January 2026 copy - Flipbook - Page 22
The
Mental Aspect
of
Match Shooting
by Steve Anderson
I missed the regularly
scheduled match earlier
this month but got to make
it up today. Went in fairly
cold, with no preparation.
I decided to enjoy the day
and do what I could. Focus, work on my focus.
That’s what I’ll do. So, my
squad started on the 昀椀fth
station, separate from the
silhouette match but fun
nonetheless. This was a
bust. Couldn’t get on target
and with no berm behind
the targets it either seems
to work or not. Today was
not. On to the pigs. These
went easy enough. Being
only 100 meters and large
for the distance they went
well, cleaned all 10. Now
22
the dreaded turkeys. Wow.
Cleaned
them also.
The God’s
favor me
today. Rams
are next
and I vapor
locked and dropped one
for it. Still, 9 rams is okay.
Lastly is the chickens. The
dinky little chickens. Take
a deep breath and away we
go. At this point the world
went away. Now’s the time
for that focus.
Politics took a break. Finances were a non-issue.
The weather was rather
pleasant, so with a couple
minutes of wind taken out
from the ram setting it’s
o昀昀 to the races. Frankly
I’ve no idea what happened then. I remember
missing the 昀椀rst one. From
there however is a blur till
the last bird. It escaped my
best e昀昀orts. At that point
I felt disgusted. It should
have been a hit and so
should have others. Damn.
I wanted do overs. Then I
hear the score keeper say,
“looks like 35.” Wait, what
did he say? Innocently I
ask “did I hit 6?” Fact is I
did. Ok, that sort of works.
To most it would seem obvious, but I avoid the score
board like it’s the plague.
In my mind I sort of know
what my score is but no
one else’s and as such have
no idea where I 昀椀t in the
bigger picture. So, it takes
a while for me to process
all this information. Somehow my focus doesn’t
allow me to keep score and
shoot. Just shoot. One shot
at a time. Just shoot. One
bird, the crosshairs were
perfect on two occasions,
but I was asking for a better sight picture. Finally,
the third time I was on the
bird I convinced myself to
Modern BPCR Shooter - January, 2026
