Pretty Cloud


This is a very pretty target.

I shot it in Timed Fire this past Sunday and decided to bring it home. It’s going up on the wall.

What makes it pretty is the circular shape.

Oh, a couple of clicks up and right might be nicer but, hey, I’m not shooting for score. I’m shooting to get better.

I’m shooting to get rid of defects.

What this circular pattern means is that, within my wobble, the shots “went” at no particular time. Statistically, they are spread fairly evenly over the entire wobble area.

In other words, I didn’t pull the trigger at the “right time”.

What this target means is that, for each shot in those two strings of five shots, twenty seconds per string, I started putting pressure on the trigger as the dot came into the aiming area and then I kept my attention on the dot while that pressure increased – straight back.

Eventually the gun went, “Bang!” And the point of impact was somewhere, no point in particular, within my wobble.

Wobble will decrease with exercise and practice. And we all know it will probably increase with years. Those two are givens. Hopefully I will have enough wobble-shrinking years to make Master – I don’t even think about High Master – before the latter takes its toll.

But the brain game, oh that’s been the hard part for me.

This target says, “You’re starting to do (the head part) better. This is better.”

And while the “jerk” inside that wants to pull the trigger when the dot is in the middle of the target … while that “jerk” remains inside my head and will occasionally pounce the trigger, and jerk it – I smile when I hear Steve Reiter or John Zurek say, “Oh, I jerked a 10” instead of their usual Xs – I also see results like this target that suggest the daemon is sometimes content to just sit quietly and do nothing.

“Take a break, Jerk. We’ve got this covered.”

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