Shooting to See Your Skills

Last October, I was shooting in the National Sporting Championship in San Antonio. During the 800 targets I shot, winning was the last thing on my mind.

In fact, it was so not on his mind that he never looked at a score sheet except in FITASC when I had to sign by my score.

I was not there to win. I was there to see how my skills and how the limited but focused practice we did would allow me to remain calm. And I was there to make great corrections due to my specific preloads and deepen my word associations about the different approaches I would use on the different targets.

The post-shot routine and the correction routine must be trained in practice so that they are both reflexive and happen as a flashback. Having the ability to instantly confirm what each shot looked like when the targets broke, what it looked like when the miss occurred, and what do we do to correct (especially when you’ve specifically trained these routines) plays a huge role in remaining calm - when facing both adversity and success.

There is a great opportunity to become careful or careless in pressure situations. And neither will lead to anything satisfying.