For the last while, my primary intention has been an improvement in basic fundamental skills and their consistent application. I would say that this has been a qualified success. I have been paying more attention to my position and the way in which I orient my firing point each time. I have been more keenly observing a consistent positioning of my support hand and arm and the relationship of the sling to them. I've been much better with regard to my head positioning and my right elbow. Currently, my physical position feels good, solid and tight. What I'm currently experimenting with is grip pressure. From an academic point of view, my understanding of wind conditions has improved greatly, and while I won't claim I don't get caught out, I've gotten much better at it.
Where I am currently failing is in my mental game. The physical skills exist to take good shots, consistently. What I am lacking is the mental wherewithal to consistently execute them. I am releasing shots on insufficiently good sight pictures, failing to focus strongly enough on trigger control and not following through as well as I want to. The issue is that, having built the technical skills to shoot well, and having learned the ability to read wind conditions, I am still taking sloppy shots for some reason, and I don't know why. I know it too. It's not as though I'm surprised after a lot of the shots. Even when I shoot well, however, there are conditions I cannot as yet fathom, being mirage and intense light (light changes I have largely been able to deal with). Having gone over my score sheet from yesterday and highlighting demonstrable effects of intense light and mirage in the placement of shots, I found eighteen points I could have had otherwise. Now, fifteen shots is still too many to lose sloppily, but it would tie roughly with my own assessment of my diligent application of technique yesterday. Had I been less focused, the result might have been significantly worse!
From here, I intend to further my improvements on position and fundamental technique. I want to develop my trigger control and attention to sight picture better, and particularly the relationship between the two. I want to pay more attention to my follow through and to calling the shots as I take them and observing the recoil patterns, the standardisation of which I also intend to pursue over the summer. The trick for me is going to be the mental isolation of shots, which is very hit and miss for me at the moment. The problem is that I might achieve it, and then get the shot, and then I might get the next one, and I might start to associate the two and then I get a few more, but eventually I start to think of the group, or the string, rather than the shot, and then I lose some from the group or the string. Sometimes this doesn't happen and I put in six or seven good shots in a row, but then I drop one, and then suddenly it becomes about the string. So the problem occurs from different causes, but the results are the same. The issue is similar with regard to the lack of due diligence to sight picture. There's something telling me that I can always make up for a sub-standard shot later, when really I can't, and it's not the point one way or another. It's something I have to drill out and I'm not sure how best to do so.
The other plan for the summer is to get some running and physical training going and then spend some range time and dry-firing time working on standing and kneeling, and shooting a few 3P matches. This will be a new development for me. While I shot a few sessions kneeling and did some work on a standing setup for my rifle this year, I never got to shoot that much as I have been very much focused on my prone shooting. I intend for this to remain the case, but to include some supplemental 3P stuff, as ultimately, more shooting is just going to reinforce the same techniques and fundamentals.
I'm hesitant to state where I want to be over the next while, but I'd really quite like to average 580+ over the summer. However, since I'm not able to train at the moment with exams and the like, I'd happily settly for 580+ over the last few matches by the end of the summer. I am improving, and I'm still seeing my flaws, vividly, so the work is still all ahead of me.
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