Bad shot?

• Well, let me explain. A bad shot for an international shooter means any shot outside 10. For a beginner, like me, though, it can mean a lot of things.

Off to battle

• Keeping those wise words of the top shooters in mind, I began. First shot just outside ten, yet I wasn’t under any kind of pressure. Is this what we write as “underdog advantage?”

But the relaxed mode helped. I must share a secret tip here: don’t calculate the score, go ahead and shoot. Quite like Sachin’s not looking at the scoreboard, you see.

I saw the scores later. Next shot, a perfect 10. Wow! First card, seven out of ten good shots (all ten), two eights (good for me, poor for the top shooters): an average of 95.

That’s it, I told myself, I was living it, living my reports in the daily. No deviating from the basics, no calculating. The second card was 94. Then came the best: 97.

Losing focus

• Then came the point I always write about, about the excitement from within that sort of clouds your stance, your quiet.

I wasn’t being able to focus. The first 35 minutes were fine, but thereafter I had trouble keeping myself in the match. That was the mind-training part I write about, what the shooters need, want, a psychologist in the squad.

After the first 30 shots Jung was only one point ahead. But after one hour 45 minutes I realised how tired your mind can be, just standing there, focusing. And my legs were giving away, it seemed. 93 in the fourth card. I was slipping — fifth card: 91.

... contd.