The Reality Monster

I was thinking about how many times ive been led in circles trying to figure out why my device was off or my impacts were off based on the tech I was using and it led to the reality monster. 

Theres a lot to learn and not a lot of time to do it in. While true it is also easy to feel like we need to rush to a skill level or a solution without the realization that going too fast outruns the real value in a more thorough but slower approach. Consider someone learning carpentry through an apprenticeship. They work alongside a skilled carpenter, engaging in hands-on projects. They not only learn the steps to create a piece but also understand the characteristics of different woods, the impact of humidity, and the nuances of various tools. Marksmanship has largely been like this through the years, and while slow, it allowed a rifleman to develop many diverse skills in tandem with reality provided feedback to complement their application and align progress with holistic skill development.

Taking some time to familiarize yourself to your rifle system and how you intend to use it without rushing along allows some exploration, some experience without goals, and some time to let the nervous system apply knowledge we already have about the world into the growing framework of becoming a rifleman. This tendency to rush has only been exacerbated with the insertion of many technological devices that while convenient, take away many important elements that can be argues to be worth the time to develop before passing the duty off to an algorithm.

Technology offers us many benefits, and one of the main benefits it offers is time savings. Calculation times, integration of data, and objectiveness can make technology a welcome assistant and aid in many activities. Using the comparison of woodworking to RifleKraft, let's think about technology in this context. Relying solely on online woodworking tutorials might teach specific techniques for creating certain items, but they might miss the broader understanding of wood properties, potential variations in projects, or the improvisation skills that come with real-world experience.

One of the reasons I have come to love the Gravity Ballistics app developed and recently released by SnipersHide is that it uses technology without pushing you to make it do the thinking for you. What I mean is that traditionally a rifleman would shoot and record shot data in a log. Day after day shots would be taken and recorded. Clearly after a while there would be many pages and this would slow down access, but the familiarity of the rounds trajectory and relationship with the elements was deeper. The GB system asks that you yourself shoot waterlines to gather drop data. Yes, you can plug in numbers and get close using an app and several other devices and often come close, but you skip the thought connection component of shooting and connecting an elevation to an impact. At your range or similar environments youre going to see the same elevations for the same distances. This can be overlooked and induce panic to someone who hasn’t slowed down to ask some important questions. Reality is reality and a bullet flying at a predictable speed and trajectory is going to have a consistent time of flight. The consistency is predictable which is why a calculator can make those predictions, but you also have to enter numbers that allow for the calculation to be close. One shot can tall you a lot of information without any of those numbers. A similar shot is likely to behave in the same way. In reality if you have the data for impacts at distances you should on your own be able to know what to hold for various distances on your own. The connection can save you a lot of time and heartache down the road as you navigate through your journey.

Taking it to other examples that rely on technology for more comparisons: In the realm of healthcare, imagine a medical student relying solely on online simulations to learn surgical procedures. While the simulations provide step-by-step instructions, they may not convey patient-specific variables, unexpected complications, or the nuanced decision-making that real surgical environments demand. This could result in a surgeon who can follow a set procedure but struggles when faced with unique patient conditions.

Being able to diagnose a missed shot takes experience not just a list of things you heard. Experience of trying many things and making the connections between what you did and what happened. As those experiences line up you are able to utilize the super computer between your ears to eliminate unlikely causes and narrow down a better solution. Without this you might be forced to play with inputs to a machine that doesn’t know the differences between whats being entered and outputting numbers that may work in the situation but take you further from reality elsewhere.

One of the main benefits of traditional, hands-on, real-world learning rifle shooting is that it allows you to experience many sets of conditions to which knowledge can be compared against and adapted to. Because I like trying to make comparisons, let's imagine an aspiring chef working in a professional kitchen and how, over time, they might learn to adapt recipes based on ingredient availability, customer preferences, and unexpected challenges. The kitchen environment exposes them to diverse situations, fostering adaptability.

Imagine that same chef but instead of having taken the time to acquaint themselves with a more diverse set of experiences, spends their time learning cooking exclusively from online recipes. That chef might follow instructions precisely; however, when faced with a missing ingredient or unexpected kitchen issues, they may struggle to adapt as they haven't experienced the dynamic and unpredictable nature of a real kitchen.

Technology with experience are an unbeatable combination, because you then take the advanced and fast solving machinery and apply it in a way that reinforces what you know in a way that doesn’t fish for outcomes, you simply arrive at the correct one faster. This is a big win.

The Rifleman experiences the same in nature and on different ranges and terrain using their rifle system. The ability to detect subtle changes in terrain that might affect wind on the bullet's flight, angle adjustments, movements of animals or targets, and how the patterns they exhibit might affect the hold in real-time, lighting conditions, and many more are more intuitive and experience-derived than an algorithm-determined number. However, applying those nuanced numbers back into a gadget can then amplify and compliment your system to achieve things in a way that without the gadget you would be too slow to make the numbers work for you.

Our human ability to experience results and interpret the feedback we get is often the place where the saying “believe the bullet” gets tossed around. Imagine someone learning to play a musical instrument with a teacher. The immediate feedback on hand positioning, timing, and tone helps them correct mistakes swiftly, refining their skills. Just as a rifleman can see the effects of conditions on the ultimate feedback the bullet provides and learn/adjust, a device can't do that for us in the same way, and neither does a video or any second-hand knowledge.

Bringing up GB again, I think its helpful to know how your bullet flies and then line up the numbers to match the distance. Once you are set with those drop inputs you have something you can rely on and refer back to without the addition of micro inputs. That information is priceless because you know that it works already. Reality is reality. If the gadget doesn’t match the inputs, you know the micro details are off, not the other way around.

A person relying on online tutorials might not receive immediate feedback. They may practice with incorrect fundamentals or struggle with timing without real-time guidance, potentially developing habits that are harder to correct later, or interpreting results as coming from the wrong external factor (such as fundamental error causing miss but thinking it was wind).

As a person who spends a lot of time doing remote coaching that might sound contradictory, but I am saying that it isn’t because the use of technology is there to aid in the capture of direct knowledge and then amplify the results with tech to same travel time, trips, and expenses to meet in person. Done correctly and used correctly technology certainly makes life easier, but if used incorrectly the journey is complicated with circular and often repeated failures inspired from trusting the wrong inputs and always getting the wrong outputs.

Another issue with tech can be the distillation into procedural elements that don’t paint a clear picture of the art that maintains the framework of your message.

Learning that at your range it requires a certain amount of elevation to hit a target at a given distance without the aid of computers is the start of building a holistic understanding. The apprentice learns not just that the round is predictable but also that regardless of what a calculator might say, the result is the same. The apprentice begins to understand the connection to the factors that influence a shot and can work to hone each skill and be measured by the resulting impact. After this, they can appreciate, adjust, and correct for errors in a machine based on knowing how things work from experience rather than doing what they were told to do by an inanimate object or video.

Going back to other real-world examples to think about, imagine the case if someone solely relies on online guides for car repairs. They might follow step-by-step instructions without truly understanding the underlying mechanics. When faced with a unique problem not covered in the guides, they may struggle to diagnose and solve the issue.

I feel that this highlights the risks of over-reliance on step-by-step instructions without the capacity for contextual understanding.

In all the cases mentioned, the key is to recognize that while technology-driven learning provides valuable resources, it should complement, not replace, traditional hands-on experiences. The risk lies in the technology's inability to fully understand and adapt to the complexity and unpredictability of real-world scenarios and you need to be able to know when the gadget is off rather than being led around by it scratching your head about why youre lost.

A balanced approach ensures individuals gain both theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom, fostering a deeper and more adaptable skill set. Algorithms and virtual environments, while valuable, may lack the depth of comprehension that comes from hands-on experience and exposure to diverse and dynamic situations. So go to the range and bring your stuff, but be the captain of your ship and steer the tools you have from your mind, knowledge, and experience. When theres a gap, fill it before moving forward and find out how and why a device might be leading you stray.