The bell rang to indicate the last ten minutes of the match but I managed to keep a firm hold on the grip. I was down to only 7 shots out of 60 when things got a little tense. It had been two years since I started my journey through the barrel, and I was firing in my second consecutive national championship.
It all started in June 2013; it was a bright Sunday afternoon and I vividly recall asking my mother to take me to a new shooting range that had just opened a few miles away from our home. My mother was skeptical as she found guns to be a source of violence and knew the consequences of their misuse which was a justifiable fear. To me it’s not guns that kill more people but cows, coconuts and cricket.
My very first visit to the shooting range
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We were eager to go in after a 20 minute drive full of anxiety, fear and discussion. I was given a chance to fire a handful of shots and I didn’t fire anything off target. I had finally met my match and it fit like a glove. Hours after I proposed the idea of joining shooting, it was the glow on my face when I first shot rather than the points or the safety data I presented, that convinced my mother that I must pursue this sport further and we enrolled in the basic course. I learned that day, that as easy as it was to defeat someone, it was much more rewarding to win someone over. Like a shot being fired, from that day onwards, there was no stopping me now. Daily life quickly changed for me in ways I hadn’t imagined.
Shooting helped me build many physical disciplines such as increased strength, stamina, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills that apply, not only to this sport, but also to all of life. I quickly learned the discipline of maintaining position, and patience with execution by knowing just when to pull the trigger. Keeping your eyes on the target while aiming a gun requires a lot of focus. Removing my mind from any other activities, I found myself in the present moment in which there was only one thing at hand to do, and it was right in front of