Quote Originally Posted by SA Friday View Post
Here's the rub about shooting competitively regardless of the type of shooting; unless you've been around it, you have no idea how to gauge just how good a good shooter is. Weather your show up to shoot or you show up to watch, regardless of the type of shooting competition, you are going to see some guys shooting that will blow your mind. Then you say to yourself, "there's no way I can do that." The problem is the high level shooting is taken out of context. It's obvious you can't do that high level shooting when you start. I've never seen a newbie that could.

Newbies come out to shooting competitions for various reasons. The ones that stay are the ones that want to get better regardless of where they started in the depths of suckatude.
SA friday is exactly right. I shot Running Game Target at a very high level of competition in the late 80's and early 90's. It is a ten metre air rifle event. Anyway, when I started, I couldn't even hit the target consistantly. I was away from competative shooting for many years except for an occasional smallbore silhouette match or round of trap with my dad. I'd really been looking for something new to try. I enjoyed the PD match a lot and I will continue to compete.

I really sucked the first time and the second time wasn't much better. There was some improvement however. My goal in any competition is just to improve my own performance. I compete only with myself. The only objective is to achieve my personal best performance. If you genuinely focus on that, one day you will surprise yourself with how well you can shoot.