Hello Friends,
In the last few videos, we have been discussing; ‘Mental Focus’. Now, you will see that there are broadly two kind of shooters and the way they walk into the range, you can make out who is the top shooter.
Normal shooters and ordinary shooters, you can make out from their body language, they will always come in a group or with their friends and they are busy talking and looking around here and there while they are approaching the shooting range.
When they enter the shooting range, you can make out from their body language that there is no ‘mental focus’ in these people because they are more interested in coming to the shooting range for socialising.
The hi’s and the hellos, and what were you doing yesterday and I called you up… this is the movie I saw…
Now you compare that with a top class shooter, and I have seen many of them. When they come on the range they will not waste time chit chatting, looking here or there. They have a very clear goal in their mind. They know exactly what they want to do and they know how much time it will take them to achieve their training goal or whatever goal they have set for themselves for that day or for that session.
They will occupy their lanes and then they will walk off and start their warm up routine. And they are 100% focussed on their physical warming up, on their technical warming up and their mental warming up. If you watch them, they are somewhere on the side of the range, completely on their own.
They don’t like to make eye contact with any shooter. Or even if they talk to the jury or range officer or their coach, after their conversation, they switch back immediately to concentrate on their warming up.
Compare this with other shooters, they may be doing it in pairs or in a group. And their eyes are floating everywhere…
When you walk into the shooting range and not only the shooting range but from the time you leave your house or in times of competition, when you leave your hotel room. You are supposed to be totally focussed; you know exactly what you want to do. So, even before you step into the shooting range, you are mentally focussed.
When you step into the shooting range, you have a series of activities on which you need to focus on mentally 100 % till you occupy the firing point.
Once you have completed your entire warming up routine, technical, mental and physical warming up and you occupy the firing point, the only focus that you should have… the only thought which you should be thinking of in your mind is what you are going to do when the sights come into the aiming area. So, your focus is completely centred on what you are going to do when your sights come into the aiming area.
And this is the Mental Focus which is required….
When you go in a shooting range when there is no competition or even when there is a competition scheduled, you can make out a top level shooter straight away through the body language.
The one who is focused on just one thing, which is what she/he is going to do when the sights come into the aiming area. His or her body language is so different because he/she is completely switched off from the world around them.
This is the mental focus which is required when you come into the shooting range and these are the thoughts that you should be thinking, JUST on What you are going to do when your sights come into the aiming area…
And your entire activity, the moment you step into the range, till you reach the firing point, till you pick up the pistol to fire the first shot… your entire process of warming up (technical, physical & mental) is to achieve a ‘10’ in the very first shot that you shoot.
And not only the first shot but in the series you must shoot as many 10’s as possible. And that will show whether you are mentally focussed or not.
I request all these shooters who aspire to become international shooters to take up their diary and write down what their training goal is for the training session for that particular day. Get into the habit of setting up a training goal for each and every session.
After your session is over write down the points that you have learnt and the points which you need to improve in the next session. This will help you to improve your mental focus when you step in the shooting range.
Thank you.
