Entry 24.3

Think back to the opening PGM meeting that we had and the opening of my presentation. The primary purpose of the initial slides was to get you thinking and involved. The more involved you are at the beginning of a presentation, the more likely you are to remember something. In one of our State of the Battalion addresses that we had while I was in the Army, the battalion commander at the time said that we MIGHT retain five to ten percent of what he said. And then launched into a several hour-long presentation. I guess his idea was to overwhelm us with information and hope that enough stuck. While I kept the fact that you might only retain five to ten percent of what I said in mind, there was just some information that I had to cover and a lot of changes that took place that I wanted you to be familiar with. But besides using a thinking exercise to hope more of the information stuck with you, there was another purpose to that exercise. I wanted to challenge the norm.

Challenging the norm is not hard for me. While most people tend to shy away from confrontation, I thrive on it. I see it as beneficial to a point. Remember my two previous careers, state trooper and combat arms in the Army. Both require confrontation to be effective. And not everyone in those fields enjoys it or does well in those environments. I do. Well, I did since I am no longer in either one of those careers. Either way, confrontation is still a very integral part of my life. I no longer do it on a physical level, I do it on an intellectual one. The question is then, how does one challenge the norm and how is one confrontational intellectually?

You are currently in an environment that should be having you challenge the norm but during my time in the classroom, it was more of a here’s the knowledge and now regurgitate it for tests and quizzes. It is taught as fact, and you are expected to believe it. And some of it is undisputable fact. But does that mean that you should just believe it? Or should you question everything? That is a question that you must answer for yourself. No one else can do it for you. When I moved from the line to the specialty platoons (normal infantry structure to an enabler aka sniper), one of the snipers attached to my platoon during my deployment to Iraq, who I will refer to as Santa, became my mentor. So, while I was in Iraq the other sniper with us, Santa and I spent a lot of time together. They did some basic military sniper classes for me (I was a sniper when I was in the state police, but they are two very different animals) and I just soaked it in. I love to learn. Never want to stop learning. But when I actually moved into the sniper platoon and began our first train up, Santa’s approach changed. He stopped teaching classes and was more the guy who hung out in the back of the room and would pipe in every now and then about how to apply what we were learning. He also stopped answering my questions. I was diving into the science and data of long-range shooting and numbers are just not Santa’s thing. He would be what we might call a “feel” shooter. And he wasn’t just good at his job, he was GOOD at his job. During one of our classes on rapid target engagements we were told that the normal rapid engagement methods for a particular caliber peaked at 500 meters. After that you would have to start dialing the turrets to be able to continue to engage out to the Army’s stated max effective range for the weapon system. As you all know I’m a numbers guy which usually uses the left hemisphere in your brain, but every once in a while, I can activate that right side and be creative. I also am led by my hubris at times, and this was one of those times. Despite the incredible minds that lead the field of long-distance shooting saying this was the case, I immediately thought they were wrong. After the class, I went to Santa and told him that I thought all the experts were wrong. Some of those experts were in my platoon (my section leader and platoon sergeant at the time won the US Army Sniper Competition multiple times). So it was a rather bold statement. I can still remember Santa’s reaction to my ridiculous confidence and pride. He look me dead in the eyes and said “Now you are thinking the way you should be.” His point and what he continued to remind me as I went through that first train up was to “Take everything with a grain of salt” which I interpreted as “Question everything”. I went on to prove mathematically and practically that the experts were in fact wrong. I employed the same method to optics commonly found on Soviet era sniper weapons when I worked with snipers in the various countries I was deployed to. Again, experts said it couldn’t be done. When it came time to rewrite the special operations sniper manual, that information was included. I know it was as I was the one who helped revise the manual. None of that would’ve ever happened if I hadn’t challenged the status quo.

That isn’t a pat me on the back, way to go story. It’s just to tell you when I started to have that mentality, why I do, and where it has gotten me. According to Wikipedia, “a freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation or dogma”. The term “freethinker” came out of the 17th century when most people just believed whatever they were told without question but some decided to challenge that norm. In modern times, the term is usually associated with religion. But I think it can apply to any area of your life. I feel like I’ve gone so far into this arena that now when I hear something, I research it. I want to see if in fact it is true. This is what I have done in the game of golf. There is so much information out there that is just widely accepted as true. The further and further I dig, the more that I found out that a lot of that information is false, misleading, or just poorly explained or applied. I’m not learning any incredible revelations as I take classes, read, watch other teachers, get on Zoom sessions or make phone calls. I’m just testing all the information to determine whether it is true or not. I want every single one of you to be playing the best golf of your life after you work with me. I have a persistent thirst for knowledge and my delving into all this information helps to quench that. But as I plug away, I see the players that I have worked with in my mind. I see the mistakes that I have made in the past. I see how I can help someone play better golf. That someone might be you. Could I help people play better golf if I just accepted what I was told is true? Sure. But would it be the best golf of their life? I don’t know. Some of that is on you. The player has to put in the work. But a lot of that is on me because I’m here to teach, guide, instruct, coach, whatever you want to call it. If I just did it because “that’s the way it’s always been done”, I know that I would not be where I am today.

So break out and question what you are being told. Some information just doesn’t matter to you and I get that. Like the numbers of electrons and protons in an atom. I’m just never going to research that because that information doesn’t matter to me. But when information does matter to me, I always question it. One of the best conversations I’ve had this semester was with a student asking about the concept of feel and mechanics. Then we had a lesson together and we found his feel… through mechanics. Whether that helped solidify my argument or not in his brain, it was another bullet point in my mind of why I believe it. But just because it sounds good, you should question it. If your spidey sense says its wrong, research it. I know it sounds like school, but when you are making the choice to learn something that interests you, it becomes much easier and way more fun. So back to my question, Feel from mechanics, or mechanics from feel?