The team's tour brochure. - National Rifle Association

‘The Problem’by A. StG TuckerIN 1979 I won H.M. The Queen's Prize and seven years later I won the Fullbore GrandAggregate. Those stark facts could be the opening lines of a giant ego trip but I assure you theyare not - anything but!I had already been shooting for 28 years when that fantastic day arrived in 1979. 1 was chairedoff the range, greeted warmly in every clubhouse and congratulated by all and sundry. A coupleof days later I flew to Canada as a member of the G. B. team - I could have got there withoutany aircraft, such was the cloud of euphoria on which I floated as a result of winning the mostcoveted prize in shooting. Also, as a direct result of winning, I was invited to club functions asguest of honour and embarrassed for the rest of that year by the praises heaped upon me.Not ComfortableThe next year (1980) was not a bad year for results, although I was conscious that things werenot going as well as in '79, and towards the end of the year I was not feeling as comfortable inthe shooting position as I had felt previously. I merely put it down to overshooting and put myrifle into hibernation at the end of September. Next year things would go better!The 1981 season did not go better things began to go very wrong. I had been conscious in 1980of a slight but irritating tremor affecting the rifle. It was not always there, but now (1981) it wasa permanent feature and I could neither pinpoint the source nor the cause. It obviously camefrom somewhere in my upper body, went down my sling and had a most detrimental effect onthe steadiness of the rifle, so much so that I was shooting slower and slower in an effort to keepthe rifle still. I tried to improve matters by changing things. I shortened my sling, brought thehandstop back, lengthened the sling again, dropped the cuff on the sling so far down the upperarm that it was nearly round my elbow, then put the handstop so far forward that I nearly ranout of forend wood. I tried bringing my right knee up to get my stomach off the ground (couldthis area be the origin of the problem?) and generally got so confused that I began to forget howI had previously positioned things!While all this was going on I was working up a mental problem that was worse than the physicalone. For years I had enjoyed shooting with a passion that breeds on success, but now I was notenjoying it at all. I had previously approached my shooting with the positive mental attitude thatsaid 'I will win'. This had gradually changed through 'I could win' to 'I might win' to 'I can't win'to 'I won't win' to 'I don't think I'll enter', and many other stages until I finally reached the stagein 1982 when I would do almost anything to avoid shooting. The situation was alleviatedsomewhat by the fact that I was captain of Surrey during 1981, 2 & 3 so I did not have to shootso much, but I was still picked for the 1982 G.B. team to Canada and I desperately wanted toprove myself worthy.Towards the end of 1982 1 pinpointed the root of the problem. The tremor appeared to becoming from my left shoulder blade, so I visited an osteopath on several occasions and had theoffending area 'worked on'. He succeeded in making it very sore, but he did not succeed incuring the problem - the rifle and I still vibrated in a way which often made me doubt whetherthe next round would hit the target at all! I gradually forced myself to shoot more quicklymerely so that others had less chance to witness my struggling.Somehow I got through the 1982 Imperial Meeting and flew off to Canada feeling thoroughlyapprehensive, feeling that I should confess my problem but too ashamed to do so. This was theyear of the Palma Match in Canada so the team rested to get over jet-lag before going toOttawa, but we did not attend the customary Provincial Meeting so our only practice beforethe Palma was the week and a half in Ottawa before the Match.HelpThe tremor was still with me so, in desperation, I decided to take the team doctor into myconfidence to see if he could help. Richard Nicholson may specialise in helping children, but Ishall be eternally grateful to him for the way that he helped me - to help myself. I took him onone side and detailed the problem. In answer to his query as to how I would describe thetremor I can vividly remember saying "It is as if I am having an attack of nerves". The realmeaning of what I had said hit me with blinding reality - it WAS nerves. The difficulty had beenthat it was SUBconscious rather than conscious, so it was not until that moment of identificationthat I was able to bring it forward into my conscious mind and began to work out how tocounteract it.I remembered in the earlier days of my shooting career the nervousness that would be broughtabout by the pressure of competition. I had thought all that was history. Had I not overcomeeverything - rivals as well as self - to win many competitions, culminating in the Queen's Prize?And yet my sub-conscious had dealt me this blow there is nothing like rifle shooting to bringone down to earth with a bump!Richard gave me some important pointers, but the most important were 1. now that you haveidentified the problem stop fighting it and 2. Change your emphasis. The first was relativelyeasy to handle, but the second needed explanation and then application. What he meant (Iconcluded) was that the problem overshadowed everything to such an extent that I wasconcentrating so much on finding a solution that I had no concentration left to apply to theactual shooting. I must therefore take the emphasis off the problem by shifting my concentrationonto something else.It was suggested that I must get back to the position which I had always (pre-problem days)found so comfortable and successful. With help from close friends who had previously beencritical of a position which - theoretically - was quite incorrect, I altered things until they felt