You have to show up to win

I really didn’t want to dry fire last night.

I know that I’ve seen huge gains from dry firing for fifteen minutes a day for the last few months. I know that I have a goal to go up in class at the USPSA classifier in March.

I know that getting frequent practice is key to being able to perform on demand; fifteen minutes of dry fire four times a week is better than an hour on the range. I know that my draw is shaky and I need to be able to rely on hitting A zones on partial targets from the draw.

I know all that stuff in my head, and yet none of it got me to put the holster on and pull out the (as yet unnamed) Android dry fire trainer app. What got me to set my targets up (they were put away because I had guests over) and relax my mind and start drawing is one deceptively simple idea:

The guy who wants to beat me is practicing right now.

If I don’t even bother showing up to practice, why show up to the match? If he’s been practicing, I know what’s going to happen. I don’t know who will beat me or when I’ll meet him, but I know that if I don’t practice, he’ll be there. So screw that guy, whoever he is. He’s got another thing coming.