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.

Back from a mini vacation

I returned home last Monday after taking a few days off to go to Las Vegas. It was a pretty random trip to say the least. That's what birthday celebrations are all about though right? ;)


Las Vegas is going through another huge construction boom again. This is the new $7.4B City Center project by the MGM Mirage.... Basically, a city-within-a-city.

This upcoming week I'll be working a LOT and then next week I am back on my regular '7 week' training ramp up leading up to Nationals.

During those 7 weeks I'm going to cover a variety of topics:

• Equipment overview (I'll cover all the major equipment I use during training and competitions)


• Weekly check-in's during the final 7 weeks running up to Nationals


• Training activities


• Physical and mental training and conditioning

I'm also going to try and post up more photos... maybe some videos If I can find enough time. :)

Registered for Nationals

I just got my confirmation and I'm now registered to compete at the 2007 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I have about 10 weeks to train and get ready for Nationals. I wish there were a few more BC area matches where I could compete in my discipline, but there aren't any.

I've decided to try out for the National Team as well. I figure I need to go into the event aiming high... plus it's only an extra $25 to declare for National Team Trials. :)

This will be my first time going to Saskatchewan!

More details soon...

Back from the Island and online again

I checked out of the hotel Sunday morning and headed back out to the shooting range to see the overall results. I finished in 2nd place with a 552/600.

How does scoring work? You have 1 hour and 45 minutes to take 60 shots. The highest point value for each shot is a 10, so 60 shots = 600 maximum score. The ISSF website lists the World Record at 593/600 by Sergei Pyzhianov and the Olympic Record at 591 shot by Mikhail Nestruev.

The number of competitors attending Provincials was definitely lower than what I've seen in the past when I was competing before. It would be nice to see more people out at these events.

Yesterday was fun, some friends of mine were staying at a cabin near Prospect Lake. It's a beautiful area around there. Canoeing. BBQ. Fishing. Nice way to finish up the weekend.

Nationals are in August so there are over 10 weeks of training time before then. I'm going to review my notes from this past weekend and get a training plan developed which I'll write more about later.

552 / 600... my result for my 1st competition back

It was good to be in competition mode again... all the little things I'd run through in my head started coming back to me. It really is almost entirely mental.

The air pistol range at the NSRG is indoors but has some vinyl walls which allow for a certain amount of sunlight and shadows to be cast inside. The changes and lighting as the sun moves behind clouds don't factor too much on the one side of the air range I shot at.


I was shooting in position #5 (That isn't me :))

552/600... I'm pretty happy with this score. 92%. For not having practiced more than 3 times in the last 4 years and shooting with a gun that had just been serviced last week and hasn't yet been tuned for me... it's a good score.

I need to get back into the 560s+ for Nationals in August.

This Provincial event is a 5 gun match where shooters compete in Centre Fire, Standard Pistol, Rapid Fire, Free Pistol, and Air Pistol. The last 3 are Olympic events. I only came to shoot Air Pistol as you need special licenses etc to carry and compete with the other guns. I will need to get my permits etc so I can compete in other events... I'd like to compete in Free Pistol again.

There are a few shooters left to shoot their Air match today so I won't know how I did overall until tomorrow.

Heading back for the BBQ... tomorrow I think I'll go see what's happening in Victoria. There are Titanic artifacts on display at the Museum which would be pretty cool to see.

Feel free to leave any comments on here! :)

Good morning Sidney!

I arrived in Sidney, BC last night coming over on the ferry from Tsawassen, BC. I think that was the first time I've made that particular ferry ride, it is pretty neat going in and out of the Gulf Islands.

Once on the Schwartz Bay side I figured I would just hop in a cab waiting there and get a ride in to Sidney. Hmm... Apparently 15 other people had similar thoughts and there was a single cab there. Everyone was trying to figure out what to do after learning the next cab would be 30 minutes, and eventually everyone ran over to a bus that was about to leave. Another couple and myself stayed behind and a cab arrived within 5 minutes. :) We shared it and I was in Sidney a few minutes later... I wonder if that bus had even left the terminal yet. ;)

I fell sleep around 10 just before Horatio and his team of CSI's would have solved the crime on CSI Miami... I'm certain they got their guy.

Zzzzzzz. *sleep*

It's the morning of the competition (technically, the event began yesterday) and I'll get to the shooting range in about an hour. I'll take some photos and blog in a bit later.

I just opened my camera and realized I left my 2GB SD memory card in my computer after taking the photos when my gun arrived back from Quebec. Awesome :). It's stuff like that you can't let bother you on competition day. In fact, as soon as my camera display flashed "NO MEMORY CARD" I let out a good laugh as my mind raced in reverse to realize it was left in one of the slots on my computer at home. Anyhow, I have a 32 MB card with me, it just means I'll have to dump the photos to my laptop frequently.

Anyhow... the sun is trying to drive solar nails through the clouds here and looks like it may turn out to be a partially sunny day here.

More shortly... stay tuned.

Air Pistol has arrived and is ready!

Yesterday I received my air pistol back from Cibles Canada Targets, plus a new sleeve of competition high speed pellets and 10m targets. This couldn't have been timed any better!


I took it out to the Richmond Rod & Gun Club to see how it would performed and I was pleased with the holes it was punching in the targets.

I'll be packing tomorrow morning and getting ready to leave for Victoria and will probably post daily while I'm away. It will be great to be there during the Victoria Day long weekend... hopefully the weather holds nicely.

FedEx, 9,738 km, and Spring #51...

Last Friday, with 1 week before Provincials, I made the decision to FedEx my air pistol 4,869 km across the country to Cibles Canada Targets in Gatineau (Hull), Quebec.

What!?

Yes... I wasn't happy with how the air pistol was firing and chose to get it checked out. Good thing I did as there was a problem with a few parts. Spring #51 and a few others.

I can't wait to try it out, hopefully it arrives before I leave for Provincials. If not, I'll be bringing my 14 yr old Walther air pistol out of retirement. This is the gun I won the gold medal with at the Western Canada Games in 1995. I also shot the BC Junior record at the same event. The record still holds today at 566/600. I dusted it off this past weekend and tried it out and was pretty happy with it.

Confidence that your equipment will function precisely and consistently is important in this sport. Ironically though, the final day of shooting at the Western Canada Games one of my gun's CO2 cylinders failed... I always have an extra with me though. The match had already started so I had to act quickly as a match has a fixed time limit to complete all 60 shots. That's the kind of thing you need to react to, deal with, and regain focus as quick as possible.

Competing next weekend for the first time in a few years should be pretty cool.

I made sure my hotel room had WiFi so I'll probably be making updates quite frequently over the next short while.

Zipcar'ing around to the Richmond Rod & Gun Club

I sold my car last December and have been doing a lot more walking and transit riding lately. I don't mind riding on transit if I've got a good book or some music to listen to... I kind of like the fact that I get away from a computer screen. :) Not having a car can be a bit of a challenge when you want to move anything that can't fit inside of a backpack... like groceries or getting around anywhere that is off transit hours or outside of the main transit arteries.

I recently found out that the Richmond Rod & Gun Club has an indoor air gun range at Sportstown BC in Richmond. Getting out there by bus is not easy without having it take hours.

Conveniently, at the same time, I also found out about a cool new service in Vancouver called Zipcar. What is it? Well, basically like their marketing tagline says, "wheels when you want them". I just book a time when I want a vehicle and select one of the 100 or so they have around the city and I pay about $9/hr and it comes with a gas card in the visor you can use for free. The coolest part about the Zipcars is walking up to them and pulling out your Zipcar card and putting it near the windshield to unlock the car. It's awesome. Anyhow, if you're interested in checking it out let me know and I can give you a driving credit free from them. As cool as this service is it is somewhat expensive if I'm paying for it while I'm practicing inside.

The Richmond Rod & Gun Club has leased space at Sportstown BC. I checked it out last week and got to see some familiar faces... Dale, Edmond, and of course Paul! Awesome to see these guys.

The RR&GC alternate nights with an archery club. More information about the indoor range and practice times can be found on their website: http://www.rrgc.homestead.com/.

Practice range photos and archery resource on 'Mental Skills'

I got back to the city tonight after heading back to my hometown of Gibsons, BC to do some practicing there with the makeshift practice area my Dad and I built.


My practice area consists of a small table with a hand crank target carrier mounted to it. The pulley system lets me hand crank the target back and forth down the hall 10m (32.8') into the other room. A couple of lights focused on the target in the other room help light the area. The target carrier was purchased about 5 years ago from Cibles Canada Targets.

After seeing some archery on TV earlier today I decided to search and look around to see what was around BC. I found the BC Archery Association website and found a great Power Point presentation titled "The Importance of Plans and Practising Mental Skills" by Anne Muscat, a Certified Canadian Mental Trainer. Although the Power Point is intended for an Archery audience it applies to many sports, especially other precision sports like pistol shooting.

2007 BC Provincials Details

I just finished booking a place to stay in Victoria near the Airport. It's a couple kilometers from the shooting range so that's not too bad. It will be nice to be around Sidney, BC and explore the area.

Here is a link to a map of where the shooting range is located.

More event details are available on the BCTSA website:
http://www.bctsa.bc.ca

The PDF registration form is available for download here:
http://www.bctsa.bc.ca/pdf/07BCHGchampsReg.pdf

Photos and other preparation details will be posted over the next few weeks.

Less than four weeks to prepare for Provincials

It has literally been years since I've attended a shooting competition. Normally, I'd be training for a specific amount of time before an event in order to have peak performance at that particular event.

For this upcoming shooting match, it is the only one coming up that doesn't require travelling out of the Province so I'm going to it primarily for fun and to see my fellow shooters from around BC. I'm telling myself it is for fun because I want to ensure I'm setting realistic expectations for this first match... and well, I'm due for a vacation so that's what this is.

That said... I still want to do the best I can given the situation, so here is a short list of tasks I need to complete before going to Victoria next month:

• Victoria travel and accommodations planning and booking
• Air Pistol maintenance, cleaning
• Check grip and make any changes to adjust for any changes in my hand's strength and shape over the last 4 years
• Clean my shooting glasses (and possibly get a new lens made to account for any changes in my vision)
• Weigh my pistol's trigger and make adjustments to ensure I'm within the rules and regulations
• Check my air pistol's shooting velocity
• Continue physical / cardio training
• Continue strength training
• Get out to the practice range in Richmond a few times
• Practice where and when I can
• Dry firing
• Final equipment preparation

There are a few place to practice around Vancouver, New Westminster, and Richmond so I'll discuss them as I find out more information. I've also created a practice area back at my parent's house in Gibsons, BC. I'll post up some photos of this... basically I practice by shooting down a hall, past a pool table, and into my Dad's workshop. Like I said... practice 'where and when I can'.

This coming week I will get my accommodations and travel arrangements sorted out and go through some of the basic maintenance of my equipment. I'll post up photos along the way.