Thursday, June 07, 2007
Just shot in NUS invitational shoot today. Did okay I suppose, but in the end we placed fourth behind NUS, CJC and MJC with scores of 543 (Leonard), 524 (me) and 523 (wiL). Quite funny, wil's last shot was some screwed up 5 and he blamed it on Leonard coz Leonard was standing 5m behind him looking at him shoot and he noticed. Lol.
And after that we went arcade to destress with Para-Para and Bishi-Bashi and some other screwed up game. Jiahui, Samantha, Yuheng, Eunice and Wil Yang come down to support and I'm really really super grateful for that. Like really.. them taking time out of their busy schedules despite Common Tests LOOMING just to come down and ra-ra us. Really touched...
Then we went and chilled at Burger King @ Northpoint. And coz we had nothing I went off halfway to play some arcade game at Northpoint. Quite addictive really its this game where you're supposed to align blocks together to form a platform that's like 12 stories high, and it starts with 3 blocks but narrows it down to 1 so like timing's key. And 2/3 of the way up the machine asks if you'd like to stop and claim a minor prize which is some fei packet of twisties. Like hell no the major prizes are things like handphones and mp3 players that you can see dangling in the glass case. And for some reason the last block is insanely hard to align so i always die there and lose $1. So far i've invested $10 to try and win one of the phones for my mum, but no luck. Bleah should have some cut-off pt otherwise i might overshoot the actual value lol.
Then I went back to BK to watch Jiahui teach everyone how to fold straw flowers and hearts and stars. He's great at teaching: he'd like hold the thing up for everyone to see, then show the next step and undo if anyone was lost or ath, so in the end we ended up having dozens of weird looking shapes all over our food trays, and the counter staff were like O.o at us koping all their straws. And we were trading gossip the whole way through, abt jiahui abt eu-eu about me (!) and it was just quite frank and forthcoming.
On the bus ride home i kept thinking to myself: What if those first two series weren't lousy 83s. What if I had dry-fired more to get myself into the rhythm. What if what if? Bleah but the gap between us and the top 3 teams was still too wide to bridge. What to do? Train harder before Nationals!
I remember last year I was just part of the spectators cheering the previous school team members on, but this year it's my turn to step up to the firing line.
For the past year and a half I've always seen people like Daniel as like the epitome of shooting. Every shot's either a 10 or 9, always cool under pressure, always following through and correcting mistakes. Hence I've always tried to emulate that style of shooting. But what I've probably haven't realised, despite having been told countless times, is that I've got the potential to meet and probably even surpass that, without having to imitate anyone. It's just that I've yet to overcome that mental block that keeps me from being the best I can be.
Random stuff to remember next time I train:
1. It's natural to shoot 10s. Don't get tense and "OMG why am i shooting so many 10s?"
2. Don't be fazed by the competition. There's gonna be 30 other people stressing and thinking the same thing about everyone else. So why stress yourself out?
3. Don't go out of your way in search of that elusive 10. It comes naturally as a by-product of your actions done right.
4. Get used to the rhythm of firing. 1000 2000 3000 4000 pull pull boom
5. Focus on the relationship O.< 6. Keep your wrist locked.
It's our year to shine.
Live up to your potential instead of imitating someone else's.
ABUNDANT PEACE :)
8:43 PM
Friday, June 01, 2007
