Since I've more or less announced that I'm officially coming back to target shooting, I may as well make my excuses/offer some sort of explanation as to what happened over the past year (or two). Basically, a bad combination of feeling out of place with not speaking German (or not speaking it well enough), moving around the place, culture shock, laziness meant that I had little to no motivation to go shooting. It wasn't until a colleague at work mentioned that he'd like to try pistol shooting that my thoughts stirred again and I suggested the range that I'd been to at the end of 2010.
It took another month or so before we got around to going, him never having shot before, and me with my custom jacket and shiny new rifle. The one that I had only fired test shots in the shop with. You know the one. Two posts down. I've had it a while, and really made good use of the dry firing mechanism on it. It may be wearing out at this point :D The back wall of my apartment has probably thousands of imaginary holes in it at this stage.
Actually getting to shoot the thing was great. The first shot had a stupid grin plastered all over my face and that more or less continued for the next hour or however long we were there. Since I don't have pants, my back was wrecked after it, so baby steps while I get used to the position again. The shooting itself wasn't great, but I wasn't expecting much better (and I'm still not, for the record. I'm happy to give myself a bit of time to get used to this whole thing again).
That said, there has been continuous week on week improvement in my shooting. Working out what's not consistent, fixing it. Getting rid of stress points in the position, muscle tension, etc. A chat with Aisling highlighted something useful I could try, which worked. Making sure I roll my head forward, rather than to the side and then forward will probably save me 5 points a string, nevermind over the course of a match. Keeping the rifle close, the left arm vertical, all those little things that you kinda forget over time, those are all coming back to me rapidly so my progression should be pretty fast for the first while. Got back into the 90s the last time I shot, should improve on that again the next time with a few other bits and pieces.
Of course, you may be thinking that this is all well and good, but what's the next step? Well, I don't know. I know what the next step would be if I were shooting 560+. But I'm not. So there's no point in explaining that. I'm going to take this one step at a time and work on my shooting for now. Maybe see if I can squeeze in some prone during the week. Start training twice a week, once I can stomach the trip from work to home to range and back home again. If the scores pick up, I'll hopefully be able to get in some more range time. The range is currently only open Tuesdays and Thursdays, which limits my range time, understandably. I need to pick up on the dry firing at home from twice a week to 3-4, certainly. Once the ice clears, I'll start cycling to work again, get the physical side of things going again.
This time, I have a lot of time to plan. Or rather, I've planned for a lot of time to plan. I've stopped rushing to get to an international match, just for the sake of it. If anything, I've learned a bit of patience over the past while. So I shall wait. Improve. Shoot more shots per night. Consider getting measured for shooting pants (to save my back, if nothing else) and buying shooting boots. Converse shoes are all well and good, but some sort of ankle support would be nice :D We'll see how it goes. I'll try to put pictures and videos up here of my position and shooting technique as it gets a little better.
Also, if you'd be more interested in checking out somebody who's shooting well at the moment, I have a new blogroll on the right. Some of the Danish national team have blogs which read very well through google translate (to English anyway. YMMV). If anybody has any more blogs to hand, please do let me know. So long for now.
