cf: H. Ryder Haggard: "SHE"
cf: John Mortimer, "Rumpole of the Old Bailey"
Recently I've been corresponding from a fellow from PNG (Papui/New Guinea?) He says he has found his True Love who is willing to accept his involvement in Shooting Sports, but she personally isn't at all interested.
That's not at all unusual, but it does mean that they miss out on a lot of time which they might be sharing.
I found myself in a similar situation a few years ago, and found my own way of dealing with. The following is a highly edited summary of my experience, as I offered it to him.
As long as she's not against your shooting, that's the main thing. Several of the guys I shoot with find themselves in the same situation .... their wives never cared for shooting either, so she found other things to do while he was on the range. Come to think it, most of the people I shoot with found this to be so.
I don't believe this situation is beyond redemption. Here is my own experience:
[W]hen I first met SWMBO* she didn't like guns. While she was growing up, there were never guns in her parents' house. Her family's philosophy was that there is no rational reason to Have A Gun. But she was willing to endure being around guns; she wasn't completely averse to the idea that someone else might have a legitimate reason to own firearms. She just never considered that SHE might have a reason to have one.
When she moved into an apartment in a not-so-good part of town, I told her that I wanted her to have better protection than she currently had (she kept a baseball bat for "home protection"), if only for my own piece of mind. I gave her my Taurus Model 65 (.357 in 4" length) and took her to a local range to learn how to shoot it. She actually thought it was kind of fun, so now and then we would go the range and practice to keep her skills current.
Eventually, she tired of standing in the door waving bye-bye to me as I headed out to a match on early Saturday morning ... almost every weekend. Every time I left, I said "well, I'm off. You know you're invited, don't you?" We're not married, and we live 40 miles apart, which meant that we typically only saw each other on weekends, and I was at an IPSC match on either Saturday or Sunday. One day, she decided to go along with me because it was the only way we were going to spend much time with each other during the limited amount of time each week we were together.
She went to IPSC matches with me for THREE YEARS, without participating. The learned the routine of competitive shooting, and discovered that the people at matches weren't a bunch of over-competitiive, hairy-eared ruffians who braged about wanting an excuse to go shoot somebody as they sat on the tailgates drinking beer. Oh, I won't say that a few of those folks don't show from time to time (sans the beer, which is not allowed on the range), but they rarely stay long. In fact, she found that she actually LIKED most of the people. She discovered that, while we were a fairly competitive group, we weren't so anal-retentitive about it that we would let it ruin our whole day if we didn't do well at a match. And everybody liked her, and were willing to show it. It didn't hurt that she would chip in on the range chores, helping to pick up brass. She quickly learned to identify the different calibers, the guns they went with, and the people who shot which gun.
Finally she said "Enough of this. Get me a gun, I'm tired of picking up everyone else's brass. I want to go shoot. Those guys owe me four years of brass-picking, and I intend to collect!" (Or words to that effect.)
She has won several trophies in D-class ... in Limited, Limited-10 and Open. Now that she's in C-Open she wins fewer trophies but it doesn't really matter much to her. She's having fun.
Further comments:
It seems to me that the problem with getting your own SWMBO* out to the range may have several parts:
- She thinks you're a bunch of yahoos, and chooses not to associate with this type.
- It's boring
- She will probably be the only woman there
- Men will be impatient with her if she participates and is slow
- Men will laugh at her because she 'isn't very good' at shooting
- It's a "New Thing", and she generally feels uncomfortable trying "New Things"
- She doesn't have the equipment, and isn't equipment-oriented anyway
- "We" can't afford the extra expense of her attempt to participate, which probably won't work out anyway
- She isn't a 'competitive person'
- The guns are too powerful, she doesn't like recoil
- She doesn't know what to wear, how to act, what the rules are ....
- It's "a guy thing", and she's not a guy
- She doesn't want to impose herself on the guys
- "You're having fun as it is; don't embarass yourself by looking like a wuss when you show up with me"
- She doesn't really LIKE guns, feels uncomfortable around them, and can see no reason why she should do this gun thingie
- It's cold/wet/hot/dry/DIRTY out there!
- "You guys stand up for THREE HOURS STRAIGHT. I should do this ... why?"
- Nobody will like me. Uh, no ... your friends will resent me!
Fifty percent of these objections will be negated if she only goes to the range and gets to know the people she meets there.
Twenty percent of these objections will be negated if she has some private range time to play with the equipment, learn the rules, and become comfortable with them.
Another twenty percent will become a 'non-issue' if here are other women competing at the matches, and you make sure that you are squadded with them at matches.
The final ten percent of these objections will be overcome if you get yourself out of the 'learning experiance' equation and let someone else handle the training.
I really think that this last 10% is under-rated. The best thing you can do is to find someone she trusts and likes to work with her at the range, and just get the heck out of the way. This other person can tell her things she needs to know (safety, techniques, etc.) that she just won't listen to when it comes from you, but if it comes from someone with whom she doesn't have "a relationship" (and whom she respects) she WILL listen to them and will learn from them. The best thing you can do for her, in a training situation, is to find the right person and then arrange for yourself to not even be where you can see her while she goes though the exercises. Do NOT coach your SWMBO! Later ... maybe.
As part of this, it helps very much if you can find a female competitor who is willing to take the time needed to coach a new female shooter, and you can squad with couples during matches.
Note that when you finally get your SWMBO shooting, and go to matches, there will come a moment when she runs into problems with a comptitive situation. She may approach you and say "Why didn't YOU tell me not to do that!" Your reply must always be "I'm sorry, it's my fault." Because it is, after all, your fault. There may be no reason to expect that if you had offered advice it would be accepted, but that's not important. What IS important is that you must train yourself even more rigorously to learn when advice may be useful, and NEVER offer advice unless it is vital.
Ummm ... reading back I see that the preceding may seem to single out training techniques for women. Not all of these observations are applicable only to one group. Whomever you are introducing to a new shooting sport will be uncomfortable, regardless of gender or age-group or level of experience. Remember that you want this person to learn that shooting sports are fun. Don't muck it up by being critical.
When I started shooting pistols competitively, I was fortunate in that I didn't have anyone trying to teach me. I learned as I went along, from match to match. The people who offered me advice didn't have a 'relationship' with me, so I didn't resent their suggestions nor did I consider them to be condescending. You cannot indulge in this luxury.if you are trying to encourage a new shooter who feels uncomfortable because of any combination of the aforesaid reasons.
Here's the bottom line:
- Let it be fun
- Get out of the way, and let it happen
- Be an enabler ... don't be a critic
- Remember, the only way she's going to join you is if SHE finds reasons which don't involve you
- There is nothing you can do to make #4 happen. Don't try; you'll only muck it up
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