Shades of Fate is the Hunter (book). The training captain lighting matches under the new co pilot nose/face in a stormy landing telling him, real world you will someday have to overcome bad things like this.
I use both muffs and plugs. Still got hearing loss from engines. I know what they say but as one of my co workers pointed out, in this area it penetrates and he was right. No idea how that works.
What I have found is when its life and death as its been maybe 6 times in my life, focus was there. Pretty odd how that works.
You read about how guys in the musket era would calmly load and shoot for the entire round of fighting, something about 10 or 20% of the shooters and they did the majority of the damage. No one would pick them as anything special but in a battle, they just became cold sober effective shooters. I knew two guys who were in WWII paratroopers. Neither one seemed special but they both served from Normandy on to the end. No offense to those who served but they were always called on first as they were the most effective troops.
I wrestled in high school, my one teammate was better at practice than I was. Beat me all the time.
Put us in a real match? He never lived up to his practice ability and I went above it in the real deal. I had one match that for some reason the crowd was on my side, lot of cheering going on. After I was asked about it, nope, I did not hear anything but the calls from the referee. Coach is shaking his head, I guess they were really into it.
But my teammate, well he got a bruised collar bone that his opponent bumped (not on purpose). Boy did he get mad and tore the other guy apart. Yea Butch. Only once though, he could not call on it.
I had another teammate that was a quasi friend. He was not very good but he was dedicated to filling his weight class slot (heavy weight) so we did not have a no show (better to loose a match than no one in that slot as you lost more points wise for the team). I admired his dedication and knowing he would get beat. He never complained. Just went out and did his best.
So, I hurt my back in practice and then in a match and I messed it up again. I had to pull out, we got a no compete score against us, I was in tears of frustration. The other team was laughing about it.
Bill was up two weight classes latter, up against the best heavy weight in the district if not the state. Bill went out and destroyed him. That guy who took state the year before and that year as well. I asked Bill, what the heck happened man? He said, no on laughs at my teammates or my friend. I got very choked up.
