2022 Nationals were held in Darwin at TEPSL. This year there was a change to the format of shooting and it made a lot of people very keen on the match. The difference being that there would be two pistol matches and rifle and shotgun. The first match would be the optics match and the second was the iron sight match.

At first, I wanted to shoot all of the matches, but after thinking about the logistics of getting there I cut it back to just shooting my main match and being an RO for the rifle and shotgun matches. Ammo was going to be the most difficult and with the powder shortage, I choose to just shoot the one match and still to this day I am happy with my decision, but I sometimes think that it would have just been better if I just shot an Optics Pistol in the COBPC squad in the first match.

Because I was not shooting the first match I focused on getting around and catching up with everyone that I had not seen for ages because of COVID. I took a whole heap of selfies with people on the range which can be seen at the end of the below video.

I had been doing a lot of training leading up to this match about 150 rounds of dedicated training ammo per week and one match on Saturday morning that same week. Still managing my neck injury this was well within my rehab plan and my neck was doing well. I had been taking a medication called meloxicam which had been helping me with training and not getting any headaches or pain. Looking back on it now it came at a price, using meloxicam over a long period started to affect my mental game in the way of processing my stage plans and being able to shoot the stage subconsciously. This was very subtle and not noticeable at the time and a hard thing to accept as the drug was giving me so many other benefits. This is not a known side effect, the doctor said, but I then asked how many people that have taken meloxicam, have also been IPSC shooters. His response was he didn't know and probably not many if any at all. I am not taking it anymore and I can notice the difference.

After being at the first match and seeing the competitor finish in the dark and under car headlights I was not filled with confidence that the iron sight match was going to go very well. This is not a good mental thought to have in preparation for the match. I had decided to shoot the match with my CZ Shadow 2 Blue and maybe that was not a good idea? As you can see below my accuracy was down and really I did not have a good match. I actually think that all that shoot the match didn't have a great time. There were many reasons for this and I hope that IPSC Australia learned some valuable lessons from this match and develops their future matches around the template that the 2021 Nationals ran under at Townville pistol club.

Key learning points to take away from this match were:

• Always clean your mags at big matches like nationals

• be mindful of your mental preparation leading up to the match, try to stay away from anything negative, or make sure you are doing things that are helpful to you and your match, try not to put yourself in these situations or remove yourself from these situations if you can

• use your match gun even though you think that your backup gun is better, if you have a match gun, if you don't I would be looking into getting one if you are shooting nationals or interstate

• be mindful of things you can control and the things you can't and don't expend any energy on things you can't control

• 150 rounds a week for me is not enough ammo in lead up training to a big match

Fixes to these points:

• take a cleaning brush to matches and clean mags in between stages and ensure you have good mag bases that come off easy, please use the link below to see the bases I use

• I have developed a new mantra to say when I start a stage, GRIP - RELAX - REACT, I am also continuing to develop a routine for the lead-up to shooting and practicing it at club matches

• developed a new load and use my CZ Shadow 2 Orange for most shooting now with great results

• being mindful of unpleasant conversations during the match and asking people to change the subject or removing myself from their presents

• upped my training 450 rounds per week plus a match and dryfire at the range on stages that I have been shooting

All up it was a hard match and I learned I lot from the match. I am still happy with the result even though it was not what I had been hoping for. I had a lot of fun while I was not shooting and made some new friends along the way. I also shot my first rifle stage with a mate rifle and it was awesome!

I hope you enjoy the video and until next time stay safe, keep on shooting and I'll catch you down the range!

AzzA