FUNDAMENTALS

A stable shooting position makes us shoot with better accuracy and offers greater resistance to the shot. Stability could be reached through balance, statics, conscious relaxation and wearing the right shooting attire.

Most sought for tactics required in shooting are "Mental" in nature and while concentrating we have to really steer our thoughts and keep at bay the panic inciting ones. During a competition, it is most obvious of us to panic and even if it is of a very light magnitude, our mind would clutch the negative pictures and fears.

The remedy of releasing this fixation lies in a simple trick of captivating the thoughts with a different topic. Sensibly enough in sports, these are subject matters that benefit the action- Such as breathing or certain, technical details. Whoever concentrates on the balance and statics of his shooting position automatically forgets everything negative. Simply think of your next shot, and the bad thoughts will disappear automatically.

STANDING SHOOTING POSITION-STABILITY
The stability of our standing shooting position not only affects the steadiness of our stance, but also has a considerable influence on the gun's deflection when a shot is fired. When our stance is firm and our body parts are braced together, rifle will not jump as much, upon releasing a shot, as when your stance is relaxed. Though this difference is not so noticeable, nevertheless has a strong effect on our shooting accuracy. A solid shooting position "absorbs" minor mistakes, when a shot is released, because the position's stability offers greater resistance to other negative impulses.

A very critical factor in the stabilization of the shooting position is the shooting attire. Jackets and trousers made of stiff canvas, envelopes the body like a casing and thus absorb disturbances resulting from our swaying, and curtail the mistakes with the release and the recoil of the gun. We could very well note that our movements increase considerably when we shoot without a jacket, and the deflection of our rifle is far more when we fire a shot.

TEST AND TRAINING
Before beginning your normal shooting, you should fire ten to 20 shots without your usual shooting garb in order to preserve our natural sturdiness.
Shooting without the shooting attire i.e. jacket, trousers and shoes is an excellent way to perceive and improve the stability of the shooting position. Increased sturdiness is achieved through following measures, that are taken one after the other to make the rifle steady and stable.
1. Balance: Our weight must be equally distributed over our heels and toes.
2. Statics: Weight is placed on your bones and joints reducing Muscular tension as much as possible.
3. Breathing: Deep Breaths from the stomach and letting ourselves "sink together". The stability increases perceptibly while we sink several millimeters in ourselves.
4. Inward rotation: On turning our shoulders towards the target, the muscles and tendons of our upper body tend to stiffen. We must find the right extent here and must keep it the same always. The torso stability increases when we beathe out and relax.
5. Feel the shot: This is done by concentrating on the impulse upon releasing a shot and observing the deflection of the muzzle. We are to maintain our hold and also to increase resistance by modifying our shooting position and muscular tension intuitively.
6. Release: When nothing more occurs with the shot release than a small jump caused by the system, then we may consider our stability to be right. The front sight ought to return to the center after the shot.

After going through this practice, we could put on our shooting jacket, which would now provide amazingly high stability to our shooting position. Having shot practically "undressed" before, we had to work more carefully and neatly. This ‘warm-up’ experience should clearly improve the precision of our preparation.

DURING COMPETITION
Try firing shots without a jacket during trial shooting before a match. This would draw our attention to the technique and also inject the additional confidence after we put on our jacket.