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rivkaI went to the target range this evening for the first time in four months. Post September 11th, I just didn't feel like shooting for a very long time. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clairaide's account of learning to handle a gun reminded me that it was in fact something I liked, and so I asked wcg to take me out there again.
For the first couple of minutes I was disoriented - doing things like trying to pull the trigger with the safety on. But once I started firing I realized that I hadn't forgotten how after all. I put 45 of 66 shots in the 10-ring, and didn't land more than a few outside the black until I sent the target out to 50 feet. It felt good. I've done better, I think, but it was still pretty damn good.
Bill suggested that I might want to think about competition - he seems to think that I could already acquit myself respectably on the local level. I can only assume that his mind is clouded by love, or something. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the idea that I might actually have a genuine talent for this.
It's weird - I saw that most of the other people around us weren't shooting as accurately as I was. I actually don't understand how people can shoot as badly as some of these folks were - I mean, if you're aiming at the center of the target, how do you get your shots scattered evenly across the entire sheet? I saw this, but it's still hard for me to understand that Bill thinks I'm a good shot. Not "good for a beginner," but good. I don't get it.
It's not low self-esteem. Tell me I'm a good writer, and I'll be pleased but unsurprised. Introduce a new intellectual skill, and I won't be shocked if I pick it up quickly. But this is a physical skill, one that takes coordination and balance and steadiness and accuracy of movement. I've never been a physically skilled person. I'm awkward, I'm weak, I'm disabled, I lurch when I walk. This is not the sort of thing I can do.
Except, I guess, that I can. Huh.
clairaide's account of learning to handle a gun reminded me that it was in fact something I liked, and so I asked wcg to take me out there again.For the first couple of minutes I was disoriented - doing things like trying to pull the trigger with the safety on. But once I started firing I realized that I hadn't forgotten how after all. I put 45 of 66 shots in the 10-ring, and didn't land more than a few outside the black until I sent the target out to 50 feet. It felt good. I've done better, I think, but it was still pretty damn good.
Bill suggested that I might want to think about competition - he seems to think that I could already acquit myself respectably on the local level. I can only assume that his mind is clouded by love, or something. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the idea that I might actually have a genuine talent for this.
It's weird - I saw that most of the other people around us weren't shooting as accurately as I was. I actually don't understand how people can shoot as badly as some of these folks were - I mean, if you're aiming at the center of the target, how do you get your shots scattered evenly across the entire sheet? I saw this, but it's still hard for me to understand that Bill thinks I'm a good shot. Not "good for a beginner," but good. I don't get it.
It's not low self-esteem. Tell me I'm a good writer, and I'll be pleased but unsurprised. Introduce a new intellectual skill, and I won't be shocked if I pick it up quickly. But this is a physical skill, one that takes coordination and balance and steadiness and accuracy of movement. I've never been a physically skilled person. I'm awkward, I'm weak, I'm disabled, I lurch when I walk. This is not the sort of thing I can do.
Except, I guess, that I can. Huh.
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Date: 2002-01-12 08:42 pm (UTC)(Jodawi and I today were mocking the idea of calling the Push-a-kid-at-a-scary-piece-of-equipment-and-holler Gym Class Method "physical education," unless what they are trying to teach you is that the world is scary and you will be hurt on the parallel bars. I bet wcg would make a decent phys ed teacher. I would bet also that love reveals more than it obscures. "Love's not blind, just very, very focused"?)
no subject
Date: 2002-01-12 08:49 pm (UTC)I bet he would. Almost every time we go to the range, we have the opportunity to see how other guys teach their girlfriends to shoot. It usually seems to involve a Huge Macho Intimidating Gun (incredibly loud, and with a strong recoil) and nothing you might call systematic instruction. Unsurprisingly, they're scared and they suck at it. I doubt many of them come back a second time.
Clearly I asked the right person to be my teacher.
no subject
Date: 2002-01-15 01:22 am (UTC)Shooting is weird. It's easy to do, and easy to mess up.
See, all you have to do is line the sight up with the thing you want to shoot, increase pressure on the trigger, until suddenly, before you realize it, *BANG* ... and there's a hole in the target at pretty much exactly where you lined it up.
If you learn to squeeze that trigger without moving the sight, and learn to keep that sight centered, you can shoot a stationary target pretty much every time, and if you're not shooting accurately, you'll still have damn good precision.
But if you don't squeeze that trigger, and you jerk, just a bit, you'll move the barrel, just a bit. If you're too ready for the *bang*, you'll recoil, maybe just a bit. If you don't learn that target-sight-target-sight focussing (you can't have both the sight and the target in focus at the same time, so you need to switch between them), you'll sight in on something else.
If you let the gun waver just a tad, well, even the sine of one degree is.017; at 50 feet, that translates to nearly a full foot of distance (multiply by 100 = 1.7, divide by 2 = .85)
One advantage you probably have over a lot of Rambo wannabes is that you don't have any illusions about how shooting is supposed to work. You've probably been taught how to shoot, and are doing exactly what you were taught... and when you do that, it works, because it's supposed to.