I had a great time shooting in two sporting clays events today posting mid pack (5/11 in main and 3/5 in sub-gauge) finishes in both events in my class. I always like to evaluate my performance after each shoot from both a technical and mental skills standpoint in order to identify areas where I am doing well and others that need attention. What follows is my evaluation of some of the mental skills aspects from today!
First, the positives:
- I had a plan for the shoot! I was determined to select my hold points – especially my visual hold point (the point where my eyes would come to rest prior to calling for the targets) on every single pair. I was successful in doing this.
- When I learned that I was to shoot first on the first station, I simply took a few deep breathes, went through my pre-shot routine with confidence, and hit all of the targets. A great start!
Next, the areas where I will incorporate changes for future improvement:
- I allowed myself to get frustrated on a two stations after misses resulting in some “under the breathe” uttering of a few phrases I would not generally use in polite company. This is unlike me and something I will pay attention to as it is not conducive to following the rules of positive self-talk. On a positive note, I did not allow my frustration to carry over to the next station.
- For this point, it is helpful to see a picture of my scorecard. There were thirteen stations in the main event each with 4 pairs of targets (except for station 9 which only as two pairs). Targets that are hit successfully are marked with a “/”, and those where the target is missed is shown with a “0”.
My shooting coach has helped me learn how to evaluate my card. One of the items I look at is how many times I miss one or both targets in the last pair of each station. As you can see from the card, I had no lost pairs (where both targets are missed) in the last pair of each station. I did have 4 stations in which I missed one target or the other though in the last pair. This typically shows a loss of attentional focus. I will modify my practice routine to shoot more pairs in a row of the same targets in order to learn to keep the focus longer while in the shooting stand. On a positive note, if you compare the number of stations in which I missed one or both targets in the first pair of each station (8 stations) vs how many were missed on the last station (4), I was able to make adjustments in many cases to clean up my misses from the first pair to the last!
How do you evaluate your mental skills performance after an event? Send me your personal experience and I will try to post it for others to learn!