At the encouragement of a good friend, I decided that today would be the perfect day to start “blogging”. Blogging, what is that really? Is it to talk about all I know in the shooting sports? Is it to tell everyone how great I am as a coach and shooter? I think not! In fact, I am always learning on that front, and always will be for that matter. I’m kind of thinking it is a great place to share my inner thoughts, let people know I am as capable of screwing up my own shooting or making silly mistakes as the next shooter, beginner or veteran.
We certainly all have our good and bad days. But maybe it is admitting to having had a bad day shooting that sometimes folks need to hear. So today, I went shooting with a buddy and the first couple of stations went fine. Then I got to a station and missed a couple of targets I should not have missed. Tried again, too hard apparently, hit one, missed one. Now, I was missing targets I have shot 100‘s of times. Naturally my mind went everywhere….I am female after all!
Anyhow, I was shooting a new gun for me, and had been moving the stock adjustments all around for folks to try so my first thought was, it is the gun. Partially true, yes. But I believe if you are really focused, and can shoot like I usually can, this is probably poor excuse #1. Then came #2, #3 and #4 excuses. They would be, the sun was in my eyes, I lifted my head, I stopped the gun, I closed both eyes (ha) and so on.
And such was the day. About 6 stations into it, I was flinching like someone was tazering me. It was then I realized I was way over thinking everything! I had an acute case of Analysis Paralysis I like to tell my students when it comes to shooting, “A mind is a terrible thing”. Period. Don’t even try to add the “to waste” to the end of it.
Bottom line, I still had fun outside, shooting, in the fall and tomorrow is another day! Now if it will just hurry up and get here!