Wayne Dobbs shooting a first round hit, support hand only on an 8" plate at 50 yards while in his "happy bubble." When you can do this, you can probably focus on skills maintenance and personal relationships rather than trying to shave another 100th of a second off some test."

Is it possible to ever be happy as a shooter? I have sort of always believed that I was on an endless journey of constant training to get better, faster, and more accurate. It is like being on a never-ending path of frustration and finding new goals of the utmost importance. I am now re-thinking this. Age does that to you. After a bunch of Internet forum observations, watching a "joyous" shooter, and finally reading a sentence in a book, I am thinking that happiness is attainable. Many years ago as a local competitive shooter, I spent more time, money and effort in trying to shave a 100th of a second off my split times. I look back and think now, "What the heck was I thinking"? I was not trying to be a "competition" shooter. I was simply a street cop shooting competitively to "train". What was I training for when I was trying to get to a .15 split? Is it remotely relevant in a defensive shooting when you are shooting far faster than you can react or evaluate and assess. Should I have maybe been working on highly consistent and predictable performance, which was control based rather than time based? A couple of years ago and began shooting weekly with my (now) business partner Wayne Dobbs. It was very strange. I am always stressed out shooting. I am not a gifted or natural shooter. I have to work my tail off to not screw up. Wayne was different. Wayne was in a "joyous" happy and content place when he was shooting. It is strange to watch him in his bubble. He is exceptionally fast when he wants to be, and I have seen him shoot some amazing groups with various guns and actions. When Wayne floats into his "happy bubble" is when he is shooting at about 80%. Fast, smooth, insanely consistent and very accurate. What I have learned from Wayne is that fast is "neat", but "error free" is where happy is.

This depicts 5 back-to-back Hackathorn drills (10 rounds, 10 seconds, 10 yards from ready). Maybe a new goal of maintaining this and shifting some focus on spending more quality time with your kids, and actually enjoying your range time is a good thing.

Another observation is priorities. How many of us have sacrificed a lot of our lives towards training. I guarantee I am well into deep six figures on the quest and untold thousands of hours of time. That came from "somewhere". Was it a critical priority that I get my fighting skills to as high a level possible as a street cop working mostly weekend nights in a busy place?...Heck yes! At some point should we get to a place where we can maybe give some of that time, money and effort to keeping our family life healthy? Is having a good marriage a good thing for our health and to reduce stress? Is being a good parent a solid investment? Is maybe broadening our horizons a means of further training our brains? Maybe being happy with where we are can allow us to be happier in other aspects of our lives. What really motivated this article is while I was reading Sixguns by Elmer Keith there was a reference to a man whom Keith described as a "Finished Gunman". He was defined as a man who both attained a high level of expertise as a technical shooter, and had proven himself in actual use of a firearm in gunfights. I started thinking that maybe the goal should be to be a "Finished Gunman". Now this should not be construed as we should stop training and practicing. Not a chance. Shooting is a very perishable skill, especially with handguns. What I am thinking is that once we get to a very high level of skill and experience should we start thinking about rewarding ourselves with allowing ourselves to happy with where we are, and to then try to maintain a consistent level of high performance over the frustration of thinking that we are never good enough. I don't know the answer, but I am thinking that being happy might lead to a good place. Darryl Bolke is a retired police officer from Southern California. He has an extensive training background as both student and instructor. He has worked on more than 75 officer involved shooting investigations focusing on the firearms side of those investigations. Darryl has also been in multiple officer involved shootings himself, all with successful outcomes and in-policy. He has written numerous law enforcement firearms training programs and department policy on both firearms and edged weapons. He has also worked extensively in the private sector as both an investigator and protective agent specializing in very high threat protective details. He is currently the Co-Owner of Hardwired Tactical Shooting (HiTS) with Wayne Dobbs based out of Dallas, Texas. Hardwired Tactical Shooting