Zen and Shooting

I absolutely love Thursday nights when I get to shoot with my pals from the RGV Shooters and others at American Firing Range.  They are billed as tournaments, but since we have no prizes we call it practice.  Although, we do keep scores and, at the end of the match, the guys look at their scores in detail.  I don't.

And, I wondered why I was just not getting better.

Thursday night, the guys ganged up on me and started pushing me to be more conscious of all that happens on the range, how I held the gun and what to look for in my sights.  At the end of the match, after all their help,  I had shot like  Don Knotts and was completely frustrated.

To make matters worse, I wore a shirt that was loose on the top and in the middle of a scenario an errant hot case dove down my blouse, halted at my belt and proceeded to burn a hole in my tummy while I finished missing the targets.  Needless to say I was feeling a lot down.

At dinner afterward they would not give up and I was feeling picked on and, don't you hate this Divas?, holding back tears.  (We gotta fix this tearing up thing!)  At the insistence of Don I handed over my iPad and he opened up  Ben Stoger Dry Fire Training web page and downloaded one book, Practical Shooting.  Those were my homework.

I know I am a reasonably good shot and I blamed the boys for getting me flustered Thursday.  But, I listened, because no matter how hard it is, listening always makes you think and thinking makes you better.

The next morning I went to the outdoor range and, all by myself fired some rounds from my new carbine my favorite gun smith and human being, Alan Fomorin at Metal X Works,  built for me,  I shot perfectly!  What did THEY know?!  Pooie on them.

That evening, just to make sure I could tell Don he was wrong, I started reading Practical Shooting.  Don, the last man on earth who you would ever think the words Zen and Yoga would exit from his mouth warned me to not to be set back by the zen type writing.  "Read until it speaks to you and you will get it," he said.  Cool, just like being back in the 60's.  Well, the book did say something to me.  And, I was shooting badly.  And it was my fault.  If I had been concentrating and focusing, what the boys were saying and doing would not have interfered with my shooting.

I was also not reflecting before and after a match.  By not checking my scores, I was not getting the information needed to  practice the things I was doing wrong and set goals for the next match.  The next morning I went to the Texas Carbine pistol match and knew exactly what I needed to work on: concentration and focusing.

After getting home from the Sunday Texas Carbine match, I compared my scores from the first match I did in May to the match yesterday.  Great strides were made in my time but my accuracy was off.  So  this week I will practice using the dry fire technique on speed and accuracy. I also know that one or two better shots on one target could have put me further from the bottom.  I can do that.

I wasn't watching scores because I was consistently coming in last.  What I need to do is keep track of my scores, work on issues that are preventing me from getting better and then I won't consistently come in last.

Well that is enough of learning lessons and touchie feelie zen kinda stuff.  But I would recommend the book, Practical Shooting even if you are a conservative.

Oh, yeah.  the best way to get the boys off the dinner discussion of your poor shooting  is is to tell them how much better liberals are than conservatives and you have umpteen advanced degrees.  It works.  The poor shooting is forgotten as they work on another area they perceive as a weakness I might have.