John Bradford, a fellow sporting clays shooter from Houston, and I have
spoken on more than one occasion, prior to a shoot, wondering
"who" will show up for the shoot. Will it be Bradford
the Good Shooter, or Bradford the Bad Shooter?
I can relate to this,
because I experience the same thing. No
matter how upbeat or enthusiastic I feel the morning of the shoot,
there's no guarantee that this will translate into good shooting.
I think we all can agree
that this is a game of hand and eye coordination. The proof of the
pudding is watching the young shooters. Boys 14 years old and up
start shooting, and within a year or two they are in AA class, while we
older shooters struggle to move up in class.
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It is true that, with few exceptions, all of us no matter age or gender
will have off-days. Cindy says it's hard for her to shoot well two
days in a row, however, I find it plenty easy to shoot BADLY two days in
a row.
I've been shooting for
six years, and of those, pretty poorly for five. Now, I normally
shoot in the high seventies to low eighties. However no matter how
well I feel, no matter what self-induced delusions I have that this will
be the tournament that I shoot exceptionally well, I can still fall flat
on my face.
This malady of bad
shooting, I think, is some sort of pathogen in my bloodstream.
Kind of like Malaria. Malaria, I am told, never leaves your
system. You have it for life, and it can rear its ugly head at any
time without notice. However for shooting, unlike Malaria, quinine
won't help.
(This malady is called
"Cranial/Rectal Integration", but Cindy won't let me say
that.)
[by Joseph Barton]
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