Head Game

My wife and I were on our way to one of our granddaughter’s soccer games one recent Saturday. I was hungry and decided to stop for something at McDonalds but the drive-through was jammed so I parked and went inside.

I’m reading a non-Bullseye book that has, nonetheless, a lot to say about how we succeed or fail at many aspects that directly contribute to our performance at the firing line.

Some days start good and then go bad.

Others start bad and stay that way.

Shooters learn Bullseye much the same way they do any other sport. They study, they experiment, they practice, they talk to others, they get coaching directly and indirectly. They commit things first to memory and then to body actions and, if everything goes well, they become as proficient at the sport as their abilities permit.

Inspiration is a great motivator.

I’ve shot Bullseye at a lot of clubs around the US and, in every case, there were better shooters than myself on the line. I’ve been whipped, and I’ve been whipped a lot.

I’ve made some good progress this year.

• In my 2006 New Year’s resolution I said that “it will be nice to climb out of the Marksman ranks this year” and, effective 05/23/2006, I formally started competing in the Sharpshooter classification as per the NRA.
• My 22 scores are up about 5 points over the year, from the upper 80s to the low-to-middle 90s range, from Sharpshooter to comfortably in the Expert range.
• Shooting of the wad gun (CF and 45) is improved almost 5%, from just barely Sharpshooter to the high side of that classification.
• My aggregate scores in 2700s are up a full 10%, partly owing to the oddities of statistical averaging and partly to the scarcity of 2700s as opposed to our weekly league.
• And most significant, my efforts on the ball gun are paying off: scores are up a full 10% (from 65-75% to 75-85%).

For the coming year, I plan to continue my primary focus on the ball gun because last year’s intention of “choosing to earn the new classification primarily on that more difficult gun” (the wad gun at that time, now the ball gun) has shown that focused and regimented practice with the hardest gun helps in all my shooting.

I tried a slight modification to the approach I recently wrote about. Specifically, although I still try to release all thoughts and self-talk during a shot, after I’ve released the shot and lowered the gun, that’s when I do something different.