Present Precedent

In my last article I asked, “When is the precedent set?” I believe I discovered one of mine.

As I reviewed and researched why I became over whelmed when I had an opportunity to fill my archery tag on a mature whitetail buck, I discovered a few things.

But first I’d like to share an example from another part of nature.

Have you watched any documentaries on the nature channel about Great White sharks and Orca? You know, Killer Whales?

Turns out The Great White shark isn’t so great when he comes up against a pod of Killer Whales.

Killer Whales, they’re not whales by the way, they are a porpoise, the largest in the dolphin family, and they have learned a hunting technique that allows them to disable a Great White shark, then grab it, turn it upside down, and when held in this position the shark goes into what is called “tonic immobility” and then “it’s supper time!”

So imagine a Killer Whale family, living life, and one day Little Ollie the Orca comes swimming home real fast, all scared, and hides behind his dad.

“Son, what’s wrong?”

A big shark scared me.

“Why were you scared?”

He was bigger than me and had lots of teeth.

“That’s fair. But let me show you something.”

We’re going out there?

“Yes. I want to teach you something.”

Then the dad Orca takes his son hunting. He teaches him about Great White shark behavior, where they like to travel, what they like to eat, and where they like to congregate.

Then he finds a place to set up an ambush for one.

And all the while he is teaching his son everything he will need to know to be successful.

He tells his son, “When they are coming in like that… let em’ come. Then when they are close enough, BANG! hit em’ in the side… hard, turn him over, and hold him upside down. He’ll go right to sleep.”

“Here, stay quiet, and watch how I do it.”

Scientists have monitored both behaviors, the behavior of the Orca teaching their young how to hunt Great Whites, and the behavior of a Great White going ‘to sleep’ or into ‘tonic immobility’.

The same thing can happen to a sexual assault victim. During the attack, their brain doesn’t allow them to “fight, or flight… so it freezes, it puts the person into a state, very similar to ‘tonic immobility’.

And why is that?

Research suggests that they hadn’t learned any other habit, so their brain did what it thought best to do… which is… “don’t move”.

The thing that was missing was “effective habit learning”.

My archery miss, on that big buck, caused so much stress that it didn’t matter that it was good stress… my brain just felt “STRESS”. I hadn’t, in all my years of trying to be a hunter, actually been in that situation before.

Then I remembered… I was, once, with my dad.

My very first year being able to carry a gun he had positioned us along a fence line, next to a picked cornfield, with a farm nearby. The farm was an old neighbor, from when we “lived out in the country”. It was quiet. Then I heard…

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzut!

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzut!

“Dad, I think that guy is shooting at us.” You could see a hunter, way across the field, across the road, all the way over on the edge of the woods, way up in a tree stand.

When my dad turned to look he whispered, “Buck!”

I didn’t see it at first. Then it turned broadside and was heading towards the fence line.

As it came closer, my dad said, “Let him keep coming.”

But then the deer angled sharply toward the fence, looking like he was going to cross it right away.

BLAM! In my ear. My dad started blasting with his twelve gauge!

I stood…frozen.

The deer wasn’t moving fast. It cleared the fence easily. Then I heard…

“SHOOT!”

So I did, and the deer buckled a little bit… but then, up went the flag… and there he was… gone.

My dad barked at me, “Why didn’t you shoot!!?”

I learned ‘tonic immobility’ under stress, around the age of a kindergartner. As I had been sexually molested then, along with my sister, by some older boys in the neighborhood.

My dad didn’t train me to shoot, he trained me to “sit still” to “let em’ come” heck, he even taught me to “swing first” but he never taught me to shoot, or provided an opportunity to practice.

I did what my “effective habit learning” taught me to do. And then, as now, 40 years later, I missed.

Now overlay that with the experience my second oldest son had. His first time in a deer stand with a gun.

His dad had him shooting as soon as he thought he was responsible enough… you know… around 5 or 6.

Shooting practice consisted of a BB gun and target box in the basement. Thousands of BB’s… THOUSANDS!

And as he got older, shooting .22’s and 20 gauges Up North at the cabin. At all manner of targets.

Then the verbal training that year, it started at all of the practice sessions getting him ready for deer season.

“Now, if we see one, he’s yours, I’ll help you through it, and as soon as you shoot, I’ll follow up with Ol’ SarahJane, just in case, but he’s your deer.”

I repeated that all year. We practiced it.

And dang if it didn’t happen that way. It was perfect!

I asked him recently if he appreciated me whispering in his ear while he prepared to make the shot.

“Heck yeah, I was twelve, and I was freaking out!”

He made an excellent shot. And as we practiced, I followed up with Ol’ SarahJane. And his buck of a lifetime dropped right there.

I don’t think a Great White shark can un-learn going into tonic immobility when a Killer Whale takes hold of him… but… as a human being I now know, I can reprogram myself.

If I could coach, and train my son to make the shot at the moment of truth… then I can re-train myself to come through when it counts.

They have a saying in sports, “When you win, act like you’ve been there before.”

“Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” He is talking, far more eloquently than I ever could, about the value of repetition. This is something I have learned to understand and appreciate even more as I get older.” ~ https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/richard-branson-blog/we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do

Just thinking of that big old buck, standing RIGHT THERE!, blinking, breathing, and stomping his foot… gets my blood pressure up… and now I know that’s a good thing… and I can use it in my practice sessions… preparing for next time!