Rifle Team Weekly Happenings 2022-09-25
Hi Everyone!
I hope that everyone has had a great week. It's the first week of fall and the weather is certainly reflecting it.
Items this week:
- We will be at the SDC Rifle Range this week:
- Monday 6pm - 10pm
- Tuesday 6pm - 10pm
- What we will be working on this week:
- For anyone that has started Prone, we will be shooting Kneeling this week.
- It's highly recommended to wear pants or some type of legwear that will cover your knees.. It's recommended that the pants not be the restrictive skin-tight skinny pants. You will be kneeling.
- For anyone who completed "This Is A Rifle", and "Intro to Standing":
- This week you will start working on Smallbore - Prone
- This will be an overview of the basic aspects of the position, as well as start of practice Smallbore rifle assembly and end of practice disassembly.
- For anyone who has completed "This Is A Rifle"
- This week you will be working on "Intro to Standing", as well as start of practice Air Rifle assembly and end of practice disassembly.
- For anyone who has not shot yet (It's never too late to start!)
- This week you will be working through a combined "This is A Rifle", "Intro to Standing" as well as start of practice Air Rifle assembly and end of practice disassembly.
- For anyone that has started Prone, we will be shooting Kneeling this week.
- Shooter's Journals:
- While it might not seem like much, keeping a written record of your progress is one of the easiest things that you can do to help you improve. It allows you to look back to see what you've done and how far you've progressed as well as plan for the future. A common saying in IT (and most industries) is: "if it's not documented; it didn't happen". (Now you know why you always need to submit a ticket on IT issues.). This saying is true for competitive shooting sports as well. You may have found the best way to achieve that "10-ring hold", maybe you found something that you need to work on next time. Perhaps during practice you've found several things that just don't work. Bottom line - If you don't write it down; there's a fairly good chance that knowledge will be lost within a few weeks.
We use the Ticket To Train System developed by USA Shooting to help make keeping a journal easier. This ties in with making and setting goals. We'll go over goal setting in late October or early November. But just plan to spend about 7 minutes (or less) before and after practice to work on this.
The way it works is fairly simple. When you first get to the range, get your binder from the hallway along with any other equipment you might need. FYI - The binder makes for a great place to keep your hearing protection and *ugh* glasses. Once inside the range get your rifle and other equipment setup and ready to shoot. BUT - Before you start shooting, fill out a Ticket To Train. This completed form is your "ticket" onto the range. Tickets are located in the target holder and are available either in "My office only has white paper white" or a limited edition color (Currently we have "You can't use Lime for Table Tents Electric Lime")
There's three sections to fill out before you can start shooting:
1. The date
2. What do you plan to work on today?
3. What will you be doing to work on the items?
There's three sections to fill out after practice.
1. Did you work on the tasks above? Sometimes we get into position and find that there's something else that needs work before we can work on what we wanted to. Sometimes we just get distracted. It's alright if we don't follow our plan. We just don't want to make a habit of completely ignoring it.
2. What do we need to work on next practice? Maybe we've solved an issue, but another arose. This is where we tell our future selves what to work on.
3. Any other general notes you want to write down. It could be anything. Some examples of what you might put in this space are: How are you feeling today? Are you happy, sad, upset? What's going on in life? All of that impacts how you shoot. What's working out, what isn't and needs to be worked on? Perhaps a detailed description of what you worked on today or changes that were tested out and the results. Any rifle adjustments that were made. Various pictures or diagrams.
Overall - just be honest with yourself. Don't BS something thinking that's what Coach wants to see on paper. This isn't for me; This is a tool for you to use. I will not look at your journal unless you ask me to. If you're not honest with yourself you won't see any benefit. If you want me to help you on something you've been working on and tracking in your journal; I will gladly take a look at your journal and provide feedback and suggestions if you want me to. But before I will take a look at your journal I will hand you some sticky notes to cover anything you don't want me to read.
- While it might not seem like much, keeping a written record of your progress is one of the easiest things that you can do to help you improve. It allows you to look back to see what you've done and how far you've progressed as well as plan for the future. A common saying in IT (and most industries) is: "if it's not documented; it didn't happen". (Now you know why you always need to submit a ticket on IT issues.). This saying is true for competitive shooting sports as well. You may have found the best way to achieve that "10-ring hold", maybe you found something that you need to work on next time. Perhaps during practice you've found several things that just don't work. Bottom line - If you don't write it down; there's a fairly good chance that knowledge will be lost within a few weeks.
- Homework - Learn the rules
- Like all sports it's important to know the rules of the game. Both so that you don't get penalized for breaking the rules, and recognizing situations where another competitor or team has an advantage because they are breaking the rules. Along with when and how to call them out.
- Next semester we will have a seminar on how to identify when someone is giving themselves an unfair advantage. Much like learning how to hack to better defend a network, this is strictly to teach you how to cheat so you can recognize it if it happens. I do not condone nor will I tolerate anyone who knowingly or willingly makes an attempt to cheat.
- Most of the competitions we will shoot this year will be under the NRA rulebook. We also can fire under the NCAA/USA Shooting (USAS) rulebooks. Most of these rules are identical, but they do differ in a few places.
- The NCAA rules are just the USAS rules with everything non-rifle related removed (shotgun & pistol) and a few things changed here and there. In general because the USAS rulebook is based off of the ISSF rulebook, the NCAA/USAS rules are more restrictive as far as equipment goes.
- All club-owned equipment will pass an equipment check for either rulebook as long as it's properly sized.
- Your homework is to familiarize yourselves with these rulebooks. You don't need to know them inside and out - yet; Just a few pages here and there.
- Since we're shooting prone, reading up on the rules for prone would be a good place to start.
- NCAA/USAS Page 41 / Rule 7.6.1.2
- NRA SB Rules Page 13 / 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.6)
- Might as well throw the rules for Kneeling & Standing in the mix as well
- NCAA/USAS Page 41/42 / Rule 7.6.1.1, 7.6.1.3
- NRA SB Rules Page 14 / 5.10, 5.12)
- We'll be starting competitions at the end of the month, so reading up on Competition Procedures, Range Commands and Operations would be a good thing to do (These won't make sense now, but it will give you a background for when we go over them).
- NRA SB Rules Page 20-32 / Rules 9.X, 10.X
- NRA Air Rules Page 26-36 / Rules 9.X, 10.X (Pretty much the same as above)
- NCAA/USAS Page 15-20 / Rules 6.11.X, 6.12.X, 6.13.X
- Since we're shooting prone, reading up on the rules for prone would be a good place to start.
- You can find the rulebooks here:
- Like all sports it's important to know the rules of the game. Both so that you don't get penalized for breaking the rules, and recognizing situations where another competitor or team has an advantage because they are breaking the rules. Along with when and how to call them out.
- If you are interested in joining, come down to the range and try us out! It's never too late to start!
Upcoming Items:
- Next week, for anyone that joined this year and has completed Prone, you will be learning how to use a spotting scope and "zero" our rifles.
- For anyone returning you should be starting to work on getting acquainted with 3 position competition.
- We will be having an organizational membership meeting in October. The date will be announced once it's scheduled
- It's important to show up for these meetings. This is where we do things like pass bylaws and approve spending.
- We have a minimum member attendance requirement (Called a Quorum) that needs to be met in order for us to do anything.
- We will be shooting our first competition in the last two weeks of October. An email going over the details will be sent out at the beginning of October.
- We will have some travel opportunities coming up in November & December. More details will be released when I finalize some plans with the other coaches.
Thank you for your attention, and have a great week!
GO HUSKIES!
- Zach