Good Shooting

[TheDan]

As far as the example Ben brought up, all I have to say about that is this. 60 rounds. 2 hours. God, that must have been an excruciating 2 hours, and I'm sure he was SMOKED after that! That degree of mental focus and awareness, for that length of time, is seriously draining.

I don't know the story, but I imagined him making three shots at a time and taking a 5min power nap between shooting

 

[benenglish]

I don't know the story, but I imagined him making three shots at a time and taking a 5min power nap between shooting

Back when the rules allowed shooters to shoot their 60 shots in 16 hours, it was not unusual for competitors to take naps.

For the longest time, the 2 hour time period was a killer. Shooters didn't have enough time to take huge breaks and after they finished their sighters, every shot counts for score. That meant competitors could aim, decide to abort the shot because it didn't feel right, and put the gun back down. This might occur several times before the competitor actually let the shot fire. 5 aborts for every shot fired means that if a shooter had a bad case of the yips, they might wind up trying to concentrate on firing over 200 shots during their time on the line. It was a killer course if you lost track of your mental state. Some of the mental breakdowns on the line were heart-rending.

Nowadays, the time limit has been cut to 1.5 (or 1.25; I need to read the new rules) hours. The competitors like it. They know they can't abort as many shots. They know they have to stay steadily on task so they don't take long breaks and then have to re-psych themselves into a competitive mental state. They're able to show up to the shoot-offs ~2 hours after the qualifier with a little strength left, most having eaten a banana and (yes, seriously) taken a nap.