When I shoot, I don't 'see' the distance while I am composing and releasing the individual shot. To me, the scope image is visualized as a two-dimensional depiction of options, where crosshairs are superimposed upon a flat image. Yes (of course), I apply dope and shoot sighters before then. But when I 'go for it', I'm dropping into a level of consciousness approaching a fugue state and constructing images/arrangements in pretty much the same mental way as I type a post or CAD a target image.
It's a step beyond individual skill development (like trigger manipulation) which applies the individual marksmanship skills in manner similar to the way a computer program's main loop calls in macros, feeds them discrete input, and processes the loop to produce that program cycle's discrete output (in this case, the shot is released while the image alignment is being maintained).
The computer program performs in a situation where outside distractions are completely absent.
The mind can approximate such a situation by entering a limited fugue state. In the larger sense, the fugue state is described as a dissociative mental disorder. In its gross manifestation, it describes a period of days or more during which the subject detaches from their identity, and often wanders off erratically.
This is not productive. However, the mind can still be trained to largely detach from surroundings in order to concentrate narrowly upon a challenging task. In such a manifestation, a miniature fugue can become a useful and powerful tool allowing moderately complex tasks, like precision marksmanship, to become ingrained activities that occur mostly below the supremely conscious level of awareness. If you have ever been reading and completely missed your Wife's call to dinner, you have experienced that type of miniature fugue I describe here.
This parallels the concept that is described as not just training until the task can be done, but elevating the training's repetitive intensity until that same task cannot be done incorrectly.
I spent the greater part of my active career as an IT technician and eventually, professional. Computer programs are written as a language, but organized as a logical sequence. They are routines that follow a rigidly defined path. The operating systems under which they run are organized to supervise the routines' execution, and to detect anomalies, halting execution instantly upon an anomaly's detection.
The mental and physical processes governing precision marksmanship may often parallel such computational processes. The mind can be programmed (we call it learning), and the mind's operating system (we call it self discipline) can be exercised to the point where the process of shooting a perfect target approaches the efficiency of a computational programming loop; affected only by those outside influences that are beyond the mind's ability to reach and overcome.
I believe that humans are incapable of performing superhuman tasks. IMHO, they cannot (by simple definition) be superhuman if a human can perform them. They are exceptional only in that humans seldom devote their individual internal resources to a degree of intensity where such behaviors become attainable.
I was inducted into Scouting's Wood Badge Adult Leadership Training Program in the mid-1970's. As Orkan describes in his own exercises, participants arrive from out of vastly differing contexts, each with uniquely differing skill sets. The learning process deeply immerses the individuals within an intense series of group exercise designed to draw out segments of those skill sets in order to meet unforeseen challenges. These challenges showcase the necessary skills and the followup debriefs emphasize the presence of those skills and consciously endeavor to emboss those skills upon each and all. It is extremely effective, and prompts essentially all to depart with new ways of addressing challenges, and new skills with which to surmount them.
I was unaware of Lanny Bassham, but I was a good friend of Donald W. 'Bucky' Malson, who also competed successfully in Olympic Shooting, who was a Marine officer closely associated with Jim Land, and who took over as Chairman of the Marine Corps League New Jersey's Competitive Shooting Program that I had inaugurated back in the mid-1990's. If you have ever competed in the Carlos Hathcock Match in NJ, you are acquainted with that program.
Greg
