From: John De Armond Subject: Re: How do you hold it so still? #If you're a heavy caffine drinker or chocolater eater, you may have a #vitamin B deficiency - which will cause you to shake a little more than #normal. Brewer's Yeast flakes are the best way to boost your vitamin B #levels. #I have also noted that I am a lot steadier after 3-4 days of no caffine and #4 - 6 cups of chamomile herb tea daily. (The tea is a nervine and can really #make a difference in how much you shake.) The response to food is highly specific to the individual. Dating back to my days of motorcycle racing, I know that the best competition day meal for me is one heavy in starch and caffine. It may sound crazy but then most sedatives perk me right up. Go figure. My father was a championship military shooter in the 40s and has taught me some of his techniques. The first is that you have to teach yourself to will your muscles still. Even though he's 71 he can still hold his arm out in a shooting posture and will it steady! I'm working on that myself :-) Getting pretty good, actually. I suspect that some kind of electronic feedback would be useful for practice. I've found that a bit of quiet concentration (I hesitate to use the term "meditation" because of all the kook baggage it carries) immediately before the match helps immensely. I sit either on the shooting bench or in my car with my hearing protectors on and my eyes shut and concentrate on the muscles in my arm. I also spend time visualizing the perfect sight picture. If I can go immediately to the line to fire afterwards I notice much better performance. I also discourage no-shooting-related chatter around my position during the match. Tell me where the shot hit but don't chat about the weather! Another trick my father used which also works for me but which should be approached cautiously is the use of large doses of aspirin to slow the heartrate. 12-15 tablets (coincidentaly the dose my much smaller wife takes for her rheumatism) a half hour before the match works for me. Of course, I'm 6'7" and 300 lbs so such a dose would probably not be appropriate for the average shooter. If you decide to try this technique, consult your doctor to make sure you have no clotting or stomach problems, get a heart rate monitor and work up slowly. Another technique I use that was described in "Marine Sniper" is the practice of getting a sight picture, closing one's eyes for a few seconds, opening them to see if your sight picture has moved. If your posture is correct, it should not move. I find the 30 seconds between the "load" and the "fire" command in silhouette competition to be extremely useful for this practice. Next is the technique of controlling the motion into a small circle and snapping the shot when the sights pass the bull. My father's and my technique is slightly different in that we use a figure 8. There are then 2 sight crossings per shake :-) Actually I found that as the other mentioned techniques improve my hold, the necessity of this technique is diminishing. About the only time I have enough motion to matter is on the shootoff chickens. In order of importance, I'd have to rank the mental discipline and the Marine Sniper technique at the top of my list. Lastly, consider a trip to the eye doctor. I'd been fighting glasses for years and my silhouette score had been hovering around 36-38. I knew I needed glasses but was too stuborn to go. Well I recently got 'em. More accurately, I've been through 3 prescriptions in 6 months. I've only had time to shoot one match and this was an all-chicken funds raiser match. With a new gun, new load, no predetermined sight settings and new glasses on a windy day I shot a 31 AND got all the turkey line chickens - my usual downfall. John From: John De Armond Subject: Re: hand shake Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access. The Mouth of the South. rigg@adtaz.sps.mot.com (Dana Rigg) writes: About eliminating shaking, I use the aspirin trick, which my father, a shooting champion in the 40s, taught me many years ago. It works by slowing the heart rate and lowering blood pressure. That does not cure the random shakes but for me, blood pressure pulsations dominate. #if it helps. The gun is only a few months old, and I have not been #able to shoot anything for over a month because of a silly little #softball injury that resulted in my doctor drilling a steel pin into #my finger. I only have to wait another 5 or 6 weeks! I try to say #that cheerfully, but I'm suffering on the inside. Anybody know #a cure for shooting withdrawal? :-( yeah! Shooting :-) Hey Dana, looks like the perfect opportunity to work on your weak hand techniques :-) 73 John |