I have been shooting clay birds now for about 10 years. I would have taken it up years earlier but always found myself living so far from civilization it was never an option to take up any sport really. Though I have to say that we had a culler that used to gallop out of the Ruahine's to play Rugby in Taihape on a Saturday and gallop back up again after the game. But that was real dedication to his sport.
I shot my way through c and b grade winning more than my share of meat packs and other prizes with a great Beretta auto until I became an A grade shooter. Now suddenly I find I am 'Shit among kings instead of King among shits as I was previously. After a year of trying hard I found I never could get up near that upper bracket of shooters where the prizes and the money was won and only ended up subsidising those top shooters. Then out of the blue the idea dropped fully formed into my mind "I need a very expensive new gun I think, to lift my performance to the next level".
Having kept a couple of blocks of Pine plantation as a super fund which are getting close to milling I started to worry that when that money came in for them I might just be reaching out for the Cheque when I fall off me perch. Then some one else would get their hands on my cash and spend it foolishly. So the upshot of it all was I went and spent some of it before they could get it, on a Caesar Guerini. But success was a long time coming because buggar me, it took six months of solid shooting before I got close to my previous scores with my old gun and started to inch up the pecking order again.
The Guerini is a shotgun that has a high rib that can be altered from a 50/50 pattern to 120% pattern above the line of sight and the comb is adjustable left and right and high and low. In my own eyes, there are far too many adjustments for a poltroon like myself to be allowed loose with. I got it fitted and set up at the shop but one bright and sunny day the urge to fiddle overtook me. I thought if I could just move the pattern a few inches to the left I would, in one quantum leap, overtake those in the circuit that constantly shot the ass offen me.
First mistake I never had a chance to get a bit of practice in before a club shoot where we shot 150 birds for the day. By the end of the first round I had lost a bit of skin off my cheek bone. Second round I was bleeding profusely, Third round cheek was starting to split. I should have quit because I was missing quite a few birds by then and couldn't figure out why.
So I gave my cheek a few days to heal and went out to shoot a hundred birds 'Five stand' shooting a 22 19 15 14. score
Very interesting was the squad I was shooting in had a Physiotherapist in it. He has a reputation for being 'very alternative type' but has a large following of students that he trains and he runs seminars around the country. I have never had much to do with "trick cyclelist's' in the past, regarding them as somewhat like witchdoctors.
He asked if I wanted some advice so warily I listened. He said "Just looking at you it amazes me that you hit anything watching your body language when you shoot. Understand that your body doesn't really care whether you hit that silly little target or not it is geared up to counteract the shock of getting belted in the face. Stand there and swing left and right as if you were shooting birds".
"You are locked up and with your permission I am going to unlock you" he told me then. With one hand on my chest and another on the back of my neck he twisted and pushed in one movement. He had bloody strong hands and could have choked a bear I reckon. When he let me go I lost my balance and for the rest of the day I had trouble putting my feet in the right place and I hadn't even had a drink at that stage.
I said "What's up with my balance and putting my feet in the wrong place". He said "Nothing wrong with your balance and putting your feet in the right place. You were walking like a footrot goat because you were locked up and I unlocked you. Next time you go out and shoot your body will have forgotten the flinch and you will shoot well again.
So I thought if the body has forgotten already what it has gone through I will quickly reset my gun to what it was before all this madness began and I did. So after a lot of trial and trauma over the previous weeks, I shot this Sat and Sunday and shot about the same number of birds as I would have shot if I had not gone through this whole bloody business.
For days I had looked like I had started fighting again. Futilely I had fired off about 500 rounds and wasted about the same number of clay birds. During this period I began the process of developing the terrible flinch which is a subject we don't treat with enough seriousness in all probability.
