TargetTalk

I'm a haried father of 2 teenagers with household renovations always in process and more demands on my time than I can stand. Practice time for me is difficult to come by. I usually shoot 50 shots per practice session in my basement. Half the time I feel too distracted to want to bother and I'm concerned that I may just be reinforcing bad habits if my mental focus isn't there. On the other hand if I'm not practicing, I'm not improving or even gaining muscle stength for the days when I can concentrate. I also know that I have to learn to shoot on the days when focus is difficult. Any suggestions on how to approach this problem. Shoot fewer shots / shorter practice, longer practice on the days the focus is there? Should I simply practice finding my NPA without shooting, dryfire?
Thanks, PCW

I remember a quite high-ranked and lovely woman shooter telling me she kept an air pistol in her kitchen and would take a few shots every time she walked by it.

What could it hurt?

I remember those days. What helped was scheduling "me" time once a week. Even if only 15-30 minutes.

The first five minutes after getting to the range was quietly sitting, eyes closed, trying to relax and reach that "zen" place. Sometimes it took almost my entire scheduled time, so I only got to dry fire and a few live shots. Always felt better afterwards. Slowly I got to where the five minutes became "automatic" and "enough" so i could shoot longer. Eventually I found myself relaxing as I drove into the parking lot, and was ready to dry fire by the time I got all the equipment out.

You have to take care of yourself (physically and mentally) before your brain can improve your shooting. Now the shooting itself has become the "zen" time. Too bad I can no longer see very well, and back hurts all the time, but my goal is to still be shooting at leasat bench and offhand at age 85 (16 yrs).

The thread on shot rejection is what got me thinking about this. There are some days when my concentration isn't where I would like it to be and I should reject almost all my shots, but I pull the trigger anyway just to have something to show for my time. The results are depressing. When I've managed to go to the basement and pick up my rifle but find my focus isn't really there, what should I do?

Sometimes I'll put the rifle away and have a beer and read a book, but once I've made the effort to get started I would like to something productive. I worry that I'm just going to reenforce bad habits. Are some drills I could do that would help?

First thing is to "get right" with the world and yourself. That's where the meditation comes in. Belly breathing can help.

Learning to reject shots IS productive. You have to learn it eventually, why not start now? Perhaps setting a goal of "X" number of shots fired (no scoring) to start. When that goal is met increase it, and perhaps shoot groups (no scoring).

pcw wrote:The thread on shot rejection is what got me thinking about this. There are some days when my concentration isn't where I would like it to be and I should reject almost all my shots, but I pull the trigger anyway just to have something to show for my time. The results are depressing. When I've managed to go to the basement and pick up my rifle but find my focus isn't really there, what should I do?

Sometimes I'll put the rifle away and have a beer and read a book, but once I've made the effort to get started I would like to something productive. I worry that I'm just going to reenforce bad habits. Are some drills I could do that would help?

I think shot rejection is one of the most important and yet most overlooked fundamental skill. It's also been my greatest challenge. Can someone point to the thread?

Never mind....found it!

pcw wrote:There are some days when my concentration isn't where I would like it to be and I should reject almost all my shots, but I pull the trigger anyway just to have something to show for my time.

This is a bad idea. If your head isn't in the game, there is nothing you can do that will bring something positive.
Shooting is mostly mental, so if your head isn't there, it's like going to a car race with all your gear but leaving the racing car at home...

pcw wrote:When I've managed to go to the basement and pick up my rifle but find my focus isn't really there, what should I do?

Walk away, go do something else.

pcw wrote:Sometimes I'll put the rifle away and have a beer and read a book, but once I've made the effort to get started I would like to something productive. I worry that I'm just going to reenforce bad habits. Are some drills I could do that would help?

What I would do is schedule your practice time, say from xx pm until yy pm, but do it a few days (or weeks) earlier, so that you'll have to wait for it.
If you spend a day thinking that you have a practice session at xx hours, you will probably be more "into it" than just going shooting when you have some time available.

Again, and this is extremely important, if your head isn't in the game, walk away!

Hope this helps

When the teenagers "find" someone of the opposite sex they will pretty much be doing something with out you most of the time. Hire contractors to take care of all the remodeling, lawn services, pool boy, auto detailer, painter, and all the other time consuming crap that enters out lives. Take all this new found time and start to actually enjoy shooting. If you want to spend time with your wife buy her the best top quality shooting equipment that is made and have her enjoy this sport with you. If she stops this gives you great back up guns.

Unless you are a pro and have time for it every ones shooting goes in the crapper when you have a family.

As to shooting when you can't focus, STOP. You are only practicing shooting badly.

The converse is when they are all going in the 10 ring keep shooting until they stop.
The bottom line is you want to practice shooting well. Practicing bad shots is counter productive.

One technique I found to be helpful for the time challenged is to use mental rehearsal when you have a few minutes of down time. Run through a few shots in your head when you are not doing other things.

gwsb wrote:One technique I found to be helpful for the time challenged is to use mental rehearsal when you have a few minutes of down time. Run through a few shots in your head when you are not doing other things.

I used to do this while sitting in traffic during the daily commute. It can even help to remove the stress of sitting in that traffic.

Alan

I've thought about dryfiring at a target back so I still get the practice of shot rehersal with out seeing the disappointing wobble of my sights. It seems like I could focus on poise and position without the negative feed back.

Rover wrote:I remember a quite high-ranked and lovely woman shooter telling me she kept an air pistol in her kitchen and would take a few shots every time she walked by it.

What could it hurt?

The cat?

gwsb wrote:As to shooting when you can't focus, STOP. You are only practicing shooting badly.

The converse is when they are all going in the 10 ring keep shooting until they stop.

Right on!

pcw wrote:I've thought about dryfiring at a target back so I still get the practice of shot rehersal with out seeing the disappointing wobble of my sights. It seems like I could focus on poise and position without the negative feed back.

At Norwich City Airgun club live firing onto either an all black or all white card is also a popular training technique, with both the rifle and pistol shooters. A lot of the shooters will shoot five or so shots like this at the start of any shooting session, just to get into the flow. of course not part of your match prep routine. If you have a reasonably good position/hold you should shoot groups not much larger than when shooting normally at an aiming point.

Alan

pcw wrote:I'm a haried father of 2 teenagers with household renovations always in process and more demands on my time than I can stand. Practice time for me is difficult to come by. I usually shoot 50 shots per practice session in my basement. Half the time I feel too distracted to want to bother and I'm concerned that I may just be reinforcing bad habits if my mental focus isn't there. On the other hand if I'm not practicing, I'm not improving or even gaining muscle stength for the days when I can concentrate. I also know that I have to learn to shoot on the days when focus is difficult. Any suggestions on how to approach this problem. Shoot fewer shots / shorter practice, longer practice on the days the focus is there? Should I simply practice finding my NPA without shooting, dryfire?
Thanks, PCW

There is a difference in practice and training. The little time you have should be focused on training, that is improving a specific area. If your heart isn't in it, you are at least wasting your time and may be actually hurting. Larry Carter said that he doesn't train all that much, but he works on a lot of pistols. He said that when he would dry fire a shot, he would focus on it, like it was the most important shot in a match. The suggestion to make time by hiring help or paying your teens for some household chores might be worthwhile. I personally don't think that setting aside "me" time should make one feel guilty. If shooting is a rewarding hobby for you, by all means set aside enough time to help you improve. If spending time with the family and doing household chores and home improvements is more rewarding, then give up competitive shooting. One thing for sure is if your family doesn't support you in your shooting, nobody will be happy with you continuing on this road.

There's plenty on TT and elsewhere about the importance of dry fire training. It's easier for me to find a half hour to dry fire pointing at a blank wall than it is to setup my target and live fire. Plus I can quietly 'hide' somewhere in my house to get it done.

I guess what I'm hoping to hear are suggestions on how to best use the small bits of personal time I do get. These times are often at the end of the day or perhaps in the middle of the weekend when I'm not expecting it. I go down to my basement where I can shoot my air rifle at 10 meters and find that my concentration is not really there, my hold is rotten and I start getting frustrated. But since I'm down there I want to make some good use of my time. Practicing shot sequence is a good idea and I like Pat McCoy's idea about just trying to get in a settled mind space (I'm sure that it would get easier with practice). I figure that I'm not the only one who starts a practice session only to find they're distracted. I think I'll try dry firing on a blank piece of paper and try to focus on poise and balance. And also work on settling into position and adjusting NPA. Perhaps if I simply practice these things, I can settle my mind more easily and begin to focus. As for hiring things out, I can't afford to pay anyone else to do the work at the quality levels I demand, that would be too expencive.

Thanks, PCW

A couple specific techniques we use with our juniors 9notorious for poor attention span): when you enter your shooting area take everything you have i your mind and put it in a sack and hang it on the wall (or a tree) to be picked up after shooting is done. No you can go to the next item: mental relaxation, often done through visualizing a few perfect (always) shots. To do that you need to have developed a pre-shot routine (written), which is a step by step process for each shot, and can be referred to if focus is broken. Use a "cue" (a word, or visual image) to start the routine. for a good example watch the movie "For Love of the Game" to see the protagonist "clear the mechanism" before big pitches.