Locked Down and Unloaded

Pretty apt title for the past year and beginning of 2021 But it’s been inspiring to see how you’re all coping with all these restrictions and social abnormalities on your own individual and personal levels. Some can still go out to work so that helps take your mind of things. Some can get the chance to spend more time with the children & their family. Some are alone but set goals/find tasks to keep themselves motivated. Some have struggled, lost their loved ones hit hard by this excruciating pandemic. There are so many variants for every single one of you going through this bizarre time of life. But what strikes me is that you all seem to find a positive outlook from it, no matter how much you’re hurting, suffering, lonely or just purely bored out of your mind! You’re all doing yourselves proud! With things the way they are at the moment it can have a massive effect on mental health, even when you’ve never had to think about or experience that before. This third lockdown seems probably the worst one yet! Winter months, less daylight, low vit D, solitude and uncertainty! But survival instincts kick in, and we all plan for when lockdown ends and we can get back out with the guns and get some sort of normality back again! I, for one, have been desperate to get back out and start doing what I love and enjoy...shooting!! I never thought that I’d be lucky enough to have such an amazing hobby! So since we’re locked down and unloaded at the moment, I’ve made use of the time by taking the gun out of the cabinet and practicing with my dry mount and pre-shot routine. Just a couple of times a day, 10-15mins each session really does make a difference even if you don’t think it does! I noticed in the previous lockdown when I didn’t do this much, I went back to competition shooting and my core strength had lessoned a bit. You forget how much you do when you’re going out and shooting every weekend. How much it helps with your muscle memory, strength and confidence. Like most of us are thinking, I believe we can write off 2020 and the beginning of 2021 for any sign of improvement or consistency. But once we can get back out there in April (I’m hoping) we can then get back to enjoying what we love. It’s definitely made me realise how much shooting means to me and to remember nit to take it for granted, even when you have really bad days, they’re not really that bad after all!! I’m setting myself some goals for the next year because in a year that’s been so unpredictable I need to give myself a positive focus, I haven’t felt like I’ve achieved much at all in 2020 and I’ve struggled having no route forward, so a plan of action is being hatched! Like they say, you don’t realise what you have until it’s gone!...so I’m going to grab it with both hands (forend and trigger) and make the most of the opportunities I have been given and the ones I’m going to make!! So take this extraordinary experience as a lesson, as knowledge and growth within yourselves! You’re all doing amazingly and I can’t wait for the future for you all!! Hope to see you all out there soon, enjoying what you love and seeing those smiles back on your faces when we’re finally released and loaded again! Stay safe and well! Catch up soon!