This SMALLBORE Business
Developing your mind routines
Wow - that was a long preamble eh? Bear with me, I had to set the scene for you all.
Contained within dry-fire routines is your ability to visualise both the method, the upcoming competition, just to help you establish more detailed factors within the subconscious mind. You eventually will be able to imagine the entire match you are about to shoot, without firing a single shot. The imagery and visualisation techniques are a vital part of the match preparation and the ONLY short cut is within your dry fire routines.
It is also less expensive than expending huge amounts of ammunition! You will find however, the urge to prove what you are doing becomes more urgent, just to see if the ‘mind stuff’ works!
You will also find that your training will develop a mental strength that is supreme, particularly when faced with an unexpected problem that may arrive in your match. You will also develop this factor, as you explore your new found mental strength to include contingency planning just in case some thing does go pear-shaped….
How well you shoot is directly related to how well you think!
Let me give you an example of this from my full bore life.
I was shooting an 800 yard shoot-off in a NSW Queens (with a stack of others at the time) and I was carefully watching a major storm about to erupt from the right. The wind was coming, big time, you could hear it! So I belted sighters and three bulls off very quickly, within the lull before the storm.
Then the wind hit with a howling gale, the flags looked like they were starched rigid, the poles were bending! Just as that hit, my neighbour shooter (who eventually won the Queens), fired his shot. “Oh God!” I heard him say as my target went down.
“You shot on mine mate.” I said. To which the answer came “Like hell I did!” and up came my target with an outer 2 on the 3 o’clock edge, which I promptly disclaimed.
Here I was, stunned at the wind velocity, it was absolutely howling, with what rain there was, horizontal! “What the hell is out there? How many points in that lot?” I thought.
Then it dawned on me. I moved the rear sight six points left (due to the ‘outer’ on my target) aimed at my mates target and let rip. Down went my target and came up with the spotter as a 3 o’clock bull. I quickly fired the last of my shoot-off shots with the same method and shot another bull.
That piece of thinking won me the match! I was the only shoot-off possible 25 and, when asked by the bloke on the right how the heck had I read that, his jaw dropped to his knees when I told him what I had done! We were the very best of friends since then until he passed away recently at over 80 years of age. His son is still shooting full bore and we often giggle about that bit of thinking. He says I was pretty sly….
To visualise any sort of aspect can only prepare you for the match correctly, be it with the techniques ( imagery of getting a beautiful ten-ring shot away) to your method of how you are going to shoot the match, manage the weather out there, contain what ever pressures may develop for you, anxiety, relaxed physical aspects, contingency planning should anything go wrong. All this is mental preparation that can be totally put in place within your dry-fire training. Your time on the living room floor maximised to great benefit.
When you reach this depth of training concentration, is when you are suddenly aware that the cross over point is reached - between the conscious and subconscious mind.
The confidence gained from training yourself to think, to be alert and adaptable to the nuances within your thought processes can only be gained when you suddenly know you are ready!
56
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94