We all have illusions. I have commented in the past about how the luck of the draw creates the illusion that we are better than we are. The illusion of speed is easily observed and documented. In the final match of the National Championship and in the final match of the Arizona State Championship not a single shot was won by quickness. Although four of the fastest gunfighters were involved, speed was not determinative, it was completely irrelevant in both of those match. Because the competitors were quick the tendency is to think that speed decided the match. It is an illusion!
If speed did not decide the match one might think that accuracy did. That would be an illusion also. All four of the shooters were accurate enough to win otherwise they would not have made it to the finals. But accuracy did not decide those matches, if it would have both matches would have been over in 3 shots which was not the case.
What decided the championships was flusters. The winner of those championships was the gunslinger who best managed flusters. The mentally tougher gunfighter won.
This years Southern Championship was decided in a gunfight. Quickness was determinative in that championship, a match between the quickest gun there and a brand new shooter in his first event who was the slowest male shooter there. The match went down to the final shot tied 2-2. The brand new shooter came within a shot of winning the championship (I am sure there is a bit of illusion there for him).
While speed gets way too much credit, it is a factor that effects flusters. When we come up again a shooter that is perceived as being substantially quicker, we many times change our routine and become flustered. The lack of speed and perceived accuracy of a slower shooter may have the same effect. That explains how a brand new shooter can make it to the number one seed at a titled territorial.
On a personal note, of my 8 losses in titled matches, flusters were involved in 60 % of those matches. Two of those matches were against quicker opponents whom I should have dispatched with ease.
There is a scene in Appaloosa where a cowboy laments that Virgil is "just another cowboy," where upon Virgil asks his deputy what do you think and the deputy responds " ....I don't think you're just another cowboy!"
If I can ever get the flusters under control, hopefully I won't be just another cowboy!
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