TargetTalk

Hi Guys,

I have picked up a pattern in my shooting my most common bad shot is high and right, which means and correcting me if I'm wrong I'm anticipating ???

Is there a cure for this???

Do you know how to shot a ten? Then shot tens .Congradulate yourself , thats the way you shot. Shot a bad shot ,lets say high and right . Thats not a ten .forget about it NOW! I ask you again DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOT TENS? YES YES YES, Thats your answer! now shot another ten and say to yourself " Thats the way I always shot" P.S. Dont ask anymore questions about your bad shots , Ive never shot a bad shot if I had Ive already forgot about it. YOU should be just as good as me!

The first response is probably the best ever posted on this forum. The correction for a bad shot is always Just Shoot a TEN. Please try it, I think you will like it. Goos Shooting Bill Horton

NB wrote:Do you know how to shot a ten? Then shot tens .Congradulate yourself , thats the way you shot. Shot a bad shot ,lets say high and right . Thats not a ten .forget about it NOW! I ask you again DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOT TENS? YES YES YES, Thats your answer! now shot another ten and say to yourself " Thats the way I always shot" P.S. Dont ask anymore questions about your bad shots , Ive never shot a bad shot if I had Ive already forgot about it. YOU should be just as good as me!

What if the answer is "no"?

My son is remving me from my computer so my answer (not really an answer) is you must be a REALLY bad shot.

NB wrote:Do you know how to shot a ten? Then shot tens .Congradulate yourself , thats the way you shot. Shot a bad shot ,lets say high and right . Thats not a ten .forget about it NOW! I ask you again DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOT TENS? YES YES YES, Thats your answer! now shot another ten and say to yourself " Thats the way I always shot" P.S. Dont ask anymore questions about your bad shots , Ive never shot a bad shot if I had Ive already forgot about it. YOU should be just as good as me!

And, who are you exactly?

BrentonJ wrote:Hi Guys,

I have picked up a pattern in my shooting my most common bad shot is high and right, which means and correcting me if I'm wrong I'm anticipating ???

Is there a cure for this???

Usually, bad shots "high and right" and "low and left" are due to nonconstant tension in your wrist during the movement of your finger when you pull the trigger.

The most enjoyment I get from shooting is showing a newbie stance, sight alinment ,etc. Then I tell them to shot all they want until the fear goes away. Then the basics can be reinforced ,Thats a NEWBIE. The second thing I enjoy most about shooting is introducing a good shooter to the big matches 3Xs air ,nationals , etc. Meeting them ,having them meet the other really great shooters and the good shooters in a great social enviroment. Now let me take you too the next level (quickly because I have to go to work, and by the way sorry for my last most I was quickly trying to be funny). ????? WHY?????? do you not see the really great shooters in the cafeteria ? or on targettalk ? ...The answer comes from what is being discussed. To much negitive. I have NEVER been told by a top ten shooter about their bad shots after a match and they dont want to hear about mine or yours. Party with them ,eat with them and you will find out that part of shooting never comes up. There is alot of positive to chat about. Example : How did you shoot today? answer I shoot alot of tens, Hes not going to mention the 2 7s or the 6 he shot . The negitive in Olympic shooting is NOT ALLOWED!!!! Example: After one of my worse matches I told one of the best shooters in the world I was going to quit , We where on the way to dinner and he turned and walked away from me , didnt speak to me the rest of the competition and it took acouple months for us to get on a positive level again. I called him last night and discussed some of this after my computer was taken over. This forum is called OLYMPIC PISTOL...... if you cant shoot tens go to your club and figure it out. (thats hard for me to say because helping newbies is what I enjoy the most) If you can shoot tens stop being so negitive, change yourself become a positive shooter! It will change your scores. Last note and this is a tough one. 3xs Air, one of the most enjoyable shooting events (I know some of you love Perry) Good shooters should enjoy it , stay at the OTC, have fun, but after a few time move along, GET A ROOM (sounds funny) away from the OTC , Go to the event TO WIN IT! If You come in 43th forget it you can always win tomorrow.(that is until the Sundays match).Move up stop trying to be a good shooter , act like and become a great shooter its not as hard as you might think.

That's where my bad shots go too, and I'm old enough to talk about it!
The books say they should be Left and Low because they come when I twitch, snatch or consciously fire the gun. For me it's just a matter of being calm and slowly squeezing the trigger with good followthrough.

When I started shooting, it was up into the white, and quite often. Now it very seldom happens, and rarely goes out of the black :-)
So just keep shooting according the book, and it will gradually stop happening.

My personal recent and most helpful cure is regular dry fire, not many "shots", but several times every day, plus fix your attention on the target, not the sights. I wrote attention, not focus........
Dont't worry too much about focus. Nice thing about the target: it doesn't move. I believe the sights will tend to point where you look. May not be exactly according to the textbook, but it seems to work for me. When I do it right, it's mostly nines and tens.
And yes, I agree: forget about the bad shots, and just make the next one good. Enjoy!

jackh wrote:

NB wrote:Do you know how to shot a ten? Then shot tens .Congradulate yourself , thats the way you shot. Shot a bad shot ,lets say high and right . Thats not a ten .forget about it NOW! I ask you again DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOT TENS? YES YES YES, Thats your answer! now shot another ten and say to yourself " Thats the way I always shot" P.S. Dont ask anymore questions about your bad shots , Ive never shot a bad shot if I had Ive already forgot about it. YOU should be just as good as me!

What if the answer is "no"?

Then you have a big problem.

If find the best way to do this is to take a notepad out with you when your shooting.

Every time you shoot a ten you record as many things that occurred during that shot as you can remember.

Keep doing this until you have recored about 30 tens (if you don't shoot many this may take a while.) You will have a lot of things written down, but you should start to see some commonalities between each good shot.

Start putting these common processes into a shot plan that you follow for every shot. You will then start to get an idea on how to shoot a good shoot.

Good luck.

Yes track your tens GOOD ANSWER and forget about ALL the other shots you took. Luftskytter just did everyone a favor by reinforceing in whoever read his post "How to shot a bad shot" Everyone who wanted to know now has it inplanted into their subconcious one more time. I didnt even finish reading his post I dont want my brain to know how to shoot bad shots. Dont ask " How do I stop shooting 8s or 9s?" ASK " How do I shot tens ?" Dont tell your kid "Dont strikeout!" Tell him "get a Hit !"
Someone asked about how long should I train? Just a point on that.
When training is good ,train as long as possible ! reinforceing the good ! When training is bad . stop! Like putting down your gun when an indicator in your head lets you know its not going to be good , DONT FORCE TRAIN ! reinforceing the bad! SEE HOW THAT WORKS. Dont ask the negitive question while the same situation could be solved with a positve one. TAKE THE NEGITIVE OUT OF SHOOTING!

Positive approach, in the shooters lounge. That should be moved to Olympic pistol. Anyone who is knows Basshams books can fill in where I have failed to make the point. I feel this needs to be addressed in this forum more than anything else. I am just trying to show (tell) you how the great shooters use Basshams teachings. You can read his books but to see them being used and understand that that is what is happening at that exact moment (meaning matches) (will turn the light on in your brain) . Then you will understand thats how the best use Basshams teachings. Lets Turn the Olympic pistol into positive Olympic pistol or start a new forum for shooters that dont want to reinforce the negitive.

One trick I have learnd is to shoot at target with NO SCORING RINGS. Just a black bull. Fill the the rings on some target or print some up. This negates the mental stress, anguish that could from NOT shooting tens, or 9s pr whatever. Go for groups of 2 then 3 then 4 shots. Use a spotting scope every other shot or no scope at all for a while when doing this.

NB,
there is a small group here that really only wants to reinforce what they already know, a mistake chart is the gospel here. They only want to talk, in depth, about how they shot a 7.

Some people would rather buy cases of ammo to shoot 7's rather than buy Bashhams tapes and learn positive training techniques. They only want to hear about the shortcuts or the magic dust that Champions MUST be using.

good luck,

I would title this whole thread "Think Positive Always! - revisited" since we have hashed it over many times.

I subscribe to the adage that "90% of successful shooting is mental - the rest is in your head" so I agree with trying to focus on the things that go right.

The one criticism that I would voice is this: When you are a beginner, or even a not so beginner who has very little time to practice, you may well not know exactly every thing that you have to do in order to reliably shoot a ten.

I would postulate that if you can shoot say 540+ in air pistol, then you know how to shoot tens, and the advice to forget the bad ones and concentrate on the good ones is completely applicable. But how about if you can only reliably shoot 480? Many of your tens may be 7 o'clock 7 holds that you yanked high and right. I don't know where the original poster is in his skill level, but it seems to me that the most applicable advice he has received in this thread is to dry fire a lot, concentrating on his hold and follow through.

Maybe another analogy is appropriate -(and then maybe not) When a major league baseball player (cricket batsman?) goes into a batting slump, one of the tools he will use is to look at video tape and compare how he looked when he was hitting well, to how he looks in a slump. He is trying to detect and correct bad habits he has slipped into. Then he works with a batting tee or in batting practice on eliminating the bad habits. When he bats in the game, he had better concentrate on the positive or he'll be overwhelmed. A collection of "high and rights" on a target represents a bad habit, and if the OP is floundering, I'm not sure that "Ignore the bad ones" is necessarily the best advice.

Just my confused ideas on the topic.

Alan

Now that I have advised some of what the great shooters do. Take what I posted mix it in with what you already know. Use what YOU feel COMFORTABLE using. Im just trying to move some of you onto the next level. I dont want to leave anyone behind . The best place to get rid of those 7s,8s,9s is at your local shoots. Local clubs and regional shoots are usually run alot different than the 3 or 4 big matches held every year. I find myself helping people with stance ,hold etc at every local match. It causes my scores to go down but i still manage to shot well and teach at the same time. I feel it effects my scores at the larger matches( by not treating every match like I treat nationals) but the enjoyment I get teaching is worth it. SOMEDAY I will send a kid to nationals better than me. Right now I have decided to start using Targettalk to teach those who want to shoot at the top level. So when a question of that caliber arises I will put in my 2cents.

This is a lot of great information. Even though I have begun sport pistol after shooting for fun with .22lr and air guns for a long time, I find the greatest truth is about the mental aspect. When I shoot a seven, I try to shoot a ten or a nine next. Doing this is the best ego massage that one can get. It boosts my confidence enough to not go into a down ward spiral. One of our greatest shooters Mr. Samresh Jung was practicing at the Karni Singh range one day when I was potting about with a .22 free rifle. I saw that he shot a seven with his free pistol I thought wow even the Gods make a mistake. He then proceeded to continue his practice totally unruffled by that one shot.
It was a great free lesson to me, I used to think that elite shooters had magic guns or that they were born with a pistol glued to their hand. It is their 'never say die' attitude that makes them shine.

Apologies for my long post, if it seems like too much gospel from a beginner :-). Please excuse me.

Dev

NB wrote:My son is remving me from my computer so my answer (not really an answer) is you must be a REALLY bad shot.

Not an encouraging answer from Mr Positive. I could feel insulted. But my previous question was intended to strike a discussion. Looks like I did.

Alan,
that is a good analogy about the video camera, some people use them to good effect in shooting also.

To your comment about a newer shooter not reliably executing a ten I always recommend either blank target shooting for group (instead of a single shot value) and more dryfire. I think that when people start this sport or hobby if you will, they have no idea that they will need to spend so much time without bullets. Who would guess that just starting but it is essential to developing the individual shot process that each of us have. I also submit that it doesn't necessarily have to be ten for a new shooter to learn from. As long as it's a shot on call the shooter has executed well. If they saw every part of the shot and called it's value, they can learn from it. The problem for newer shooters is that a lot of times they have no idea how a shot ended up in the corner, which leads to the next thought.

There are many natural reactions to overcome in order to shoot tens consistently, mostly not flinching and keeping your eyes open before during and after the shot. Think about it, we know there is a mini-explosion about to happen in our hand, it's natural to blink or anticipate and these two reactions cause errors. I believe because some people are just able to accept that the shot is happening and they don't flinch and can keep their eye on the sight throughout the shot that they excel faster, even though their hold isn't any better. Because they can really see what they are doing faster, thereby breaking down the little parts they have fewer shots with no idea how they got there.
In my opinion anyone can overcome these two factors but it takes longer for some than others. Anyone without some kind of physical/neurological condition that is. Overcoming the flinch for some just comes from as they say "getting knee deep in brass" but I say it can also come from dryfire. I chose to dryfire my way through flinching. There is no reason to flinch while shooting air pistol, there is no real recoil, but many people still do it.

After dryfiring almost daily (sometimes for only 15 minutes) for a year or so my scores jumped but more importantly my shot calls became very accurate. Once my calls became accurate I could really work with a coach to fine tune my process and mental focus on that process. Now if I have a shot out of the center I see why and I can make an adjustment or just accept that I didn't execute perfectly, IF I do have a flyer I know it was because I blinked and just accept it. But either way I move on to the next shot in the barrel, stay positive.
Being able to call your shots is crucial to having a shot process that enables ten after ten. A person has to overcome flinching and blinking in order to call shots.


cheers,
Robert

That was a great ? Jack. My response was meant to be a joke . The one poster answered your ? well, as well as the last post. I actually sensed a little humor in your ? ,which triggered a (had to be fast ) joking response.

NB wrote:
"Luftskytter just did everyone a favor by reinforceing in whoever read his post "How to shot a bad shot" Everyone who wanted to know now has it inplanted into their subconcious one more time."

You claim to have a sense og humour, so here goes:
So you chickened out when reading the first lines of my post?
Too bad since I didn't really elaborate about how to shoot bad shots.....

I'm not a great shot, but think I'm presently on the right track, mostly due to dry firing excercises with a positive attitude. I also have enough coaching education to know the damaging effect of the expression "don't ever .......!".
So we agree there: think postive and point your attention where you want to go rather than focusing on problems.

But I also believe that if you have a problem, it needs to be analyzed to get rid of things that don't work. If you have a coach that does this for you and points you in he right direction without telling you what was wrong, this may be OK. But many shooters don't have this luxury and have to sort things out by themselves.

BTW,
one thing that seems to arrest the "up and to the right" thing for me is to establish a solid tight grip with the thumb. Don't squeeze hard, just make sure to plant the thumb tightly along the shelf before the rest of the hand and the other fingers. Maybe this simple routine doesn't work for everybody, but I think it's worth trying and doesn't contain any negative thoughts.