Gunfighting and Performance Anxiety - Tactical Advantage

American Handgunner, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Ken Hackathorn

Does competition shooting help you to be a better tactical shooter? Does it help your chances of survival in a self-defense situation? Or does the gaminess make your more likely to fail?

Depending on to whom you listen, competition can be the best endeavor in which any serious pistol handler can engage. The key issue of shooting competition is the ability to handle stress. If you have ever tried any type of formalized pistol competition, you know that the effects of having to perform in front of your peers can have a very dramatic effect on your ability to shoot well.

We know that under life-threatening stress, the heart rate will increase, fine motor skills will deteriorate and you will suffer from tunnel vision. Other factors will be involved. As those who can remember their first IPSC or IDPA match can attest, trigger control often falls apart, looking at the sights becomes the last thing you do and simple tasks like unloading your pistol at the end of the stage are more difficult because your hands are shaking.

And nobody is shooting at you!

When I'm asked if I think competition pistol shooting has merit for self-defense training, I answer, "Yes, but with some qualification." Anytime you have to prove yourself in anything that relates to your self-image, stress will result. Performance anxiety is present with all of us. American males seem to believe that they are born with the natural ability to shoot guns well, drive cars fast and be fantastic fornicators.

After growing up watching TV and movies where we see the good guys shoot with great skill, we read the gun-rags, buy the best handguns on the market and even go to the range where we blast countless boxes of ammo downrange. Then when we sign. up for the first local pistol match, we find that we are not as great as we wish to believe.

It is not that we are bad pistol shots, it's just that we have never had to perform under stress. Far too many folks go to an action pistol match, fall apart and finish so far down the list that they need binoculars to see where they finished.

Their ego has been slapped, and they never return to try again. Some actually bad-mouth the competition as being unrealistic or worthless and thus recommend that you should not shoot any competition because it is of no value.

The simple truth is that action pistol competition has both value and negatives, based upon what you put into it, and what you hope to get out of it.