Tips on Pistol Shooting

[tirpassion]

You are right agn bhaisaheb
please note that I have added a condition

If one is not fully capable of controlling his/her emotions during shooting,

If you can stick to your SOA and the shot cyle in a constant regular rhythm, you have controlled your emotions perfectly and you can not get carried away. Hats off to you!!!
But if it is otherwise, you should better rest; rest does not mean minutes, a small break of a few more seconds to cutoff the link of the growing rosy period, flush out the negative thoughts (expectation), get back to the correct path and restart. This is a way of avoiding a bad shot. Stop, not to appreciate the tens but to appreciate how you shot the tens and repeat the same.

The example of 5 shot cycle. If you shoot a bad shot in the 3rd shot, should you continue without paying a heed to it or should you stop to think why the bad shot came in order to correct it? The same way, to avoid the inflow of the rosy period, you will be intelligent enough to stop before (again the above mentioned condition applies), being fully aware that the rosy period can create a disaster.

What is a shot cycle? It is the number of shots you can take with the same intensity of concentration, vigour, determination, physical and technical abilities in a perfect rhythm and regularity. In simpler terms, without any error.
It is up to you to find out how many can you take. It is always better to start with a few in the beginning. Please read the post of Guruji regarding the '3 shot cycle' and how to work on it.
Working out a shot cycle demands a lot of work. Every human being functions naturally in a graphical curve which shows an upward movement followed by a downward one and so on against the span of time. In our Indian philosophy we can term it as 'Arohan' and 'Aborohan'. The idea is to place the shot cycle always in the 'Arohan' curve, stretch the curve to the maximum possible in the time span, reduce the aborohan curve for the break/pause/rest and jump on back to the upward curve.

I believe that we are not in that level as of now, but if we do not work we will never reach that level either . Now this is the second suggestion for you agnbhai. Reduce the shot cycle to 2/3 shots only. If I recapitulate the 2 things you should change are
- Take a wider margin of white in the sub-six zone
- Adopt a 3 shot cycle max and work rigourously on that until you have achieved ZERO ERROR, I repeat ZERO ERROR in the 3 shot cycle.
Please note that ZERO ERROR dos not mean a perfect 10. Zero error in work means that I am capable of releasing my shot in my zone in perfect conditions while accepting the natural arcs of my hand and I can perfectly call the shot. Resultwise, it will be a 10 or a good 9 if you achieve ZERO ERROR.

best regards
tirpassion

[airgun_novice]

Righto Acharya ! will get back to reading and studying the basics. Now, with monsoons here I have a LOT of time for that.

[dev]

Totally agree with the mind wandering. I was as usual shooting pretty fast as I did not want to disturb Ayra with the noise for too long. So the mind was almost screaming, "c'mon let's shoot six tens in this series". I had been doing my dry fire on a white wall and this also began to trouble me when I had a target up front. At the slightest sway or movement of the sight the negative internal dialogue would prop up,"Not so easy now, eh...its a different ball game with the target unlike in dry fire!" So I told it to go to hell and shot a ten and a nine right after the six.

[jitu sati]

sorry tirpassion
was again out of town . hence havent been able to send the SA image. will do it today. i am free usually after nine in the evening for talk. unfortunately last time somebody came to my house suddenly and had to cut the conversation short. will confirm when i send the image today. my forty shots elimination of eight is fluctuating between 6-9 eights. but 7 seem to have drastically reduced

[tirpassion]

my forty shots elimination of eight is fluctuating between 6-9 eights. but 7 seem to have drastically reduced

That is nice jitu!!! The sevens will disappear because you are now intolerant with the eights. In this process you will ignore the existence of a seven. To hell with sevens. They do not exist. NOT AT ALL because I am looking for Nines and I heartily welcome the Tens. The level of intolerance is related to the natural movement of your arcs. With time and with hard work, the arcs will reduce and the level of intolerance will also increase.

I have seen your SA image. Thanks. Your zone is very good. There is still a lot to talk about. I will call you up a little before 9PM IST today. Will you be available?

best regards
tirpassion

[tirpassion]

I had been doing my dry fire on a white wall and this also began to trouble me when I had a target up front. At the slightest sway or movement of the sight the negative internal dialogue would prop up,"Not so easy now, eh...its a different ball game with the target unlike in dry fire!"

Dear dev,
your hand moves as much with the target in the backdrop as against the white wall. It is naturally impossible otherwise.
On the backdrop of a white wall, you do not have any point of reference and hence your eyes concentrate on the SA image only. But when you have the target behind, you get that black circle behind as your reference. Your eyes look at the black circle and you find the movement of your SA image accentuated wrt the black circle.

You have again brought up a very nice point. Let me explain with my limited capabilities.

As a human being we have been conditioned from our birth to fix our look at things which is stable and we tend to avoid fixing our eyes on a moving object for long. Why? The scientific explanation is simple. Here are some examples. I will use the word 'you'. Please do not take personally.
- You can walk straight on a narrow path without any zigzag because your eyes send a stable image of the path which is immobile. Now, if you are drunk out of control, you might not walk straight because your eyes do not perceive a clear stable image of the path, which in turn is interpreted by the brain as instability and asks your internal ear to balance your body so that you do not fall.
- If you are asked to walk on a line or a series of bricks laid down one after another for let us say 10 meters what will you do? You will concentrate on the line of bricks, fix your look farther on them to have a global overal image of the stable line and keep on walking. But if you look sideways or just below, you will surely fall down. Again, if you are asked to wear a thick glass spects which are not adapted to your vision and walk on the line of bricks, you will not be able to do so easily, you will sway, move and keep everything to keep your balance because you will see blurred unstable images of the brick line. Put the spects off and you become physically stable because your eyes get fixed on the stable image of the brick line.

So to sum up, human beings need to fix his sights on a stable object/image to keep the balance of his body while he himself is on move. This goes for driving also. When you are on a highway you will see that you are more comfortable driving behind another car because that car in front of you serves as your point of reference. Or when there is none in front of you look farther down the road without fixing your eyes on anything in particular but you are concentrated on the road. Now, if you see a gymnast walking on a rope or on the bar, you will see that very concentrated fixed look in his/her eyes. Where is he/she looking at? Nothing in particular but he/she has trained hard to have his/her eyes perceive a global overall image of stability in his/her field of vision with the rope/bar in between which primes as the point of reference. This permits the body to maintain the balance.
Shooting sport is a bit different. We are neither on move nor are we comfortably on a support on rest. We are nearer to the 'on move mode' because our muscles are working hard to keep our movement reduced. Our stability must come from the stable SA image when the black circle is the reference point / the road to our destination.

If you put the above subject to shooting what happens? You are in the sub six zone with your perfect SA image. If you take a bit more time you see your SA image moving more. The internal ear tells the brain that it is losing control. The brain commands to eyes to stabilize the vision and they fix the look on the black circle which is a fixed immobile image. The body gets back the stability and your shot goes hay way.
Remember that the shot must break within 3 to 5 seconds after setting down in the zone. Otherwise, the above phenomenon will occur very naturally.

warm regards
tirpassion

[jitu sati]

100% agreed tirpassion. i have this problem too. sometimes while two or three shots are gr8 one goes haywire and soon one realises that one is looking with concentration at the black bull and the Sight pic has become hazy. instead of vice versa

[dev]

Hi Tir,

Thank you for that fantastic explanation...tofu kabool kare sarji .
Sneaked in a bit of dry fire yesterday. About 25 shots against a white wall and then I put a target up and continued to do more till a total of sixty was reached. Began to have difficulty in proper execution on the 4th series of ten shots. Made a mistake in shot 46. The sight picture was compromised by a tired hand. Took a slight break and continued then I had problems at shot 57 and 59. It was from the mental desire to finish the set and I flubbed the trigger squeeze and just mucked it up. I am amazed at how I spent two years training incorrectly. I thought at that time that shooting a match with pellets was practice. .

Regards,

Dev

[tirpassion]

Thanks dev, it was my pleasure.

It was from the mental desire to finish the set and I flubbed the trigger squeeze and just mucked it up.

It is a typical problem for everyone. To finish the match and count the score at the end. I tend to score a few 8's at the end because of the same problem. But after having scored a 8, I slap myself and generally end up with a good set. But why can not I do this without scoring the bad point? There are still leakages in emotion control.

I am amazed at how I spent two years training incorrectly. I thought at that time that shooting a match with pellets was practice. .

Somehow, you have the ability to evoke a very important point every time you write a post. I admire! Hats off to you!
Yes, we have, since long time, ingrained errors and errors after errors in layers and in succession in our shooting techniques because of lack of proper guidance. It takes a lot of time to erase the ingrained errors and programme/register/record the correct techniques in place. The good thing is, better late than never. We can do it, if we really wish.

best regards
tirpassion

[brihacharan]

Yes, we have, since long time, ingrained errors and errors after errors in layers and in succession in our shooting techniques because of lack of proper guidance. It takes a lot of time to erase the ingrained errors and programme/register/record the correct techniques in place. The good thing is, better late than never. We can do it, if we really wish.

best regards
tirpassion

After reading this I was reminded about Thomas Alva Edison - When asked about his 1865 failures before he invented the Incandescent Bulb - His reply was "I wouldn't call them failures" - Infact I learned how "Not to make those 1865 mistakes again"!!!
Briha

[tirpassion]

Thanks for your words Brihacharanji, I really appreciate.
warm regards
tirpassion

[tirpassion]

Dear hvj Sir and dear friends,

A few updates. I have stopped the Vgripping because I had injured the thumb while doing push-ups on the finger tips. It is really a Rambo job . Well that was 2 months back and I am getting over it. In another 2 months time I will again go back to it. But I am still shooting because the pain has disappeared.
I have at last entered in the normal Body Mass index under 25 . I have reduced 9 kilos since nov'11 and stand at a healthy under 67 kg status. So, I am in much better physical fitness condition.

After my disappointment in the FP match, I was in dire need to feed my ego with a score. The occasion was the Monthly Internal AP match of our club on Monday the 11th June. It is a bit more than the practice match because it is counted in our club records but can not be compared to a match outside. I do not talk about them because I do not consider the results to be of a proper reflection of my level. Since I shoot in a known environment, I add on a difficulty, I do not shoot any sighter shots.
This one is a bit special because, this was the 2nd time that I reached 560/600 in the club match since I am a member. The more important thing is that I finished the match in 1 hour 13 mins. Here are the details.
93, 96, 93, 92, 92, 94: 26/10s, 28/9s & 6/8s. No sighter shots.
374/400 in 50 minutes & 560/600 in 1h13mins including 2 breaks to sit down and set things right again. I took a long time in the beginning because of lack of confidence after that FP match and also, the trigger seemed to be too hard after the FP shooting for more than a month. Anyway, after a few 8's and few kicks on the butt, I could manage to unfetter my spirits.
I am working on the AP again. Yesterday, I shot 60 live shots on 2 cards in 52 minutes with a box drill on 3-5 sec shot breaking; 90%. I find it hard to believe now how I did it in less than an hour. I could not count the score as you can understand, neither did I wish to, but there were only 3 Eights and 5 bad Nines. If I remember, I have never shot so few eights in 60 shots. I am happy about it.

On 23rd June, I will go for the Grand Prix de Versailles match, both in AP and FP, the same day. FP in the morning and AP in the afternoon.

best regards
tirpassion

[airgun_novice]

[SNIP]On 23rd June, I will go for the Grand Prix de Versailles match, both in AP and FP, the same day. FP in the morning and AP in the afternoon.

best regards
tirpassion

Best of Luck tirpassion - methinks you need to concentrate on that now full time than us toddlers. You can always return to spank us after the matches are done. Am sure you will rock there.

[brihacharan]

[SNIP]
On 23rd June, I will go for the Grand Prix de Versailles match, both in AP and FP, the same day. FP in the morning and AP in the afternoon.
best regards
tirpassion

Best of Luck tirpassion - methinks you need to concentrate on that now full time than us toddlers. You can always return to spank us after the matches are done. Am sure you will rock there. [/quote AGN]

Hi tirpassion,
> Good Luck (Bonne Chance)
> Looking fwd to the details of your experience - will help us learn more!
Briha

[dev]

Hi Tir,

Thank you for your appreciation. Actually till HVJ1 took us under his fold we didn't know any better. Most of the so called trainers would tell a member to do holding and then do a practice match. So years went by without much improvement. I was also just a hobby shooter in my mind at that time.
Wow, you shoot really fast for such a good score. I normally shoot 40 shots withing an hour and 15 mins as per Guru's teachings in a sixty shot match. Your fitness level is very encouraging, could never do finger push ups though it was mandatory during the old Tae Kwon do days. Best of luck for your match we know that you will make us proud.

Warm Regards,

Dev