By Niels Sørensen, SDKSkyt, Frederiksberg
I have to write an article about the POMW-I-II course. It became something of a carousel ride for me, where things go up and down. The first round of POMW I was something of a letdown.
During the initial shootings with the airgun (I can therefore ask you to like the Danish word air pistol) it soon became clear that I was not able to hit anything at all. When I finished a round of shooting, the target was as undamaged as when I started.
However, it went a little better for the final part with IPSC shooting. But the overall picture was clear. I was terrible at shooting, and by the time I drove home, my mood was all for the rats. I was actually down in a black hole. Although Kjeld Renshi tried to cheer me up. The feeling of inadequacy was massive, If there is a scale for self-pity, I was at the very top. I actually considered calling Jens Hanshi-dai and telling him that shooting probably wasn't for me, and now I pulled the plug. Well, funnily enough, I slept well that night and the next day my mood was a little better.
In the following few weeks, I had a few good conversations about this with Jens Hanshi-dai, who cheered me up and encouraged me to concentrate on the process and think less about hitting the target. Also in SB/BB training I heard Kimu Sensei say that shooting was extremely simple and we are the ones who are ruining it by making it complicated and chaotic. Well then. I decided to take that to heart.
For my home dry training, I concentrated on holding the airgun correctly, securing it correctly, picking it up and securing it, taking the correct aim, and the correct trigger. Secure and take back down.
They did marginally better for the first part of POMW II, and Kimu Sensei and Jens Hanshi-dai showed me that my shots were positioned to the left approx. 60 degrees slanted up from the center. Kjeld Renshi gave me personal instruction throughout the process, and I am very happy about that.
For the next POMW II, I then tried aiming at the lower right corner and marginal improvement came, but worse was that I couldn't get my gun handling to work properly despite good help from Kjeld Renshi. I was home trained as best I could. A three-week holiday in the USA got in the way a bit. Somewhat ironically some of the time in Texas-probably one of the places in the world most densely populated with firearms. Bad show, but then there was nothing else to do but try to do better next time.
It was now the last part of POMW II.
A long day for practical reasons and for me the first time in Hanebjerg. First shooting with cal.0.22 went moderately, but then we had to shoot with 9 mm. For some reason the big slider worked better for me than the 22's. This applied to both the safety, the sight and the trigger. And then it was fun to shoot with - And suddenly Kimu Sensei came and told me that, 80 per cent. of my shots were in black. So to that extent I was a happy old man.
At one point, Kimu Sensei told us that we had all passed POMW I-II. Nice to know. We ended up shooting a few rounds with the 22 and then a long and good day of shooting was over.
Thanks to Kimu Sensei and the instructors for good instruction and for believing in me so that I finally ended up believing in myself. Also thanks to you other participants for the encouraging words and good atmosphere.