Karen - Competitiveness

"Don't be so hard on yourself"

The above statement echo’s in my head….

I believe I was born with the competitive gene…made even more prominent by growing up with two brothers! With this in mind, you would think that was a good thing……not necessarily, this I have begun to realise recently…

Because I have so much passion, so much drive, so much fight in me to do well at something, I like to see results for my efforts... this is something that doesn’t always happen straight away and can take a long time when it comes to shooting. It’s also something I need to get my head around, or it could result in my drive for wanting more, leading to me having a lot less!

Which moves me nicely onto my most recent, fantastic shoot of The Essex Gun Masters held in the lovely surroundings of Hepworth Hall Shooting Ground This was my first major 200 bird (in one day) shoot! Squadded and consisting of a Red course and a Black course. Our team chose Monday 8^th April to shoot. We had great weather and amazing targets! When I say amazing, I should be more specific and say (in my defence)…DIFFERENT targets, ones I’ve never experienced before……such as an UPHILL rabbit, another quartering away and skimming on WATER (that was fun I have to admit!), and what I like to call a ‘mahoooosive’ battue….yeah, I didn’t get anywhere near that one! Ha!

I was also privileged enough to shoot with a few top shots such as Ami & Taylor Hedgecock and England team shooter Paul Woodley. Being so new to the game and having these superb shooters in our team resulted in me subconsciously putting extra pressure on myself to do well… with the effect that I possibly tried too hard and focused far too much on trying to be up there with them than actually hitting clays. This is something I CANNOT let myself do….I will get nowhere! So my next port of call is to do a little brain training on myself…..You’ll find out more about that in the coming months….I ended the day on 125/200, hitting my average, so bang on target for the moment.. (no pun intended!) but I’m always striving to improve.

I already have Essex Gun Masters withdrawals, and it’s only been a few days! But luckily it’s not long before I shoot the Lyalvale Express Masters held at Atkin Grant & Lang Shooting Ground on 27^th April. I’ll hopefully see you lovely lot there if you’re going.