 2 cents.....FWIW

 

[Smoke]

The bird of surprise is the bird that dies.

When a I can see a bird a long way off and have time to track him and watch his path to me I invariably blow the shot. When a bird sneaks around a mesquite tree and I have .5 seconds to see, react, and shoot. The bird often folds and drops.

ZEN. Indeed.

Smoke - assuming the lotus postion.

 

[CAPTAIN MIKE]

Some Suggested Reading

Please see "The Zen of Shooting". Very cool.

 

[Preacherman]

This fits right in with Cajun hunting philosophy: "Fust I shoot de one, zen I shoot de next, zen I shoot de udder one..."

 

[SpookyPistolero]

Mattw, thats the first and probably only time I've ever laughed at git-r-done. Congratulations and thanks.


I love reading about zen and shooting. I feel like it's where my favorite place is, but I have no idea how to get there. I'd just recognize it if I ever did. It's fun trying to get there, though.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Thanks for the replies, folks. A couple things...

The first three responses deal with the unprepared shot. I've noted this also. A dove seen across a field and giving me lots of time to get ready is also giving me lots of time to set up a miss. Not that I hit all the surprise birds that come in off the radar.

Our forebrains are wonderful things. But they get in the way sometimes like a hungry cat and we trip over them.

Norton, agreed. Letting the sound out without conscious "Editing" oft gives superior results. Jerry Douglas, the Dobro player who has raised the instrument to a new level says he rarely knows exactly how a solo will go. Bet he'd make a good shotgunner.

Captain Mike, who wrote it? I'd like to read it.

Preacher, Zen Cajuns? Heck, why not? It would explain the music...

Spooky, it is fun, and as we see, profitable.

 

[dave3006]

My experience with Karate has been a "zen" activity. The goal was to eliminate concious thought through repetition. We would do a kata or technique literally hundreds of times to the point of complete exhaustion. When I was ready to drop, my Sensei would then say our karate training has just started. You became so fatigued that your rational thought stopped. You became the movements.

When they say something is a mental game it is not so much that you are thinking the right thoughts, you are not thinking any thoughts. You just are. The only way to really know something was to experience it.


Bird hunting is a very similar thing. In a way, a good movie has the same effect. Hours can pass by and you have been "in the movie".

 

[Dave McCracken]

Byron Ferguson, the longbow hotshot who hits aspirin tablets tossed in the air with arrows, has a book on instinctive archery called "Become The Arrow". Haven't read it, but I'd venture to guess it's similar to what we're discussing.

The Reverend Stacey Groscup, who also hits aspirin, is a good hand with a shotgun also. His instruction in archery emphasizes focusing on the exact spot one wants to hit.

Gulliame De Coucy, 16th Century bodyguard and sword instructor,wrote to practice with your sword until you were not sure where you stopped and the weapon started. He urged constant practice, even keeping a training sword near at home to handle in idle moments.

Shotgunning is not a Martial Art. It's several Martial Arts, with wingshooting one branch and defensive shotgunning another. They share some moves and tools.

I would love to get a good 3 gun shooter like Corriea who barely knows what a clay looks like on a wobble range. My guess is he'd do VERY well for a tyro.

 

[dave3006]

I have transitioned from Karate to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They have a concept they call "mat time". Simply put, it means you need to spend lots and lots of time on the mat to have the moves become second nature. I think the same thing applies to shotgunning or shooting in general. I try to find activities that put me out in the field or range with the weapon in my hands until it feels like a part of me. Skeet, sporting clays, rabbit hunting, dove, quail, ect. - it is all good.

I grew up in the desert. My house was out in the middle of no where. When I was a kid, I used to spend endless hours for years every day hiking around and shooting lizards with my pellet pistol. There was nothing else to do. I am 43 years old now, during my last defensive handgun class, we had a shooting competition at the end. About 50+ people competed including some of the assistant instructors. You had to shoot, run, reload through a course for time. I ended up getting first place without really trying. I attribute that to a massive amount of time shooting that pellet pistol.

 

[SpookyPistolero]

Yeah, pellet guns are what I attribute to my shooting abilities. I wore out two quality pellet rifles one summer at my dads. He worked all day, so I had nothing to do but go through box after box of pellets shooting mutilated tin cans. Does wonders for muscle memory, and relaxation. Wish I was back there now...

 

[Dave McCracken]

Mat time sounds like what we call "Trigger time". Time spent shooting pays off.

Once had one of the nice Webley pellet pistols. Set up a target and backstop in my living room and shot maybe 25 shots every night. Did good for the time at a 22 league at work.

Before that, Red Ryder Daisy and cans.

I went to the range today and shot with the Geezer League. When a brace of dove flew over, every last one of us tracked their flight. Mindset, training and BA/UU/R....

 

[SamV]

Interesting. This is similar to the way I feel often when I am at the range. Sometimes I feel like a calm peace comes over me then. Not always, not usually when I am with a group of friends at the trap range. But sometimes on a beautiful clear crisp fall day, everything just floats away, I am relaxed and everything seems to just fall into place. My scores go up without really trying. Sometimes this has happened to me on the archery range or pistol range but less often.
I tried to explain this to my non-shooting sports friends, and it was a BIG mistake. They presumed that I was just a hair away from being some deranged nut going thru a school, or mall, or job, calmly blowing away any living thing in my path. You know "all guns are bad, I would throw up just being in the same room with a gun", kind of people. How could I possibly be relaxed with such an instrument of death in my hands?
Oh, well you win some and you lose some.
ooohhhhmm, ooohhhmm, pull, ooohhhmm.

 

[GunnySkox]

I know how that is.. The more "thought", like real, conscious "I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this..." though you do before you shoot, the more terribly you do, I've found. The hits have to come from just... doing it; you have to know how to do it, but trying to rationalize reflexes and intuitive actions just screw you up.

Now, if you could just get the puller to hit the button on "Ohm..."

I bet the Dalai Lama rules at Trap.

~Slam_Fire

 

[auschip]

I bet the Dalai Lama rules at Trap

[caddyshack]Biiig hitter the Lama![/caddyshack]

So I said hey Lama! How about something, you know. For the effort. He turns to me and said 'on your death bed you will have complete spiritual enlightenment' So I got that going for me.

 

[P. Plainsman]

I too, notice a strong Zen element to clay shooting.

A quibble with the dictionary entry quoted in the original post: "An anti-rational Buddhist sect ..."

Some more extreme or unbalanced expressions of Zen have been anti-rational, but I think the average Zen practitioner would say: "we're not anti-rational, we just think the rational, discursive intellect has its limits, and there are important things to be grasped and understood that don't fall within those limits."

Like effective shotgunning.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Sam, quote Goerge Orwell at the sheeple. "Good folk sleep safe in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."....

Sheep have trouble seeing the difference between wolves and sheepdogs.

Your feeling of peace may be what we call "The Zone". A heightened state of consciousness causing heightened performance. Some Martial Artists call it focussing their Chi.

Slamfire, Ohm works with Canterbury mikes, it just has to be loud. I use a loud grunt, expelling air and opening my mouth somewhat. That last gives me just the right shape of face to fit the comb properly.

I bet the Dalai Lama would do well. Tibet has a long history of archery and the sport parallels archery. Tibetan Buddhism is not Zen though. The Dalai does seem together.

"Sometimes not getting what you want is an incredible stroke of luck"... DL.

I didn't like the "anti rational" part either,PP. Some mental processes are non linear. Intuition is a fancy name for some of these.

Now, picture this. You're at the trap range and it's your turn to shoot. You look past the traphouse and widen your focus so you're observing the area where the bird will appear. You call for the bird, as it appears your focus narrows to just it and then just the leading edge. The shot happens without thought, the clay dissipates into dust and chips,and you know everything has been done right......

 

[The_Antibubba]

Robber, tweaked, breaks in/
Buckshot shell Clickety clack!/
Bowels release, he flees.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Haiku? Heck why not....

 

[Kamicosmos]

Not about shotgunning, but Brian Enos' book Practical Handgunning, Beyond Fundamentals is pretty much a 'Zen and the Art of Handgunning' book. He is a very Zen minded guy in many aspects.

Reading his book at his forums helped my shooting improve greatly.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Thanks for that, nice to know there's others out there.

 

[foghornl]

I found that way bak when I used to hunt a lot, I was better at the 'snap-shot' than at the 'track 'em on the radar, then shoot'.

Like one guy I know said about poker hands..."Ya think long, ya think wrong."