Fellow IDPA shooters,
From its very inception, BrianEnos.com has enjoyed a reputation as being an oasis of civility on the Internet. The sort of sarcasm, ego conflicts, rudeness, etc. that is accepted as common behavior on other shooting-related message boards simply doesn't fly here. It never has, and it never will. Recently the IDPA forum has experienced what I can only describe as an excessive number of complaints directed at the Rule Book, with an unacceptable lack of basic politeness demonstrated in numerous posts. This forum has required a huge amount of moderation, so much so it has become a very real problem for the moderators. We as IDPA shooters have this one little corner of BE.com set aside for ourselves. Surely we can behave ourselves better in it than this? While rules questions and discussion will always be welcome, if your input into the IDPA forum consists primarily of complaining about the rules, or comments like, "That's why I don't shoot IDPA anymore," with no other helpful input, then you need to go somewhere else to air them. There are many other shooting-related message boards on the 'net that will welcome you.
Also, please reread the Forum Guidelines, a link to which may be found at the top left of every page on these forums, especially the part that reads:
Intent
This Forum is for firearm, technique, and conceptual discussions pertaining to training and competition. (And various unrelated topics.) While the occasional defensive shooting post is not prohibited, in general, defensive shooting discussions or debates are discouraged.
While IDPA was indeed intended by its founders to simulate self-defense scenarios in a competitive environment, and thus an occasional post straying into that area may be unavoidable, it has been the experience of the moderators from observing other shooting-related message boards that any time the discussion of "real-world self-defense" is given free rein, invariably it swiftly degenerates into the sort of rudeness and ego conflicts previously discussed. Again there are many message boards on the 'net that will welcome such discussion. This is not, however, one of them.
Pride and fear are emotions, which hope for an outcome. Outcomes take your attention from the present, where the shooting happens, to the future. It is totally impossible to do anything in the future, because it hasn't happened yet. The key to shooting your best is to be present as the witness of the shooting. Do not judge, do not give yourself anything to live up to. We can only shoot as well as we have trained ourselves to shoot. To try to shoot only induces stress. Be content with your current ability. And accumulate practice to improve that ability. Consolidate, build strength where you feel weakness. We cannot raise our ability until we accept our current limitations. Practice dissolves limitations. Matches simply define where the current limits exist. The game of shooting is all about redefining our limits.
- Sam
Amateurs do it til they get it right. Professionals do it til they can't get it wrong.
"It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters."
- Paul "Bear" Bryant
"The only reason why Everest is the highest mountain ever climbed is because it's the highest. If there was one higher, I bet there'd be people trying to climb it."
- Jack Barnes