14th place finish and 3rd place in a team event

I finished the match in 14th place. Good, considering there were close to 50 male competitors and I was shooting with most of the top 10 back in the early 90's. These guys have been shooting awhile... several of these guys are on the National Team.

One of the BC Team's we entered was for the Air Pistol event. Our team placed 3rd so we got the bronze medal for that. My teammates were Edmond Lee and Mark Johnson.

I'll be shooting two matches in September, one is in Vancouver and the other is in Calgary. I'm hoping that a few more matches will help me get back to my 94% range. Getting all of my firearm paperwork will also be helpful as I'd like to be shooting 50m Free Pistol again.

Long travel day tomorrow. 2 hr drive and two flights... :) It will be good to get back to Vancouver.

2007 Canadian National Junior Air Pistol Finals

The Air Pistol Junior Finals just wrapped up with both Junior Male and Female shooting Finals at the same time. It was cool to see all 16 competitors shooting. The girls dominated the Finals.

10m Air Pistol Junior Male and Female Finals

Junior Male 10m Air:

Result	Competitor	Province	Scores	Final	Total
1	Matthew Hendry	SK	554, 561	94.5	1209.5
2	Philippe Tousignant	QC	543, 554	91.8	1188.8
3	Stuart Krantz	SK	539, 547	93.4	1179.4
4	Ryan Ward	ON	531, 543	94.4	1168.4
5	Jordan Samoila	SK	548, 522	84.1	1154.1
6	Matthew Kao	ON	528, 532	92.7	1152.7
7	Timothy Hildebrand	AB	525, 531	92.4	1148.4
8	Tuo Su	BC	523, 537	84.2	1144.2

Junior Female 10m Air:

Result	Competitor	Province	Score	Final	Total
1	Danielle Marcotte	YK	356, 368	97.1	821.1
2	Alix Findlay	ON	365, 356	94.0	815.0
3	Catherine Thwaites	BC	365, 357	90.1	812.1
4	Amy Stewart	AB	360, 358	87.5	805.5
5	Christine King	SK	362, 338	92.8	792.8
6	Shvawn Christensen	ON	351, 346	91.9	788.9
7	Bailey Teitge	AB	341, 341	89.9	771.9
8	Ashley Parker	ON	334, 332	84.0	750.0

Awards banquet is tonight and then tomorrow I drive south to Saskatoon before flying home to Vancouver tomorrow.

2007 Canadian National Air Pistol Finals

Results for the 2007 Canadian Nationals Air Pistol Finals are in.

Men 10m Air:

10m Air Pistol Men's Final

Result	Competitor	Province	Score	Final	Total
1	Yuri Movshovich	ON	564	97.9	661.9
2	Steve Maly	NS	566	94.7	660.7
3	Scott Illingworth	AB	562	98.7	658.7
4	Jesse Olsen	SK	560	98.2	658.2
5	Stan Wills	AB	562	94.9	656.9
6	JP Huot	PQ	562	94.1	656.1
7	Oscar DiPilla	PQ	559	93.3	652.3
8	James Sandall	AB	560	91.1	651.1
9	Glenn Ohlman	MB	518	91.8	609.8

Women 10m Air:

10m Air Pistol Women's Final

Result	Competitor	Province	Score	Final	Total
1	Dorothy Ludwig	BC	382	93.7	475.7
2	Kim Eagles	BC	377	97.5	474.5
3	Charlene Johnson	BC	376	97.0	473.0
4	Avianna Chao	ON	372	95.7	467.7
5	Ena Ward	ON	371	94.3	465.3
6	Lynda Hare	AB	363	96.7	459.7
7	Jana Stieb	SK	367	90.8	457.8
8	Filiz Cakmak	ON	363	93.8	456.8
9	Karen Van Nest	ON	361	94.2	455.2

Junior Finals will be online shortly.

551 / 600... a good score for my first Nationals in 12 yrs

I finished shooting and finished with a score of 551/600. For my 2nd competition since picking up my gun in May I'm quite pleased. The last time I was at Nationals was in 1995.

I'm happy with this score because it matches my 552/600 I shot in May at Provincials so I'm definitely establishing a solid baseline. Having practiced and trained a couple nights a week for the last couple of months has helped a lot. I know I still need a lot of work to improve on basic fundamentals as that seems to be a key area that will get me more 10's. Working on grip and trigger control will be essential for me to push my scores higher.

One of the key learning's for me at this competition is about all of the rule changes that have occurred since 1995. I had to modify my shooting glasses and reduce my left eye blinder down to 30mm. Also, the range officers here wanted to make sure wrists are always visible and my long sleeves kept sliding down. Time to buy a current rule book! :)

Old left eye blinder and the new smaller left eye blinder

I will be working on getting my gun license so I can shoot other events at these competitions. I'd like to shoot Free Pistol, which is also an Olympic event but it is shot at 50m. I think I'd be more relaxed if I shot a different event before shooting Air Pistol. Air Pistol is my favorite and strongest but having a different event to shoot a day before shooting my Air match will help me get into the right mindset.

I shot on the first Air Pistol relay and most people will be shooting over the next 2 days. I'll post up results as they're made available.

I have some photos I've taken but for some reason my laptop isn't reading my SD card from my camera. I'm here for a few days so hopefully I can get that sorted out.

Time to go explore what this city has to offer... :)

Arrived at Nationals...

This will be a quick update. I've arrived in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and I'm all registered and checked-in for Nationals.

Plane ride to Saskatoon, Canada

There was one issue with my shooting glasses not meeting current rules so I needed to change one of the pieces. Not having shot at Nationals since the mid-90s I should have expected some rules would have changed. ;)

Lucky for me Scott from Illingworth Imports was there to help me out. Thanks Scott!

I had a chance to practice a bit in the indoor range and I'm looking forward to shooting tomorrow.

Taking aim during practice time

I shoot on the first relay tomorrow at noon. Dinner time. :)

11 days to go... Nationals website updated

11 days remain until I leave for Saskatchewan. I would have liked to have made a few more posts before I left but time is short and well I'm sure you all would rather I was practicing anyway. ;)

What do the next 11 days have in store for me?

• Continuing to practice at the Richmond Rod & Gun club Wednesday and Friday nights.
• Continue cardio and physical training Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights.
• Tighten up my food and beverage consumption. I always shoot better when I've been eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and keeping breads, sugars, and meat down to a minimum. Fish is always good too so I'm going to get some sushi a couple times before I leave. :)
• Cut caffeine out. I'm going to research this some more as I've read caffeine stays in your system for up to 72 hrs. I also don't want a situation where cutting caffeine out completely creates a negative response. I do love my Diet Rockstar sugar free energy drinks. ;)
• Confirm all travel details (again).

Some other news:

The Canadian National Pistol Championships website has been updated with lots of new information. They have also announced that the shooting range will have wireless Internet access so I will definitely be posting updates from there.

Travel details for Nationals are all set

I have all of my travel details for Nationals in order. I will be flying out of Vancouver on August 10th and arriving in Saskatoon in the morning. Then a short 2 hr drive to Prince Albert.

I compete the following day on Saturday at 12:00 pm on the first Air Pistol relay of the competition. The current match relays and positions is now posted on the Canadian Nationals website. I will then have a couple of days rest before the Finals and National Team Trials match. It has been awhile since I competed at a Nationals event so I'm not sure yet what the rules or qualification are for the National Team Trial. I believe Finals will be the top 8 shooters in any of the Olympic events (Rapid Fire Pistol, Free Pistol, and Air Pistol).

I check out Wednesday morning and will fly out of Saskatoon in the late afternoon and arrive home to Vancouver in the evening.

One month remains before I leave. I've got a very basic training plan I'm following. I avoided making it unnecessarily complicated and just sticking to basics. Spending time conditioning and strengthening core muscles, cardio, and of course actual practice time at the shooting range.

I'm waiting for the Knobloch Lens Testing kit from Illingworth Imports, as soon as I have it I'll post up info about my shooting glasses. I suspect I'll need a new lens cut for my 12 yr old shooting glasses. Too much time in front of a computer! ;)

The importance of a Competition Journal

One of the great things about having taken such a long break away from competition air pistol shooting is that I forgot a lot of things. Specifically, bad habits. A huge portion of this sport, like any sport for that matter, is the mental aspect of it. I used to spend a lot of time training my mind.

When I was regularly competing before, I would get myself into a lot of trouble with a poorly executed mental performance. The problem with this is that I would finish the competition and leave it at that and not do anything to correct a poor performance. This was made worse if I actually shot a decent score and did nothing afterwards.

Shooting a decent score is like going to a match and staying within your comfort zone and being content with that. Boring. If you want to shoot super scores you need to do more than piggyback on a 'decent performance' to get you there.

The goal of a training / competition journal should be to reinforce positives and modify negatives.

When I went to my first competition this past May I made sure that I kept a journal of everything so that I would have notes to work from later. This became especially important to me when I knew it would probably be the only competition I'd be able to attend before going to Nationals in August. Looking back at my notes now, I know I will always do it for every single competition I attend from now on.


What do I keep track of in my Competition Journal?

• Event name, location, results


• Overall thoughts: Were there any themes to how I felt I did?


• Time leading up to match: Travel details... any problems with accommodations? car rental? What went right? Did I forgot to pack anything? Should I have brought anything differently? What did I eat? How did I sleep? Etc.


• During competition: How many sighter targets did I take? What was I wearing? Any problems with my equipment? Any possible improvements to equipment? Range lighting? Other range notables? Competition pace? Mental routine? Physical routine?


• After competition: Immediate thoughts after competition? Who shot next to me? Scoring accuracy by officials and scorers?


• Other thoughts?

I kept track of a LOT of details. The photo above shows some of the details of what I wrote down after Provincials. I find it useful to separate a training journal from a competition journal.

My biggest takeaways from that competition were equipment related and in reinforcing the positive benefits of a training AND competition journal.

At Provincials I had 3 key areas all related to equipment that I wanted to improve:

• Sight blackener. When I competed before I used to always take a carbide lighter to my gun sights to make them super black.


• C02 - The precious gas which powers my pellets 10 meters to the target. I had one empty cylinder and another which was nearly empty after having been shipped via air from Cibles Targets. The range was out of C02 and most of the other competitors were either using Compressed Air or a different brand of gun. Knowing that after any shot you might be out of air isn't healthy for your mental program.


• Shooting glasses. The lens in my shooting glasses is 10 yrs old... it was OK but I knew for Nationals I would be better off if I went and got my eyes tested and possibly even got a new lens cut for my glasses. At the very least I would be able to rule out my eyes as any kind of an excuse. ;)

All of these points are actual notes in my competition journal. With 6 weeks to go I've ordered sight blackener from my friend Scott at Illingworth Imports as well as a Knobloch Lens Testing Kit. Knobloch is the make of shooting glasses I compete with, I'll be covering those in my next blog posting.

As always... any feedback and comments are hugely appreciated. If you like this blog please tell a friend, let me know, or let's exchange links. Cheers.