Making Shooters Better
Making Shooters Better is where real shooter stories turn into smarter training and preparation for everyone. Each episode dives into the journeys, wins, and lessons of competitors, instructors, and innovators from across the firearms world.
Hosted by Terry Vaughan—former British Royal Marine Commando, Top Shot competitor, and firearms instructor—this show delivers more than talk. You’ll get the mindset, methods, and motivation to train sharper and perform better, on and off the range!
Making Shooters Better
USPSA Champion Maggie Reese: Mastery Starts Where Ego Ends
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Maggie Reese, a national and international competitive shooter, shares her journey into the world of firearms and competition. She discusses the importance of mindset, training with intention, and the value of continuous learning. Maggie emphasizes the need for consistent practice and the role of self-talk in performance. She also reflects on her experiences on the show Top Shot and how they shaped her approach to shooting. The conversation highlights the significance of surrounding oneself with the right people and creating a positive narrative in both shooting and life.
I can't really quantify that in terms of time, um, in terms of hours, but I will tell you that if you want to be good at something, you have to do it every single day. And so for me, it's more important that you spend five minutes a day handling your firearm. If you can't get to the range and do live fire, fine, do dry fire at home. That five minutes daily is way more important than going to the range one Saturday a month and spending five hours there.
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to Making Shooters Better, brought to you by the best laser-based drive training equipment available, laser ammo. Today's guest, Maggie Brees, is a national and international competitive shooter, a firearms instructor with more than 15 years in the industry, and someone who has built her reputation on the fundamentals, discipline, and intentional practice. She was also a competitor on season two of Top Shot, which some say, cough, cough, we'll revisit this, was the best season. I know I'm biased, but I think four was pretty good too. What I love about Maggie's approach to firearms is this. She's not about ego, she's about control, about being able to account for every single shot that leaves the gun, and for mindset, and everything else that transfers from competition to real life in a very serious way. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Terry Vaughan, I'm a former British Royal Marine Commando, season four competitor on Top Shot, the best season, we'll revisit, and host of Making Shooters Better, where we pull lessons from real stories and turn them into smarter firearms training for you. So today we're diving into pressure, fundamentals, rebuilding skill from the ground up, and what it actually means to train as if your life might depend on it. Maggie, I'm very fired up for this. Thank you for joining me and welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00And I'm gonna admit, I'm a little bit nervous because uh I've got two dogs in the background that are bumping me and head bumping me. I see the camera wiggling. I'm like, Terry is gonna lose his mind. I am already turning out to be your most difficult guest ever, but I'm happy to be here nonetheless.
SPEAKER_02That's fantastic. Well, we'll uh we'll forgive if we hear the howling, we'll know at least where it's coming from.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02So I always ask every guest how old were you when you first started shooting?
SPEAKER_00So I have a little bit of a different story. I didn't really grow up shooting. Um I there were guns in the household, and my dad had given me some pretty basic um firearm safety instruction when I was little, but we didn't go to the range, we didn't shoot, and it was only when I was 18 years old that he said, okay, I I really want you to get some hands-on experience. I just want you to understand how firearms operate, make sure you can be safe. Um, if you don't like shooting, if you're not interested in guns, you don't have to keep going back with me to the range, but you do need to go at least initially and and really just learn the safety aspect of it. So I had a late start. It wasn't it wasn't until 18.
SPEAKER_02Still though, what a great reason to go in. Because let's face it, most people who are apprehensive around firearms are often that way if they haven't had a bad experience, because of their lack of understanding or lack of knowledge about the the weapon system or the tool. So it's often the case that familiarity then breeds a little at least a little bit of comfort, maybe even some confidence.
SPEAKER_00And I was pretty fortunate because I always had a positive experience from the beginning. Um, anytime my dad had me around firearms, it was a positive experience. I know a lot of people, they don't get the initial safety or explanation um behind how the gun operates. And so, like you said, they're nervous. Um it's just a really negative experience, and it's hard to build on something that starts out so poor poorly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree. Do you remember what you were shooting?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I still have the gun. It was a a 45. A lot of people um think that, you know, they start out with like a little 22. Like, no, that was not my dad. It was a 1911 Caspian in 45, and I still have the gun. It is still my favorite platform. I love the 1911, I love a good trigger, I love external safeties. Um, and I shot that gun. We started, my dad and I almost immediately started shooting bowling pin matches and man versus man steel matches, and the 45 caliber was the best, right? What like if you're gonna shoot bowling pins off of a table, 45 is the best. And people used to always tell me, they'd say, that gun's too big for you. And I thought, the more people tell me that I can't handle this gun, the more I'm gonna shoot it. Uh and it was it was a long time. Now I primarily shoot nine millimeter or 38 supercomp, you know, for for a handgun caliber, but it it took me a solid like five years to to let go of the 45 because everybody just said, no, you can't shoot that. And I thought, I'll show you. You know?
SPEAKER_02So what I'm getting for this is there's a stubborn streak a mile wide.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Somebody says, no, you shouldn't, or no, you can't, you're like, watch me.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's uh that's probably defined my entire shooting career, is somebody said, eh, I don't think you could do this. And I thought, okay, well, I'll show you. I'll show you.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty funny though. But there was very little downtime there. You apparently went straight from, okay, I'm gonna learn how to shoot, shoot safely, learn the fundamentals, and then what, weeks later, you're in a competition?
SPEAKER_00Um, pretty much. And um, and it's a testament to how welcoming like the shooting community is and the competitive shooting sports are. Um, it it really wasn't intimidating. It wasn't off-putting in any way. I'm I mean, I just I went to competitions with my dad. We we met a great group of people, we had fun um competing and traveling with them, just kind of locally in the area where we were at at the time. And um, and it was just really fun, and it kind of inspired in me um a level of of competitiveness that I didn't know that I had, to be honest. Um, I'm not, I I never really thought of myself as competitive. I kind of still don't, except when I get on the line uh with a firearm, and then all of a sudden I'm like, okay, yeah, I actually care about winning and I actually care about uh my performance. So that that becomes really fun.
SPEAKER_02That's funny. You flipped the switch when you found out that it was gonna. But you hadn't competed in anything prior to this?
SPEAKER_00No, I I never really played sports growing up. I I never really had a a passion or or a hobby or something that really got underneath my skin um the the way that firearms did. So that was kind of unusual.
SPEAKER_02That's funny. Yeah, no, that is actually quite unusual. I don't know. I started shooting fairly young, but I can't imagine going for my first couple of shooting endeavors and then moving straight on to competition, because why the hell not? I think I would have been too much of a nervous Nelly. I don't I don't know if I'd have been able to pull it together to compete. I don't think.
SPEAKER_00I always tell people I'm like, that's the thing about the shooting sports though, is that you don't have to show up and compete against other people. You don't have to measure your performance against anybody else. You certainly can. Um, that's certainly an aspect of it, but you don't have to. You can just show up and compete against yourself and measure your own success based on how you perform to your abilities at the moment. It really doesn't have to be anything more than that. So I always tell people when they say, no, I don't want to go shoot competition, I'm not competitive. I'm like, look, you're learning a skill set, you're becoming proficient with something that could one day save your life. And it doesn't have to be about anybody else. You make it about yourself. You set your own goals and you drive the level of performance that you want afterwards.
SPEAKER_02That's a great way of looking at it. I have a feeling that uh if I had that maturity back then, maybe I would have. It's funny because I hadn't done much competition shooting before getting onto top shot. And when I went into the competition, it's my wife's idea. She's like, you know what you should do? You should go and enter this national shooting TV thing and shoot, because I shot reasonably well in quotations. And I because I asked her, Oh, like seriously, I can embarrass myself anyway. You want me to do it on national television? She's like, it'll be good for your personal safety training. Everyone will want you to come in and speak. So I that's how I ended up doing it, but I hadn't actually competed very much before going on the show. And so I think that added to the nerves and sense of pressure I think I felt throughout the season. But I do want to hear why season two was the best season.
SPEAKER_00Factually, let me explain it to you. It's called Google, and uh, and you can Google what is the highest rated season, the most watched uh season of Top Shot, and season two will come up every single time. And I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna admit something. I only watched season one and season two of Top Shot. I never watched any seasons following. You know, I wasn't interested. Um so that's hilarious. So sometimes I I run into people and and and they're like, oh, I was on Top Shot. And I'm like, good for you. I have no idea. Um, but season two was the uh the highest rated uh season of Top Shot. So it kind of sounds like everything fell off after that.
SPEAKER_02I Yeah, they they brought in bloody foreigners and it all just went to hell in a handbasket. It's kind of funny though, because I I taught firearms for a number of years and I was teaching in Jackson tactical classes, and I had someone get out of a car with his family and say to me, and I hadn't obviously had done no research over who the instructor was going to be for the day, I don't need your training. I'm here for the girls. He had two daughters and a wife. And I don't need your training because I have trained with someone from Topshot. Like that was the definitive measure of a of a firearms instructor's abilities. He didn't need anything anybody else was going to teach. And it was hysterical because I said to him, Well, who was the person? And he told me who it was. And I said, Oh, that's fascinating because he was on my season and went home first. And his face just dropped. And his wife starts laughing, his daughters start laughing, they're like, I told you you should have kept your mouth shut. And of course, I said, Listen, I'll uh I'll go head to head with you. We'll go up, we'll we'll shoot. If you beat me, obviously I've got nothing to teach. If I beat you, obviously there's some things there I can, some wisdom I can share. And of course, he the wheels came off for him, he performed horribly. But it was hilarious that he thought that because he had had some instruction from this guy off Topshot, he could have said any other instructor in the world. Yes, right, and I would be like, that's fantastic, you know, but at least come out with some measure of humility. It was literally the definitive way that he's there's nothing you can teach me. I've I've done it all because I had this guy from Topshot teach me, and I'm like, bruh.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's in the name. Top. There is no higher accomplishment.
SPEAKER_02There's no higher accomplishment. I mean, if he had a you know, maybe mentioned, you know, one of the master shooters, I'd be like, okay, great. Maybe there's not something I can teach you, but I've always gone into any endeavor, firearms included, thinking I know a little, probably just enough to be a danger to myself. Please, please show me some things. Let me learn something new. Always open-minded.
SPEAKER_00I love being a student. I I still take classes, I still sit back, I still watch other instructors. I like to learn how they teach, I like to learn how they explain things, I like to understand their mechanism behind why they do the things that they do. We might be doing the exact same thing on the line, but they they might have come from a place of a little bit different motivation. So I like to understand the philosophy behind it. So um, so it's kind of it tells you a lot about somebody when they're not open to the process of just learning and information gathering. Um, but I am curious, did you get recognized a lot for people who saw your season? Do you get recognized for being on top shot? Not by that guy, but by other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, certainly not by that dude. Sometimes, yeah, but it's been so long now, what, 12, 13 years? Everyone's uh I tell you what gives it away. Something's gonna happen. I'll be talking to someone and that you can see them looking. Why is that voice familiar? Why is it grading on me? Or what is this guy Australian? I I have those experiences, and then you can see the penny click. So it does happen. Like at SHOT Show this year, I had someone uh come out and they were talking to me, and he's I've been trying to place you. He said, I just realized it's Top Shot. And I'm like, fantastic. But it's pretty rare.
SPEAKER_00The the funny thing is, is I never ever got recognized for being on Top Shot. Even like when my season was airing on TV or or right afterwards, I would literally be out um with with some of like my fellow castmates and and we'd be at SHOT Show or one of the conventions or or just you know out on the town or or something. And people would come up to me and be like, Oh my god, that's so-and-so from Top Shot. Will you hold the camera and take our picture? And I would just be like, Oh, oh, okay, well, do you do you want me in it? Like, you know, what's happening right now? And they'd be like, No, no. Like, I I I just want to take a photo with him. Like, okay. And um and it was just odd. Like, I and I think I I probably looked a lot different on TV. I think I probably always had my hair in a ponytail, and I was wearing glasses at the time, and and you know, maybe some things that kind of um made my face look a little bit different. But it was just bizarre to me. Like, uh my girlfriend and a good friend of mine was also on my season. Her name is Athena, Athena Lee, and um, she would get recognized all the time. She'd be like, I just went through the drive-thru and they gave me free food, and I just walked through the mall, and they gave me free makeup and free anything. And I was like, I I'm the camera holder. Like, what's happening right now? Like, I would never get recognized ever. I've done other TV shows that I've gotten recognition off of, but but Top Shot, despite being on the highest rated season, um the best season, as some people say. Um I never I never got any level of uh of recognition off of it. So it was kind of odd.
SPEAKER_02But I think I'll often attribute that to people's lack of awareness or lack of attention. Because I've had conversations with people and they've walked away and they've come back five minutes later because somebody in that group said, Oh, that guy was off topshot. And he and then they'll come back and they say, Oh yes, I remember. And I'm like, No, you don't. No, you don't, now you just now you're just making stuff up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I did a a a show later on, uh 3 Gun Nation, which was um kind of like a uh it it followed competitive shooters, and so it was on a different network and and stuff like that. And I'd get a lot of people who would recognize me off of 3 Gun Nation. Um and so afterwards people would say, Wow, you know, Top Shot must have done a lot for your career. And I'd think, like, no.
SPEAKER_02No, not really.
SPEAKER_00No. You know, I mean it was a good experience, it was fine, I enjoyed it, but um, in in terms of changing my life, it did not change my life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the only thing I took away from that was that there were things that we could do on the show competitively that I I don't know if you could do anywhere else. Like you had to have this vast amount of space around you to be able to do half the things that we would do. It was so from that point of view, it was amazing. The pressure, I didn't I gotta admit, I didn't anticipate the amount of pressure that I actually felt when it was time to compete because it went quiet on set. You got what, 200 people standing behind, you know, and off cameras and cameras coming down on boom arms and cameras downrange. Every time it got quiet, I got inside my own head. I'm like, I'm gonna screw this up, it's gonna be a nightmare. So the mental aspect for me, I think the pressure was more pronounced than I expected, even though I went into it going, this is probably gonna pucker me up at different points for different reasons. Did you have any of that? Or had you been competing enough by then that it was like, ah, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00Um, no, I did have that. The level of competition that I had been doing prior, um, it and I'm getting some feedback from my dog who agrees, but the the level of pressure that I had, um what I realized is is, you know, when I go to to my own competitions, I I have my gear. I have things set up the way that I want it to. I've practiced, I've trained, I've made myself as as ready as I can be. And then I have an expectation on my performance based off of my my training. Like I I know I put the time into it, or I know I didn't put the time into it, and it it is what it is. But when we were doing the the TV show, it's it's a TV show. So they don't they don't care about your level of preparation beforehand or the equipment might not be exactly how you want it to be. Um, and so for me, like I don't even consider Top Shot to be a competition. I consider it to be a TV show. It was a reality TV show. And so, and that was the experience that I got out of it. Um and and other people I I think have different perspectives um on that. But for me, I I did a reality TV show. Um and so that's what was what was what you got to see the end result of.
SPEAKER_02Did they, yeah, did they mess with you on any of your competitions? Like for one of ours, they swapped over the rifles. We wrote down serial numbers on the rifle we were using. We had point of aim, point of impact, we were dialed in. And then when we actually got to the competition, we weren't using the rifle we used the day before. They'd swapped them.
SPEAKER_00100%. So that happened quite a bit, where it like exactly like you said, you had a gun and you sighted it in. And so it was perfect. And then you got there the next day and it was a different gun and it wasn't sighted in. And then everybody's, you know, seeing you on TV going, Well, she can't hit crap. Like, what's the matter with her? And then you but you walk off the line, you're like, well, that was five inches low, you know, low right. Like that's not my gun. That's you know, that's not my ammo. That's not what I sighted in. Well, of course I couldn't hit anything. Um, you know, but you're trying to figure that out now on the fly of like, okay, you're you're running, you you got one shot, it's on camera, there's all the pressure, and you're like, why didn't that work? You know, and then it takes you a couple of tries to figure out, like, okay, wait a second. I I'm hearing them talk in the background. They switch the ammo, they switch the guns, they switch this, they switch that, you know. That's why it's not working. And that's why I tell people, like, you know, that's that's a reality TV competition. That's not my level of competition. That's not how I perform in other circumstances. But but to to other people's credit, they could deal with that maybe better than I could. Um, and maybe adjust on the fly better than I could. So, you know, maybe that's you know my own limitation, but um, but it definitely was was not necessarily what was shown on TV.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that definitely threw me for a loop. I at one point I think I actually experienced auditory exclusion, couldn't hear anybody yelling instructions at me. Maybe I didn't want to hear the instructions. I kind of got in behind the gun thinking, I know where this is going, I know how to get there, I'm good to go. And then when I fired the first couple of shots and I I didn't even know where they were going because the wind's blowing so hard you couldn't even see where the dust was kicking up. And then I remember sitting back off the rifle, looking at the team, going, sorry, lads, uh, this has turned into a right dog's dinner. And then everybody at once started telling me all the different ways that this thing was going, which didn't help anything, because then I'm getting too much information. But it it is funny because one of the things that surprises people the most is when I tell them that these competitions that might air for three or four minutes in an actual episode could last for four hours. Yes.
SPEAKER_00You're like, yes, you know. Yeah, you're exhausted, you're tired, you're hungry, you're bored, there's a tremendous amount of downtime, and you're just frankly ticked off. Like you know, like you're just ticked at that point because you did prep and you did put the time in and you did have your equipment set up how you wanted it, and now it's just not going that way at all. And um, so there there is a lot more to it than the the three or four minutes, you know, that you see on the air. There definitely is. Um, I saw a lot of of targets malfunction and equipment breakdown and other things that just never made it to air. But, you know, if you're doing something for four hours straight and it's not working, you're pretty pissed at that point. You know, and all they're showing is you being pissed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're not telling anyone why. They're just like, look at the drama.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, why does that person hate that person? Well, there's a whole other story that didn't wind up on TV. That's why. That's why. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02And now a quick word from our sponsor. Well, this is a little awkward, because it's still me. If you're a firearms instructor teaching beginners all the way through full-blown tactical classes, and you'd like your students to get better faster and also add an additional revenue stream to your business, consider becoming a laser ammo dealer. Dry fire lasers, reactive targets, smokeless range simulators, all these bits of kit help your clients and you, of course, get more trigger time without burning through hundreds of dollars worth of ammo. Shoot me an email, Terry, at laser ammo.com, and let's get you and your clients dialed in with the best dry fire laser-based training equipment available. And now back to the episode. So let's just say, for instance, just for a second, you can travel back in time and go back to when you first started competing. Is there any advice that you'd give yourself that that you've found now you're over the years you've been shooting that is different? Or just a just something you've you've like, no, I would never do that now back then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a hard one to answer because part of me as it was thinking in my mind, well, I'd go back and I'd tell myself like not to care as much, to just go with the flow, to just be more um agreeable to certain circumstances and understand that you can't control everything. That sounds great to say that, but um, but the reality is, is, you know, I got worked up over things because I cared. Uh, you know, and caring is what drove me forward. That's what made me practice harder and put more time in and get back out to the range and try to develop other skill sets. So if it didn't frustrate me, if it didn't piss me off, if I wasn't irritated, then I wouldn't have had the drive to keep on trying. So I I guess in that sense, I really wouldn't change anything. Like I I've had some really really frustrating moments competitively, um, but I've been fortunate enough to also have some really great accomplishments. And I I so I can't take away from that.
SPEAKER_02All right, it's interesting. It kind of it's not what I expected, I don't think, either, which makes it super interesting. So you mentioned early on about training with intention rather than ego. So what do you mean? What is the distinction for you?
SPEAKER_00So there's a couple ways um to break that down. Um a lot of times uh people I I see it especially now. First things, like they want to go to the range and they just want to shoot fast. They just want to shoot fast and run through all their targets and look like a badass, and I'm John Wick, and you know, it and it's like, okay, wait a second, calm down. Like you're not actually hitting anything. You know, it's great for Instagram because you've got super fast splits, but you're not actually hitting anything. And you can't actually replicate what you just did on demand. So for me, training with intention is really understanding the mechanics of the equipment that you're using and how you operate that equipment and making sure that you can replicate it on demand. It might not be the prettiest thing, it might not be the coolest thing for Instagram, it might might not get the most clicks or likes or views, but it you're you're learning a skill set, and that's more important than being cool on the gram. Um that's that's what I mean about shooting with intention, is is really understanding and being able to call your shot and being able to feel confident behind the firearm.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting, isn't it, but to draw that distinction? Because I think a lot of people think and you know, in some cases it's true, there's a secret source, right? If you have this and you can do this, and it's a secret that you can teach someone, then they'll be better, faster. But that the reality is, in my experience, if you do the fundamentals well, and I mean you really dial in the basics of shooting, then all of the complexities and other things that come later, like movement and you uh getting there fast, really great splits, all of those things are peripheral, to you just being able to manipulate the firearm in such a way as to know where the shots are going, and to be able to, and I love that you said this, replicate that time and time again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the things that I kind of did um throughout my career, and this uh at the time that I was on top shot, I was on top shot in 2009, but I had started competing in the end of 2007. And so it I I was not very far into my career when I when I did Top Shot. And so I I have a lot more experience now. But something that I've really tried to replicate over the years is shooting everything. A lot of my contemporaries, they specialized in one type of platform, one firearm, one division, one sport. Um, and and good for them because they are the best of the best and they're world champions in it. Um, but for me, what I really tried to do is say, I can shoot a rifle, I can shoot a pistol, I can shoot a shotgun, um, I can shoot iron sights, I can shoot optics, I can shoot multiple different calibers. Um, you can put me in a variety of different situations, and I'm not gonna be the best. I I've never claimed to be the best at any one thing. But I do think that my skill set is being proficient across a lot of different platforms, and that's something that we're just really not seeing a lot of. Um, because again, everybody just wants to go out and be cool, you know? And uh and at the end of the day, cool gets you only so far. You know, then behind being cool, you have to have a real skill set and a real talent, and you got to be able to apply that in different situations.
SPEAKER_02I also think people aren't willing to challenge themselves in the areas that they're weak. It's very easy to go to the range and practice. And of course, this is true of a lot of people. They don't go to the range nearly as much as they should, or you know, if they certainly if they want to get better, they need to be going more, but they don't go and when they do, they're gonna go, I do this really well. I'm gonna see if I can do that even better. And they don't practice, you know, the myriad of other things that they could be practicing to improve a proficiency across a broad spectrum of skill sets.
SPEAKER_00I 100% agree with that. And then so um you have to go to the range and you have to practice the things that make you feel uncomfortable. Um, and you have to set yourself up and understand that through your failure, you can learn from that, and then you can apply that going forward to a different level of success. But you have to be willing to try something and fail at it in order to then overcome that and become more proficient later on.
SPEAKER_02I like that. So, what do you think separates someone, because we're on that kind of that theme, what do you think separates someone who practices a lot versus someone who actually gets better?
SPEAKER_00Um, it it is those things. It is going out and doing the uncomfortable thing. It is going out when it's it's not fun, when the the weather is crappy, when you're fatigued, when you really don't want to be there. And it's it's having the dec the dedication to see it through to the end. Um, one of the questions I get asked the most, and it's literally the most annoying thing that people ask me. Um so it's a little bit of a segue here, but but people always ask me, how do I get sponsored? You know, they show up day one on the range, shooting their first match, their first competition, and they're like, Oh, I want to get sponsored. And I'm like, what do you have to bring to the table that deserves that sponsorship? And um, but they look at me and they think, well, of course you're you're you're good. Of course you've won things like, you know, you you got free ammo, you got free guns. You, you know, if I had all that free stuff, I'd be good too. And I'm like, well, nothing's free. I earned it, and I earned it in exchange for my dedication and my willingness to commit to something long term. And so it wasn't just about taking whatever product and then doing a sponsor post on the Instagram and the and moving on. It was about dedicating myself to a lifelong skill and a career path that warranted sponsorship, that warranted um a reward for my success, you know, within competition. So that's that's something that people have to understand that if if you just want something cool, like go out and do something cool, like but you're you're never gonna be a champion, and then it you're not gonna have what it takes to be deserving of some of the other recognition that comes with it.
SPEAKER_02You've got to finish, you've got a place, you've got to put in weeks, months, years of practice to get yourself to a place where you know you're finishing in that top ten, finishing in that top five, the top three. And of course, getting up is every step is exponentially harder. Yeah because the competition gets stiffer. So it's amazing to me that that's the first thing people ask. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00It it's the number one thing, and my husband, um, who who's passed away, but he had the best way of phrasing it is people would come up to him and say, you know, how do I get an ammo sponsorship? And he would say, Well, it's it's really easy. You just buy the first million rounds. And what he was trying to oppress upon people was what he actually did to get to his skill level to then be deserving of an ammo sponsorship. Is he probably shot a million rounds on his dime to do it. That's dedication. That's dedication. So yeah, I'm I'm not impressed when people come up and say, Oh, you know, you know, how do I get free shit? You know, it does not impress me.
SPEAKER_02And you're right, you have to have the discipline. You've got to show up time and time and time again. You've got to go back to the range the next day when you've had a terrible day the day before. And you've got to practice the things that you didn't do well that day and improve it. And I think people look for, well, if I practice twice this week, I want to be a hundred percent better. And yet, for most people, the incremental improvements that they're gonna make are gonna be just that incremental. They're gonna be small little steps, and you've got to kind of track that and realize you're improving and then go back and improve it some more. It's just it's funny to me, but that's discipline.
SPEAKER_00It is. And so another question that people always ask me is say, well, you know, how much time do I have to spend on the range? And I and I tell them, I can't really quantify that in terms of time, um, in terms of hours, but I will tell you that if you want to be good at something, you have to do it every single day. And so for me, it's more important that you spend five minutes a day handling your firearm. If you can't get to the range and do live fire, fine, do dry fire at home. That five minutes daily is way more important than going to the range one Saturday a month and spending five hours there. Because then you have a whole nother month where you're not replicating the action behind the firearm. And in that amount of time, you're you're gonna end up starting over from scratch, um, pretty much. Like you are not building. You have to have a daily skill that you are building upon. And you have to really commit yourself to it every single day. And if you're not willing to do that, that's cool. That's fine. But that will be reflected in your performance as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the amount of reps people have to put in to get that muscle memory and have it working subconsciously. They're not having to, like driving a car for the first time, we have to think about everything we're doing. Same thing with shooting accurately. You need to, you need it to flow. And you can't flow unless you've put in thousands and thousands of reps.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. People, I always tell people, I I mean, you know, when you drive, you're you're taking your your life into your own hands. We don't really think of it that way, but I mean, that's what you're doing when you get behind the wheel and you get out onto the road, is you're you're re um relying on your own ability to process a hundred thousand different things at once and make safe decisions. So um, most people drive every single day, you know, even if it's down to the grocery store, it's to work, it's over to a friend's house, whatever it is, most people get in their vehicle every single day. If you're gonna rely on your firearm and you're gonna rely on it for personal protection or self-defense, or you're gonna rely on it to carry you through a competition, then you want to practice that skill set every single day. It requires the same amount of thought process behind it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which takes us kind of full circle, doesn't it? Because now you're back to are you disciplined enough to take yourself to the range on the days you don't want to do it? One of the things I also used to tell people when I was teaching them is practice X, whatever X is today, you know, and maybe X is going to take you six months to master, or maybe it's gonna take you a couple of weeks, whatever the case may be. Practice it each time you go to the gym, go as often as you as possible for you to do it. But the minute the mechanics start to fall down, as soon as you start to become all fingers and thumbs, I'll be like, either stop there or stop right after you've had a good rep. If you nail it, I want your muscle memory to be, oh, it was good. I got this right, and I'm finishing on a high. Because I've seen some shooters go and practice and they've started out quite well, and then the wheels have come off, and for whatever reason, they haven't been able to pull it back together, and then that becomes the memory they leave the range with. And I'm I've always been about building the confidence and saying, okay, we stop here. So people will say, Well, do I need to do three hours a day? I'm like, if if three minutes is the totality of your endurance at this point, and you can perform really well up until that third minute, and then it falls apart, stop at three minutes, but do that every day.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, yes, just my two pennies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, I I 100% agree with you, and and I think that that is the right philosophies. You don't want to leave on a negative, you want to leave on a positive, and you and you want to um have that ingrained in your muscle memory, and you want to have that confidence to carry forward to then strive to something a little bit better the next day. Like I always tell people to push themselves 10% more and then back off 5%. But you have to push yourself in order to get to a level where you have those great moments that you can then build upon.
SPEAKER_02So Yeah, I like that too. That's good. So have you ever, as far as sort of fundamentals and most of the time with especially with competitive shooters at the level you're competing at, there are small tweaks we occasionally make sometimes along the way. What was the last small tweak that you made that had a pronounced um improvement or difference for your shooting?
SPEAKER_00No idea.
SPEAKER_02See, the Osmi Immortals, I'm like, I can tell you 12 things that I've had to do in the last six months to improve. You're like, I don't remember. Sorry, you got me.
SPEAKER_00Shit, that I've never been asked before, so I don't have a canned answer. I was like, wait a second, I should have gotten these questions in advance. That's that's really good. And I wish I could think of something on the fly to to sound really impressive right now. And I'm like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Um you understand that the honesty of that is really refreshing. Like that is great. Like, for example, I'll get I'll give you one uh an example. I found that moving my support hand forward, just I think I ended up moving it maybe about a half inch. Not much, just slightly forward and picking it up sooner, closer to the body, uh, had a huge improvement in how quickly my front sight post or red dot settled on the target. That was the last thing I kind of tweaked that I wasn't sure about because it was just a little bit of a different grip. That I'm like, oh, oh, oh, that felt great, and it worked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Good for you. Like I said.
SPEAKER_02Like I said, us me immortals who are still improving things for the the Grand Masters amongst us, not so much. No, I haven't touched anything in years. I'm good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no. Um, I I I recently changed, I've been playing around with some different firearms. I I've been trying out some different guns, um, you know, because that that's really fun, is is just to discover what you like. And in the process, I also recently changed my shooting glasses. And um, and that actually has made a huge difference for me. So it's sometimes, you know, you you go back and forth, change yourself, change your equipment, change yourself, change your equipment. So I guess right now I'm kind of in the process of changing my equipment um and really making sure that it works for me. Because while, of course, you want to be able to shoot in any circumstance, you're not gonna have the perfect light, the, the, the perfect attire on, you're not gonna have everything exactly how you want it. Um, but from a competitive standpoint, you should try to maximize having everything how you want it and make sure that your equipment is working for you. And um, and just changing my glasses, I realized, okay, I'm picking up the dot better. I'm seeing the contrast between the targets and the background better. Everything is just a little bit faster and a little bit clearer because there's I'm eliminating the hesitation on my part. Um, so I guess in that sense, that's what I've been working on recently is just saying, okay, what do I want to shoot? Not what not what do I have to shoot, but what do I want to shoot. So it's good though that you can bounce between I like your answer better.
SPEAKER_02I think your answer's great. I mean, sometimes it is the equipment, definitely. And it was funny because I not it was years ago now, but I went from a regular holster where a holster would be, because I haven't obviously done as much competition as you, to a uh drop leg. I put it on my thigh. And I I had someone come past me while I uh it's actually at the outdoor range I was shooting at and say, oh, that's a cool setup. And it was funny because I hadn't put the gun there because it was cool. I put it because I was faster drawing from uh my thigh rig than I was from up here. And I realized that in part that was because my shoulder flexibility isn't as good as it used to be, and getting to my regular carry position wasn't quite as fast. And I'm like, well, and I'm teaching, and I just want to be able to go, you know, and demonstrate something, I'll put it back. That was comfortable. And of course, I got less crook in my neck and all stuff like that. But that was an equipment change that made a bit of a difference. And of course, you know, then there's the other side of the coin is well, if you're not going to carry your gun the way you carry concealed, why are you putting it on your thigh? And I'm like, I like to carry it in a variety of different places for different situations and different environments.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when I started out shooting, I was using all of my my dad's equipment, you know. So I was using his belt and his holster and his gun. And I would wrap his belt like around my waist twice and it would start to sag down. So I I kind of developed things, you know, odd habits to compensate for for equipment that didn't really fit me right. Then later on, I used a lot of my husband's equipment. Um, and again, it was it was built for him and it was set up for him. Then I had kind of a sweet spot where he was making some really, you know, really cool stuff just for me. And so that was like kind of like the high of my career. I got some really great sponsorships, which were wonderful and they were incredibly supportive, but they also wanted me to shoot certain products in their product line. And um, and so now I'm at a phase right now where I'm like, okay, what do I actually like and what works for me and and how do I set it up so that it's no nothing is a hindrance, it's only supportive in everything that I do. So um it it makes a big deal. Um you you have to have stuff that you trust and that you that you feel very, very confident behind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How did you do when you transitioned from iron sites to red dots? Assuming that you were on iron sites before red dots. How do you do? Did you just it was like smooth as silk?
SPEAKER_00I'm sure there were there were hookups along the way. Um iron sights, it's it's such a uh a dying skill set. It's like um You're probably in the in the same age bracket as me. So I I have like I see like a lot of kids coming up and they can't drive a like a manual uh transmission, they can't drive a stick ship, you know, and it's like stick shift history. Uh huh. And I'm just like, really, dude? You know, you know. And um, yeah. And I'm like, okay, I learned how to drive on a stick shift, like, and I learned how to shoot with iron sights. And so it that skill set I'll always have. And uh and I kind of look down on people who don't, you know, possess either of those skill sets. But um uh now I'm at a phase where, you know, red dots for me, they're they're faster, they're easier, you don't have to think as much. You know, I I just I put a red dot on every single thing um that I own if I could. Uh but uh but yeah, I I still think it's important to know how to shoot iron sights, and I still think that people should try and go back and learn that and really understand the the benefits of of having both knowledge bases.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I agree. It was funny though, because I was a diehard iron sights, and people kept saying you need to try a red dot. And I tried a couple of times but had very little success with it. Had a really hard time picking up the red dot. I just struggled. And of course, that's in r in hindsight, I Now no, I was looking for it. And the last thing you want to do is look for your red dot. It'll present. But it was funny to go through that struggle of trying to get away from Einsights to a red dot. But as my eyesight kind of got a worse over a period of a couple of years, I was like, Yeah, I need to find a different way to make this work for me. And red dots became the answer. And once I got over the hump and figured the red dot acquisition out, the speed at which things kind of improved was incredible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and people ask me, they're like, how do I find the red dot? You know, if they're if they're new to optics, um, how do I find the red dot? And I'm like, just draw the gun, point it at a target, and pull the trigger. Like, don't overthink it. Don't hesitate. You know, you're you're doing something that's probably speed-based. Um, most competitions, you know, there are some bullseye competitions, pistol competitions that shoot, but most of them have a speed element to it. So get that gun out of the holster, point it towards the target. I mean, you know how to point, you know, and just pull the trigger and it will be there. Trust me, it will be there. But if you're overthinking it and you're looking for it, then you're hesitating and you're taking up time that you don't have. Um, most everything we do in USPSA, three gun, um, you know, you're you're shooting a where am I in the camera? You're shooting a big target. So point at the middle and pull the trigger. See what happens. You know?
SPEAKER_02It's funny because it's probably the only thing in life I have ever overthought. That was I need to look for this red dot. And it was sort of somewhat of a revolution for me and revelatory when I suddenly stopped looking for it, looked at the target, drove the gun out as flat as I could from you know that high compressed ready, and I'm like, ta-da, there it is. But it was funny because it's that's such a simple answer to what felt like before I did that. A complex, challenging situation of not being able to find it. And it's with great pleasure that when someone says, I'm really struggling to find my red dot, I'm like, this is how you do it. Because I know, having struggled myself, okay, this is what you need to do. And they're like, it was so easy. I'm like, I know. There's too many people like me that overthink everything. And I'm like, just drive that damn thing out there, and it will usually present itself to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I I've been doing this long enough now at this point that it's it's interesting to see um how preferences change and how the equipment like reflects that. So um I'm sure like you see a lot of like red dots that co-witness with our iron sights, and that just drives me insane. Absolutely insane. But that seems to be kind of like the popular thing that people want. Um they're they're they're you don't like co-witnessed? No, I was like, I was like, you're making me nervous. Why are you making these? I hate that. I hate, I hate co-witnessing. No, because um it it's just visual clutter to me at that point. Um it doesn't need to be there. If I were to lose my red dot in a competition, I've probably already lost the the competition. And but I feel confident enough that I can still carry myself through a situation just by point shooting. And so on the off chance that my red dot were to fail and I needed to just finish a stage or I needed to point shoot in a in a situation, then I can do that. But every other shot prior to that, I don't need the visual clutter of having of having those iron sights, you know, co-witnessing. And I look at all these like young kids and I go, you don't even know how to shoot iron sights anyway. So like, why is it there? You know? So don't don't give me that crap that you're worried about your red dot because you never learn how to shoot the iron sights. So but that you know what it is?
SPEAKER_02You know what it is? It's leftovers from the military. You always have redundancies, you always have some sort of fallback. You know, you fight predominantly with your rifle, then it's your pistol if uh all hell's broken loose and you're you're out of ammo for your rifle. But if your red dot does go down and gets broken, you've immediately still in the fight, you still have a reasonably good way of continuing to fight. If your pistol goes down, you're into your knife. If your knife goes down, you're down to your teeth. But there's always contingencies, and it's so funny because somebody gave me a gun a couple of weeks ago and they hadn't co-witnessed. And I was horrified. I'm like, why are you not co-witnessed in the lower third? And he looked at me like, why would I do that? What if this thing fails you? So it's so funny to have completely polar opposite opinions. But for you in competition, I can see how that would feel like clutter. For me, thinking from a sort of more militaristic standpoint, I want redundancies. I want something I can fall back because that tech shit is gonna break at some point. What am I going to fall back on? Hindsight.
SPEAKER_00So so what is what is the phrase? It's the redundant department of redundancies or something like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I mean, I I always carry a knife on me. I always have a knife in competition. I I I'm down to stab a target if I need to, but um you know, and and I've been tempted to to bite, you know, in competition. Um but I I've been frustrated before. But but no, no. I I want to simplify my equipment. I don't want to overthink it. I I just want it to work. I want it to work. What a compliment.
SPEAKER_02As do we all, but when that stuff goes down, it's so funny because I had a I had a class I was teaching uh rifle and pistol, but I was running transition, so I'd I just filled my magazine with like five shots or something. I shot the rifle, that was down, it was empty, pistol comes out. I was closing down the distance to the target when the pistol ran dry, dropped that my thing, pulled my karambit out, started hacking at the at the target and cutting it up. And then I'm like headbutting it and all in jest, right? But the funny thing was watching everybody's face as I went from one to the next to the next. And I was like, Do you have a knife and do you know how to use it? Because the cuts I put in there with my knife, they weren't just little stabs. It was in, around, cut it down, in around, cut it across. So this thing just basically fell apart when I was done. And it was funny because I was like, I have a knife, but I don't know that. Teach me that. And I'm like, all right, we can include that in the class. But it's funny because I will I I think like that. I'm like, okay, this is out, I'm going to the next thing, that's out, I'm going to the next thing. And it's just this like one to the next. And I don't trust tech not to let me down when I need it the most.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think this is a great psychological profile right now because um you're not just stabbing a target and moving on, you're gutting it. Um so you seem so cheerful and nice and smiling. Just edit that out later. No, no, no. He is taking the entire the entire center out of a target, so much so that people are more terrified in your class of your knife skills than they are of your firearm skills. Um interesting. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and me, I'm just like, yeah, I don't care. If it doesn't work, I'm throwing it out.
SPEAKER_02That's funny. All right. I'll tell my therapist about a discussion and see what see what he says. All right. So when if you're coaching someone and they feel like they've plateaued, what's the first thing, if if there's a first thing that you look at to try and get them moving again?
SPEAKER_00Um, I I've I've yeah, to to to coach anybody who's plateaued, um, there's always room for improvement. Um I mean, everybody always has room for improvement. The best of the best um have have room for improvement. Sometimes you do need to walk away, like you like we've kind of touched on that if you're not concentrating and if you're not thinking about it, and if you're not focused in the mo moment and it's just becoming really repetitive without any intention behind it, then you you need to walk away. But um, but other than walking away, I always give myself the same little speech, you know, when I walk up to the line and I just start from the bottom and I work my way up to the top. And it's like, okay, feet are shoulder width apart, aggressive stance, leaning forward on the balls of my feet, putting my weight behind it, gripping the guns, squeezing with my left hand, leaving some level of dexterity in my trigger finger, pulling straight back towards me with that trigger, but only after I've lined the sights up and I've acquired my target and I feel confident that I know where the shot is gonna go. Like I give myself the speech every single time. And in the process of doing that, it will help me identify, okay, I wasn't really aggressive behind the gun. I wasn't really gripping it, I wasn't really standing properly. If if you start from the bottom and work your way up, then you'll you'll figure out where it is that you're lacking in the moment. But only if you have that mental checklist and you feel confident going through and evaluating it yourself. Um, I don't need anybody else to tell me what I do wrong. I know. Like I know. And um and it's years of repetition that's that's given me the ability to identify that in myself. And um, and it's it's also years of confidence that that lets me know that only I can fix it. So, and I try to instill that upon my students. Like you're not gonna have me standing over telling you to fix your stance or fix your grip or or or fix your sight picture. You have to learn how to do those things yourself, and you're not gonna become a a grandmaster, you know, tomorrow, but you can improve by tomorrow. Every day you can improve.
SPEAKER_02I feel like the list you just rattled off just like it was no big deal, was literally a masterclass in self-analysis. How to break down each step along the way to breaking that shot in such a way as to know where, if anywhere, you went wrong. Because it so often people are in such a rush to break that shot. They haven't thought about their feet, they haven't thought about leaning forward, they haven't assessed my hands exactly where they need to be, where's the trigger in terms of the finger placement on it? They're just shooting as fast as they possibly can, and usually that reflects on the targets downrange, but they haven't done it like that, the way you just described, breaking it off section by section by section, sort of like building blocks all the way up to the very final act, which is breaking the shot. Like that was gold.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I it took me years, years to learn that. There were a lot of years where I was competing where I'd have misses on the stage, and I didn't know why. And I, you know, it was a mystery to me. I'm like, oh, I had two misses, cool. Like I had no idea. Now I'm at a place where I can call every single shot. Doesn't mean that I don't still have misses on the stage, but at the end, I know, okay, that third target was a little dicey, and I pushed it and it might have gone off the left edge. And I can walk back and be like, yep, that's where I had a miss. Like I I know exactly where things are happening. I know where the wheels are coming off, and um, and I can self-correct going forward if I apply that pressure on me. Sometimes you just have bad days and you're like, eh, you know, it is what it is. But it if I'm on my game and I really want to succeed and I really want to do well, then there is nothing that's happening on the range when I'm behind the gun that I can't immediately identify and put upon myself to fix.
SPEAKER_02That's bloody awesome. But I I also would like to just highlight for a minute that you said and you prefaced that with, for years, I wasn't quite like where you needed to be. And that's the thing, isn't it? It was years to arrive at that point where you had broken it down section by section by section. And again, people are so often in a hurry to just break that quick shot. They're not thinking about any of that, and they're certainly not thinking about the time it's going to take to master their own foot placement, body position, shoulder position.
SPEAKER_00And like you said, for years I've had I've had highs and lows, and and I've had times in my life where I was more dedicated, and other times where because of distractions or or different things, whatever was happening in my career, whatever was happening in my personal life, I didn't have the time behind the gun that I wanted to. So I've I've seen it all, and I I know that if you want to be the best, like it doesn't happen overnight. It it really takes time. I mean, people will say to me, like, oh my gosh, you didn't win. And I'm like, no, like, no, I didn't win. Because A, I didn't put the time in to win right now, but B, because the the level of competition out there is so great. I I wouldn't be respecting my colleagues and and my the people I know in the industry if if I didn't know that they have a incredible amount of talent and that they're better than me. And that I have to work if I want to even come close to having a a chance on the podium. Um, like there's really some incredible, incredible talent out there, uh much, much better than than anything that I've ever done in my life. But it's because I have a respect for them that I know that if I want to win, I have to push myself.
SPEAKER_02Who are these cheeky buggers that come up and say, oh, you didn't win? I'd start slapping people with a shoe.
SPEAKER_00I don't read my DMs anymore. You know, that's the crap that winds up in your inbox.
SPEAKER_02Usually from someone who has absolutely no place throwing criticism at somebody else.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02That drive me nuts. So I I'm I'm curious now. When you're in competition, do you feel the pressure? What's happening inside your head? Does it tend to be quiet? Do you have an internal narrative? Do you have a sort of a routine that you go through? What's going on?
SPEAKER_00It really kind of depends on the competition. You know, I think it's important to surround yourself with people who have the same goals at that particular competition. There's some matches that I go to and I go just because they're fun. And the people that I'm hanging out with are fun and I'm just there to have a good time. And I don't have um, I'm not putting the pressure on me in in that scenario because my goal at that point is just to have fun on the range. And that sometimes is a totally acceptable goal, is just to have a good time. Um, my dog disagrees. Penny says, you know, you suck when you don't come home with a trophy. Um, but there are other matches where I I really want to win. Like I, that's what I want. I want to win. I want to perform to the best of my ability. And so then I need to be around people who have that same mindset, who are also there to win and who won't become a distraction and who won't be goofing off and and who will support me in that. So you really have to set yourself up for success in so many different ways. You have to put the time into yourself, you have to put the time into your equipment, you have to surround yourself with the right people, you have to cultivate the mindset that that drives you towards your goals in that moment. And there's just so many different things. So the long-winded way of answering your question is to say, um, sometimes I'm I'm uber focused in the moment and I've shut everything else out and I've walked away and I'm just by myself and I'm just thinking about what I want to accomplish in the moment. And then other times I'm just sitting in the back eating beef jerky and and talking shit to people on the line, you know? Like it just it just depends.
SPEAKER_02Buddy, did you ever have an internal narrative, whether it was positive or negative, that you had to change?
SPEAKER_00I really, yes. I mean, that's something that you learn right from the beginning is that if you go up to the line and and tell yourself, don't suck, don't hit that no shoot, don't screw up, don't mess up, that's what you're gonna fixate in your mind is is the negative um consequences of what could go wrong. And so you really um, I really had to learn how to self-talk and say, I am gonna have a smooth draw, I'm gonna have a good trigger press, I'm gonna see the center of the target, I'm gonna focus on this area. And I had to learn how to change my mindset. It it's not easy, you know. This is everything is still a work in progress, you know. It's not like I've perfected it and I only have, you know, amazing matches. Like I have way more crappy matches than I do, you know, positive matches, because you have to put everything together. And um it it takes a lot to put everything together. It takes a lot. I mean, you know, especially as we get older and we have stuff going on in our personal lives, and you know, and I'm just sitting there going, man, I got a linky, leaky faucet at home, and I, you know, I got a dog that's sick and, you know, whatever it is, like we all have things that are distracting us um and that are taking us out of the moment, but um to be a champion, you have to hone in and you have to be present in the moment, and you have to get rid of all of those external factors that are going on, and you have to believe in yourself that you can accomplish something glorious in the next 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_02It's funny though, isn't it, but how difficult it can be to change a negative narrative or a negative mindset and the focusing on all the things you you could screw up or all the things that could go wrong into something positive. But I read something a few years ago that had said that if you're willing to listen to the negative uh crap that goes on inside your head, you should also be willing to listen to the positive. But changing to a positive internal narrative I found very difficult over the years. But one of the things that helped me was what you just did, which was to isolate each component of what I'm about to do and focus on that. So smooth draw. I'm gonna go to the firearm, smooth, right? I'm gonna get there when I I'm gonna gather great grip. When I punch out, it's gonna ride smooth and flat all the way out. I'm gonna be on target. It was giving myself permission to speak well to myself, first of all, but then also break it down into his little component parts. That helped to stop the mind from wandering. So for those who are entering competition for the first time, or those who are seasoned, who have trouble with an internal narrative that for whatever reason is undermining your performance, that is one place to start. And I I also encourage people to meditate those thoughts away from when you're actually competing or away from the range so that it becomes a habit you're building on and not just something you go to the range expecting your brain to have magically changed its self-talk overnight just because you need it in this competition. Do it days, weeks, months before. Then maybe your brain will, you know, get in behind you and support you in whatever it is you're doing.
SPEAKER_00You know what's kind of funny is that how I learned a lot of this was actually from being on TV. And but I I I think it does apply in every scenario. But what would happen is I would I would have a stage, I would, you know, be going through a course of fire shooting and have cameras on me, and at the end they'd come up and you know, they'd say, Well, how'd that go? You know, right? Like, break it down, break down the stage for us. And what I would see is a lot of my fellow competitors, the second the stage ended, they were fixated on all the things that they did wrong. They're like, oh crap, you know, I missed that shot, I screwed up that target, I stumbled over there, I, you know. And what would happen is because they were narrating the most negative parts of the stage, that's what would wind up on TV. That was the story that they were telling. I would say, uh I might have had like, you know, a totally screwed-up target and 12 misses. But I'd walk up to the camera and say, I had an awesome draw. Like I started off hot, I hit that first target, and I just ran with it from there. And because the focus that I was saying was on the most positive aspect of the stage, that's what would wind up on TV. Now, of course, you you know, you could see other things like reflected in the score and whatnot, but how I narrated my performance was in the most positive way. And so that really taught me that you have to learn how to tell your story and you have to learn how to focus on your accomplishments and not just sit there and harp on everything that went wrong. You create the narrative of your life, and um, and you can do that with or without cameras. You know, you can create the narrative of your life and choose to focus on your accomplishments.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_02That was good. I like that. That was cool. So if you have someone standing in front of you and they tell you, listen, uh all I can do, I got 15 minutes. I got 15 minutes every day. That's all I can put towards getting better, what do you tell them to do?
SPEAKER_00That's enough. Um if you can spend 15 minutes behind the gun and you can just feel um how it feels in your hand, and and you can manipulate the slide and you can pull the trigger or whatever it is, you know, if it's a shotgun or a rifle, the same thing applies. But if you just spend that time so that you have a level of comfort and understanding with that gun, um, that's gonna carry you through and you know, do different things every single day. Maybe you'll draw from the holster. Maybe you'll just sit there and rack the slide and pull the trigger. Maybe you'll just bring it up to your eye line and and acquire the sights. You know, it it can change day by day, but it's the familiarity with the firearm that's going to carry you through. I meet so many people, you know, and and they come to my classes and they've gotten a their CCW and and um they the last time they pulled their gun out and shot it was when they took their CCW test. You know, they they put seven rounds on the target, they got their license, and now they're carrying that gun every single day because they've told themselves that somehow they're they're gonna be able to rely on that to save their life. And like, no, you're not you're not comfortable with that firearm. You can't you can't close your eyes and manipulate it and operate it and and think through uh different scenarios because you don't have that time with it. But if you spend 15 minutes a day with something, then you will know exactly what your level of proficiency is, and you will be able to determine can I rely on this firearm? You'll make better decisions going forward, but you need to have time. You just time is irreplaceable um to spend behind a firearm.
SPEAKER_02I had clients over the years, a long time ago, when I was teaching Muay Thai and self-defense, and I had a client come in one time, healthy, healthy guy, great shape, ready to go, wants to learn some Muay Thai. And he'd done taekwondo as a kid. And the way he was talking, it's been like 10 years since he'd put on the kit, right? He had he he's built he was talking about skills that he had practiced a decade prior, still being something he could rely on today. And I didn't do this with every client at the time, but with this particular one, I thought it was worthwhile. I said, okay, I feel like you're relying on skills that are just not going to be there. So let's put the pads on, we'll go 50% speed, we'll spar, and let's see where your skills are really at. And he was actually kind of happy. It was funny, at least at the beginning, he was quite chuffed to bits. He's like, Yeah, we'll we'll spar, this will be great. And we started sparring and he realized how quickly he couldn't do any of those things that he used to be able to do. So it's frightening contextually to think of someone. They get their CCW, they shoot to qualify, they get it, and then they don't ever practice the one thing they're absolutely going to need to be very proficient in, should their life literally be on the line. And rely on that skill. It's incredible to me. They feel like, well, I did it once, it's always going to be there now. You're like, that is not how a human being works.
SPEAKER_00And the great thing about uh competition for people who don't want to shoot competition is that it puts you in a scenario where you are under pressure, where you have demands on your time, you have demands on your accuracy, um, you have to perform with people watching. So, you know, people get embarrassed when they're be being watched, you know, they don't want to look goofy or silly. Um but it it's giving you kind of the the nerves and and replicating the intensity of emotion and that you're gonna feel, but it's doing it in a safe environment. Um and so that is you've got to find scenarios where you practice something in advance of actually being able or being required to use it.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant! So as we draw to a close, we've covered a lot, and given your years of competitive experience as well as teaching, I feel like there's just been like one nugget after another. If there was one question you wish I'd asked, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00Um I I Oh my gosh. I was gonna say, I'm gonna bring Penny over because she's always on my podcast. She's been barking in the background, she's been bumping into the camera. I keep seeing everything wiggle. I just I just snap my fingers to bring her over here and put her on camera, and she's totally ignoring me. And I'm like, really? She's always on camera. So I I was gonna show off my dog. She's my travel partner, she goes with me to all the matches, and now she doesn't want to be on camera.
SPEAKER_02So now she gets shy after all the ruckus earlier.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Yeah, you you pro you probably thought I was gonna say, wow, I really wished you'd let me tell this, you know, other really cool story. Nope, I just wanted to show off my dog. And now she won't come over here. That's so mean. Brilliant. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you for jumping on here. I know that you have so much going on. Uh competitions, practice, training, everything. So I really want to say thank you for taking the time to jump onto this podcast, answer my questions, talk it through, and bring so the a level of humanity that I think you know that is unique to you in the way you look at competitions and the way that we can all improve our shooting. So I appreciate you jumping on here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_02If someone wants to follow you or attend one of your classes, how would you like them to connect?
SPEAKER_00Um, Instagram is probably the best. Maggie Reshooting on Instagram. Um, if your DMs are not obnoxious, I will respond to them. If they are obnoxious, I'll just pretend like I never saw them. But but uh but that's probably the best way. And I and I do have some more classes coming up, so I'll be posting those as well.
SPEAKER_02All right, that's fantastic. Well, hopefully this will inspire someone to get out of their comfort zone and attend one of those classes because literally the only way for them to improve is to go take a class and see where the wheels come off. Where does it be?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02All right, as always, thank you for tuning in to this episode. If you haven't already, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that bell notification so you never miss an episode. The liking, the sharing, these are all free, easy ways to support the channel and help us bring you the guests that you want to hear from. For now, thanks for tuning in. Thank you again, Maggie, for coming in, and we will see you in the next episode. Cheers.