Yesterday saw me shooting at the Surrey air gun match at Bisley. The reason this is worth noting is because it is the first time I shot in a shoulder-to-shoulder competition against sighted shooters and we believe the first time a VI person in the UK has shot in a mainstream shooting competition rather than VI specific competitions.
As it was a new experience for me and also new for the competition organisers to, I travelled with my coach down to Bisley on Friday, so that the organisers could see the VI shooting equipment and what would be involved, as well as giving me a chance to do some training on the competition range.
Saturday was the day of the competition. It was slightly surprising the nerves I was feeling, at a similar level to those I get at high-level international VI competitions. I think with it being the first shoulder-to-shoulder for a VI shooter against sighted shooters, I had put pressure on myself to do well to show how well VI shooters can actually shoot. I know I have shot in leagues against sighted shooters, but somehow that feels slightly different as many of the people in the league may not know that I am VI as they do not see me shooting, at a shoulder-to-shoulder everyone would be able to see me shooting and so I felt I was representing VI shooting to everyone else there.
As for how did I do. I think my nerves did affect me at the beginning, but over time I seemed to settle down and the scores started to improve. My total score was 543.5 which I am fairly happy with, it is my best competition score for this year and if my early shots had been around the average of my later shots, then my score would have been much higher. The nerves should get better as I do more of these competitions, so I hope in future my scores will improve. In a couple of weeks I will be shooting at the inter-regional, so we need to wait and see how I get on there.
