Shooting from the pen

Over to Navneet Singh:

The warm-ups

8226; The first thing I needed was tips. Plenty of tips.

Tips from top shooters came in handy. Melbourne Commonwealth Games best athlete Samresh Jung of Delhi is always ready to help. Then there was Harveen Srao.

They eventually helped in improving my score by more than 11 points. That8217;s how I broke the 560 8216;barrier8217; in the men8217;s air pistol category.

The tips

8226; Match-eve, ace pistol shooter Jung, explains the fundamentals. I have been shooting for two years now, but talking to Jung made all the difference.

8220;A shooter must prepare himself properly mentally and physically before releasing the shot. Follow the procedure throughout the 60-shot match.8221;

That is scary, and exhausting. He said more: 8220;Preparation includes proper stance, triggering and follow-through. All the points are vital for a good card.8221;

I go to Srao, women8217;s air pistol star. 8220;Focus on scoring a 10,8221; she says. Easier said that done, for me. Want if I can8217;t? 8220;Take a break after a bad shot, helps in coming back to scoring a good shot.8221;

Bad shot?

8226; Well, let me explain. A bad shot for an international shooter means any shot outside 10. For a beginner, like me, though, it can mean a lot of things.

Off to battle

8226; Keeping those wise words of the top shooters in mind, I began. First shot just outside ten, yet I wasn8217;t under any kind of pressure. Is this what we write as 8220;underdog advantage?8221;

But the relaxed mode helped. I must share a secret tip here: don8217;t calculate the score, go ahead and shoot. Quite like Sachin8217;s not looking at the scoreboard, you see.

I saw the scores later. Next shot, a perfect 10. Wow! First card, seven out of ten good shots all ten, two eights good for me, poor for the top shooters: an average of 95.

That8217;s it, I told myself, I was living it, living my reports in the daily. No deviating from the basics, no calculating. The second card was 94. Then came the best: 97.

Losing focus

8226; Then came the point I always write about, about the excitement from within that sort of clouds your stance, your quiet.

I wasn8217;t being able to focus. The first 35 minutes were fine, but thereafter I had trouble keeping myself in the match. That was the mind-training part I write about, what the shooters need, want, a psychologist in the squad.

After the first 30 shots Jung was only one point ahead. But after one hour 45 minutes I realised how tired your mind can be, just standing there, focusing. And my legs were giving away, it seemed. 93 in the fourth card. I was slipping 8212; fifth card: 91.

Ending blues

8226; With 10 minutes to go, I had ten shots at hand. Okay for the top ones, but a stretch for me. Suddenly, I had lost sight of the basics. Three more bad shots and a final card of 93.

Phew! My previous best score in 2005 was 552/600. In Ahmedabad it was 563.

Final assessment

1. Focus on each shot is important.

2. It has to be a continued process for 60-shot match.

3. Next time I write a story I should remember all that.