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Volume 40, May/June 2006
Issue  Attitude
- it is something we display every day in how we talk, how we act,
and the posture of our body. It is shown in how we view life and the
choices we make as we move through life. It is even something that
can become contagious and certainly affects others. It can make
people mad and upset, or happy and a joy to be around.
Think about your day. When
you woke up this morning were you excited about the day? Were you
ready to tackle it or were your thoughts and feelings down and you
felt like you didn’t even want to go into work? You control how
you feel and how you look at the world. A positive attitude is
taught in the Karate class my grandson takes and he has learned much
from the emphasis placed on such an attitude. When he is tired,
grumpy, sad, or just plain not feeling good, we talk about how he
can change his attitude to a positive one so everyone can have a
good time and he can accomplish more.
The same thing can be said
for shooting. If we sit around talking about the negative aspects of
the match and what problems there were, how it wasn’t run right,
that the stages weren’t to our liking, that we did poorly, what
are we emphasizing? You got it - a negative attitude! All of sudden
we are starting to affect what should have been an enjoyable
shooting experience with an aura of negativism. This is especially
bad if we are doing this around youngsters and new shooters. It is
unfortunate, but I see this happen much too often.
What to do about it? We all
need to take a more aggressive approach to having a positive
attitude about our shooting and our lives. Think about how much fun
shooting the match with your friends was, or how to improve and
learn from your shooting errors.
Instead of thinking or talking about how the targets were too
close or too far and not set up right, take a more positive
approach. Talk about the hits and not the misses.
Remember when you first
started in the sport and how much fun you had? You weren’t
knowledgeable enough to know if the match or stage was poorly run,
you were just there to learn, do your best, and have fun. All of us
would like to do well, some of us are more competitive than others
and that is certainly appropriate whether it is competing at the top
level, or against your buddy, or just yourself. However, when it
becomes too competitive that we lose the fun part and complain about
how bad it was, I think we also start losing our perspective of the
sport and the fun starts to fade.
I am really concerned about
this. Western-action shooting sports continue to grow very rapidly,
but there are also people leaving the sports that shouldn’t. Some
go on to other shooting sports, some quit entirely. Why is this? I
believe one reason is they become jaded by the negative attitude of
others and the fighting that goes on within many shooting clubs.
Another reason is that sometimes shooting clubs make monthly matches
too serious. What we say and how we act can just as easily drive new
shooters away as bring them into the sport.
People are human and we all
have our down days. But, each and every one of us can have an impact
- let’s have fun and let our attitude be positive!
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