The company you keep
There’s a saying ‘It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you hang around seagulls’ and ‘Show me your five closest friends and I’ll show you your future’. Some of the themes from these sayings are discussed further in this article.
Purposeful Practice
PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE This journal entry details how to get the most out of your practice time and prepare for it the best way you can. Competition shooting is great in that the match director can show you your weaknesses under pressure. You also get lots of repetitions and gun handling. A lot of people rise […]
Too much Party
An old Army mate invited me to his house-warming party, he had just cleanly separated from his partner and now the house was all his, maybe with a longer mortgage. We had stayed in touch for the 8 years since we stopped working together and I still enjoy his company. The last time we caught […]
Book Review – Saul Kirsch – Thinking Practical Shooting, A guide to Outstanding Match Performance
“The conscious mind cannot control our shooting. Shooting is too complex an activity to be thought through, step by step. In no way can you consciously think your way through an IPSC stage quickly enough to shoot it well. You cannot think about trigger control, and then sight picture, and then gripping pressure, and so […]
Good eggs
It had been quite a long time since I had competed in shooting competition, but a friend asked me to come along for an egg shoot, 100y, 200y, 300y with .22LR rifle on a full-bore range. My 22 was sighted in and trajectory validated at my local range so I thought I’d go along. I […]
Hard core
There is a lot of personal growth in doing hard things. For me it has shown me my weaknesses in a constructive and motivational way time after time as the years have gone by. It has been pointed out to me and become self-evident in retrospect that I prefer to be good at things rather […]
Zen in Hunting
I had heard on a podcast a long time ago about breathwork benefits and extreme feats of mind over matter through guys like Wimhof bringing the skill to the public in recent times. That led me to searching out an audiobook I have listened to a few times now – Breath, by James Nestor. It […]
Good trips – Guided mediation
Recently I went along to a guided meditation session, mainly out of curiosity but also to have some quiet time for myself and a new experience. After a busy day at work, the guide hosted a small group at a nice space in a quiet old house with high ceilings and a gas log fire. […]
Cold Face
In a recent outdoor community connection session, I was asked “Who are you”? This was deliberately asked as a part of the experience, one on one with another participant you only just met. The stranger would later have their own personal response, I think more a reflection of how meaningful your own answers were. Well […]
What’s in a Name? The story behind Black Sheep Straight Shooter
Toward the end of primary school and all through high school my nickname was Lamby. Some primary school friends still call me Lamby today, 30 years on. This nickname came about due to my very tight curly blonde hair that looked like lambs wool when I was about 12. I had a few friends put […]
