Leinster 50m Open

I changed my handstop setting for this match. I'd been suffering a lot of pain in my support hand, and to try alleviate it, I turned the handstop more in line with the stock. It had been offset towards my hand, but this had been forcing the hand to turn and it was causing me too much pain. The alteration made a big difference and I didn't suffer nearly as much.

I found shooting on the right hand firing point meant the wind flags stayed pretty dead, so I was far better off watching the flag at the far left hand side of the range and paying attention to grasses close in to make wind alterations. Light was very consistent, so I didn't need to worry overly about that.

Score was decent. 558, which is a new competitive personal best. I also took second place in class D and some crystal to boot. It wasn't a bad result for me, so I was pleased enough. Got some good technical advice from Tony Cogan, so I've got things to work on for the next while as well. Indoor season opens next week, so hopefully that will be interesting as well. At least it's entirely technique then, so it'll push me to improve that.

Training of September Fifth

Went down to Rathdrum for a session with Dave Cullen today. He was quite pleased with my technique, but my position needs work. I need to work on the consistency of it, and my best position at the moment could use some extra work in and of itself. I intend to try spread my legs a little more, try keep the left leg straighter. I also need to remember that my right elbow should fall reasonably close in, right in front of my face, for stability. My weight is focused very slightly on my right hip, more so my right elbow.

One of the things that came to light today was that I wasn't applying pressures properly; my inner position is obviously inconsistent, and this needs work. Not looking forward to having that drilled out however, as that's going to be a fairly arduous process. I'll be doing more training in the future anyway, so hopefully I'll eradicate it over time.

I shot a quick match at the end of my training session after Dave had left. I dropped the first card horribly (88) but got it together after that. The next four cards ranged from 93 to 95, and I finished with a 92, which was disappointing given the volume of high nines which nearly scraped in, but I couldn't find the ten ring. 555 for the match, and I personally felt, even with the defects in myself, it should have been 560. Oh well, there's time and plenty of training ahead anyway.