By Anette Katrine Bjarkmann, 4th Kyu, Yakami Shinsei-ryu, 3rd Kyu Kodosoku-kai Gensei-ryu Karate-do

My first shooting experience began in Easter 2012. I went on Easter vacation with my family, we were going to spend 12 days in the USA and, among other things, visit California's second largest city, San Diego, experience Palm Springs' heat and underground springs, see the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Before we left, Kimu asked if it was ok for us to "fly by" Phoenix before continuing to Las Vegas/Grand Canyon. He had an agreement with Rob Leatham to shoot with him on a day course, of course I had no objections to this!

It subsequently turned out that our little trip past Phoenix meant a small detour of 1,300 km, and a one-day stay at a hotel together with the kids, so that Kimu could gather additional experience and information for Shindenkan's shooting project. What don't we do as a family, for Shindenkan 🙂

Well, after Phoenix, it was off to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Kimu had arranged for us to go up to the USA's largest shooting range. Now we all had to try to shoot. Both Elisabet and Viktoria thought it was a fantastically good initiative. It shouldn't be a secret, I didn't think so!
I was nervous and a bit scared to handle a real firearm. It turned out as I had feared, I didn't think it was much fun, the kids were super good, Kimu impressed the Shooting officers, they admired his marksmanship skills, especially that he could hit a very small area the size of a playing card at a distance of 50 meters with rapid shooting, - they therefore believed that he must be in the military's special unit, participating in one thing or another. And I hit completely by accident, if I hit, it was really cold and I hadn't put on enough clothes, so there was a lot in the way 🙂

The girls thought it had been a really good experience and were ready to try it again, and I was of the belief that I would never be good at it and it wasn't that much fun either.
So you can imagine how I felt when I had to participate in POMW. My attitude was, of course, that I wanted to do my best, but to learn to shoot and not least to hit the target, I was in no way overly aware that I would get to that..

In the first part of the course, we got a lot of information about the history of firearms, how many weapons are legal and illegal in Denmark, what a firearm can do and how important one's attitude is, safety, safety, attitude, clarification (it is the person behind weapon and not the weapon that is decisive) technique, safety, safety, technique, safety…

Frame of 7 meters, how difficult can it be!
Then I and the others got an Airgun in hand, now we had to try to hit first at 3m, then 5m, 7m and 11m (because the target was so small, 7m corresponded to 11m, 11m to 15m).
Although I really tried to do what Jens Hanshi-dai, Søren Renshi and Martin Renshi instructed, it didn't go very well. At 3 meters my shooting target looked as if I had shot with a shotgun and when I looked at e.g. Mikkel and Jan's disc - had their small fine collections around 9/10. Courage and confidence dropped by at least 100 degrees!.
At 5m and 7m it got even worse and at 11m I didn't hit the target at all. In addition, I had problems with my vision and had to wear reading glasses under the goggles to even be able to see the reticle. It was pure misery. So my starting point was, I will never learn that, to this came the memory from the Las Vegas experience 🙂 …
Before we finished the first part of the course, we were instructed in which exercises we should train at home. In order to achieve the best result for the second part of the course, you should train 10-15 minutes every day in the "dry training exercises".
Now it is Kimu who has developed the course and I know that everything he does and does is 100% well thought out and more.. Despite this, I have to admit that I had my doubts that the dry training technique could work miracles for someone with my shooting level - which the underdrive was "far below minus".

We practiced almost every day
Reach! But Viktoria and I practiced almost every day (92 %), and I have to admit that I swore and sulked many times. Getting the hands positioned correctly is really difficult, the toy sliders weighed the same as a real slider, so you get a bit numb in your arms after a while. It is incredibly difficult to get the eyes to coordinate correctly on the reticle, despite this we kept practicing and it got easier with time.

Then came the day when we had to complete the second part of the course, and I have to admit that I was quite nervous, could 3 weeks of dry training work miracles?.
The course started with us refreshing the information from the end and not least the part about safety, safety, technique, safety, then we had to shoot! I was just nervous!.
Just like last time, we started at 3 meters and then it was ready go. After shooting 2 magazines you could pick up your disc and I just had to do a little victory dance. I had pierced area around 9 & 10 so there was only one big hole :-). After that we continued to shoot at 5m, 7m and 11m which I now hit around the centre. We finished with 5 meters on the 5 m disc, and here I also shot a nice hole in 9/10, and only 2 shots hit the 7 & 6 area.

So after 3 hours, I had completely fallen in love with shooting and it was quite fun and now I hit :-). Everyone including Viktoria and the other children had also improved significantly, the same also applied to Mikkel and Jan, although I didn't think it was possible, as they both shot quite well the first time.

My learning curve had gone from 0 to 100 in 3 weeks, from not being able to hit at all, to now being able to hit 9 and 10 from 3 and 5 meters on a 5m disc. 7 m and 11 m had also gone very well on the 5 m disc. I thought it was fun and I'm looking forward to having to shoot with real ammunition. So yes, you can learn to shoot in 3 weeks, even if you are a woman and have never held a firearm in your hand before. And it's not by standing down in a shooting club and burning off a lot of ammunition, no by standing at home in your living room, after having been taught the essence of shooting technique, which has been gleaned from some of the world's best shooters and not least important seasoned with the essence of martial arts which is about attitude and clarification. Yes, I have to admit Kimu can do something that very few people can. But I have now experienced this quite a few times over the past 21 years in many different fields and from people's mouths all over the world, - sometimes it is really annoying!. But you get used to it.. with time 🙂