Tips on Pistol Shooting

[hvj1]

Thanks Dev, will compose my thoughts and get down to it, difference between 9 and 10? Lot of gray areas there, need to discuss it when we meet.
Regards

[jitu sati]

hey guys whenever u start the mental thread do let all know as we would all like to acquire all the knowledge though we are still taking the first baby steps as far as 10mtr ap is considered
jitu

[dev]

Thanks Dev, will compose my thoughts and get down to it, difference between 9 and 10? Lot of gray areas there, need to discuss it when we meet.
Regards

Like I said pardon my ignorance. It will be an honour to meet you Sir.

Regards,

Dev

[jitu sati]

hey hvj
the SA is still hovering around 80%.one day it goes to slightly above 80 and then again it dips. need to concentrate more i guess
jitu

[hvj1]

hey hvj
the SA is still hovering around 80%.one day it goes to slightly above 80 and then again it dips. need to concentrate more i guess
jitu

Great! So now you are ready for some basic mental training lessons, in order to cross your 80% mark we need to use the following;
1. Attitude
2. Diary
3. Visualisation
4. Box Drills
5. Self Image.
Points No. 1,2,3 & 5 are aspects of Mental Training, it is now time to start a new thread on the subject. Starting a new thread is necessary, since 'MentalTraining' can be used by the general public in their day to day lives. We will keep both threads going at the same time.
Regards

[jitu sati]

hey by the way hvj when i am combining the 8s and SA the hold and SA appear to be pretty steady when i hold it for the moment in the white. but when i am doing real shooting there is a lot of lateral movement of the hand. now the grip appears to remain steady then why is there a lateral movement from the shoulder. is there any way to lock the shoulder the way we lock the wrist.
jitu

[hvj1]

This new thread is in response to a common demand made by Jitu & Dev, who are learning to shoot the ISSF air pistol event. My friend Jitu is encountering a 'PROBLEM', which is - that he is finding it difficult to cross the 80% barrier in a specifc training programme.

Not only shooting, but most of us face 'barriers' or 'limits' in our everyday lives, for example,
Some people find it extremely difficult to speak in Public - in fact, they are quite mortified with the prospect of facing the mike.
So if you happen to be one of them, what do you do, when faced with such a situation?
MOST OF US TRY TO AVOID IT. (I know, I used to do the same).
But then think of the opportunities lost. To succeed in life, one needs to have leadership qualities and in order to lead, one must learn to inspire and motivate others, individually as well as in groups. But then you have this problem of facing a mike!
Facing a mike or public speaking is just a 'mental barrier' or a self-imposed 'limit'. Conditioning your mind, through 'Mental Training' helps us to overcome these barriers and limits.
Lesson No.1 Attitude
To my mind, ‘attitude’ is the first chapter in Mental Training
Attitude is ‘an opinion or general feeling we harbor within ourselves towards something’ or ‘the way we look at things in life’
Our attitude is challenged when we specifically face a ‘problem’. We can define ‘problem’ as a difficult situation to deal with, but I think, I do have a better explanation.
Let us look at a few examples;
1.A person shying away from facing a mike, is facing a problem, a difficult situation hard to handle.
Ideally, what he really DESIRES, is to be able to go up to the podium and speak confidently.
The reason he cannot do it is because he FEARS that he may FAIL or generally make a fool of himself.

2.The young fellow who dithers and hesitates to propose or disclose his love for some girl, is facing a problem, a situation he is finding too hard to handle.
Ideally, what he DESIRES, is to be able to tell his girlfriend, what he really feels towards her and win her over.
The reason he cannot do so, is because he FEARS rejection from the girl coupled with the FEAR of loosing her entirely.
Well if he dithers too long, somebody is bound to come around and take her away.

3.A young couple, desperately DESIRE to buy a new house.
This couple DESIREs to buy a house but don’t have the money enough to buy a house.

In the examples above, everybody DESIREs something,
the first - really desires, to be able to go up to the podium and speak confidently.
The second - desires, to tell his girlfriend, what he really feels towards her and win her over.
In the third – The couple desires to buy a house so that they can live happily.

When one does not get what he/she DESIRES, he/she is facing a problem. Most of the times, the object of our desire is out of our mental, physical, material, emotional ability. In the first two examples it was confidence (mental/emotional) that was lacking and in the third, it is money (material).

Think about any particular ‘problem’ that you may be facing in your lives and check out the reasoning given above.

As we all know, that our desires are here to stay, right from the time we take birth to the time we die. Our physical body is the seat of all desires.
So there must be some logic and reason (divine if you may) for us to harbor desires in our lives. You don’t have to look too far, imagine yourself sitting in a room, watching a thriller on T.V. suddenly the lights go out due to a blown fuse. Your reaction is one of exasperation, you are now facing a small problem- you want to continue enjoying the thriller but you cannot.
You can solve the problem by changing the fuse, but the fuse box is OUT OF YOUR PHYSICAL REACH, so you take a stool, climb onto it and change the fuse, voila! Problem solved.
Hold it, don’t get down from the stool yet. Remember, I what told you?
Most of the times, the things that we desire, is just out of our physical, mental, intellectual, material ability. The fuse box, was out of our PHYSICAL reach, in order to solve the problem we had to raise our level from that of the floor to the level of the stool, so we overcame our physical limit ( lack of height).
But is this not the way we solve problems in life? We raise our levels of functioning and abilities from a lower level to a higher level in order to attain the things that we desire.Think back on all the problems you have faced and overcome, you will find that you have evolved to higher level of functioning and abilities.
By facing our problems and striving to overcome them, we EVOLVE as human beings. This is why we take on a physical body, with its embedded desires, which leads to problems, which when overcome, helps us to evolve to a higher level.
This in short is the meaning of life.So, if you agree with this philosophy, then you will agree to the importance of facing life with a positive attitude.

(Excerpts from my book Why do we face problems in Life?)

[hvj1]

Yes Jitu, all you have to do it TELL yourself to LOCK your Shoulder. Check out the Mental Training Thread.
Regards

[jitu sati]

hey hvj
nice thread. most needed for me and people like me who are now face to face a with a hurdle which day to day thinking is not helping in overcoming. hope fully when i hold both the threads together i will be able to get the cloth of success in 10 mtr ap.
jitu

[jitu sati]

ok sir. will try and and tell myself to do so today. and will try and visualise myself in a posn where i am comfortable , relaxed and at the same time have the shoulder and wrist locked
jitu

[hvj1]

Holding Exercise:
In addition to the fig.8 exercise, you must now commence on holding the steady Sight Alignment within the aiming area for at least 10 seconds. Do not be bothered about any lateral movement. Use Box Drill exercises to tick mark those repetitions where you have maintained an undisturbed SA for 10 seconds. Once again, do not be bothered by arc of movement or how wide it is or how many times you leave the aiming area. Just stay fcussed on undisturbed and steady SA.
Ratio: Fig 8 - 40 reps & AA holding 20 reps.
Regards

[hvj1]

Have you felt the 'willies' or butterflies just before facing an exam, or before any important event, where your abilities will be challenged?
Have you experienced situations, where you wish that you could have said things better or performed better, but bottled up due to tension and nervousness?

At the begininning of my active National Level Shooting career, I was known to be one of the hardest working chaps on the shooting range. I took each and every practice session very seriously, so focussed was I, that shooting mates, would not even say a casual hello just to avoid disturbing my concentration!

Hours and hours of practice before a match, I was sure that I would shoot extremely well. And why not? I had worked hard! But on the day of the match, my palms would sweat, stomach contract, breathing shortened. In the 40 shot matches for novices, my first two series (10 shots per series) would just go by in a blur!
However much I tried to bring to bear all my hard work to correct my poor shots, I failed, my mind would just not work. By the end of the last series, I was finally composed and shooting really well, the way I should have right from the start. But it was too late. The difference between my practice match scores and actual match scores, were around 20 points!
After the match I took hours to get out of my depression. Some of the Old Timers would advise me that I must shoot a lot of matches. But even after shooting a number of matches, I was not coming any closer to my practice performance.
So have you had any such experiences in life?

[jitu sati]

will start from today.thx
jitu

[jitu sati]

have just started the practice matches of 40 shots. will let u know how i feel when i really enter a actual match. but one the thing for sure that one does feel very calm and steady when doing the SA ex but when the actual shooting starts there is certainly a bit of nervousness.
jitu

[hvj1]

I have already tackled the attitude part in my MT thread, now coming to diary;
Diary:
1. Write down in positive terms, that you will achieve 85% in your next session. Write down why you should do it, how it will benefit you and affirm self confidence within yourself. Write as much as you can.
Box Drills
1. Break up your boxes in sets of 5, now you have to achieve 5/5, sometimes even if you achieve 4/5 half the time you will still achieve 85%.
2. Before raising the pistol, mentally prepare yourself, put in effort in visualising what you are going to do in the next 10 seconds, start when you are fresh and then be ABOLUTELY confident that you will raise the pistol and achieve steady SA through out the 10 seconds.
3. One needs to get into this habit of PREPERATION before each and every repetition. ONLY then will you achieve higher percentage.
4. Put your entire manhood on the line, YOU HAVE to achieve it, come what may, DO or DIE doing it!
5. AND BOSS, to go over 80% to achieve 100% you have to put in EFFORT. Remember what I have said in the MT, that most of the times the barriers we need to cross, requires EVOLVING. More than anything, it is this mental evolving which is the most important thing.SO GO ON- DO IT, DO IT in your MIND,pump up the power, RAISE YOUR LEVEL, (shout out some chaste Punjabi Gallis - BC.....Main Karoonga! Main BC 85% achieve karoonga.....!
The motto of the Poona Horse Regiment is Himmat e mardaan, Khuda hai mehrban.
Regards