Marksmanship, if I remember correctly, was an upgrade in Warcraft 2 that increased your archers' damage significantly. It also happens to have something to do with how well you can shoot a target by firing a projectile. Archery is fancy, but I ain't no Katniss. So instead, last Saturday, I shot a rifle. There's a group of reeel fancy shooters called Appleseed that host an event every year that teaches lessons on using a rifle and simultaneously commemorates the people and events of the Revolutionary War. I went with Merilee, her sister, and her brother-in-law. It was totes cray cray fo sheezy.
Most of the instruction and practice was on the prone position, but we also practiced seated and standing positions. The latter two were less accurate positions for hitting our targets, which were 25 yards away. I didn't know that there was so much to shooting a gun. I had done the Riflemanshipbadge course at scout camp, so I had shot a .22. Other than that, my experience with guns was restricted to what I had observed in Bourne, Bond, and Bauer productions. Gotta love the JBs.
What's impressed me the most about riflemen is how hard it actually is to be as accurate as they are. You don't really get the sense of difficulty when you watch stuff on TV. One thing we focused on was "finding your NPOA." NPOA stands for Natural Point Of Aim. Besides the obvious difficulty of focusing your eyes on the target, which looks tiny from even only 25 yards away, and your iron sights, there's also all the shaky bisniss that your body does. If you find your NPOA, you're in a position that's so comfortable and relaxed that you could theoretically fall asleep. This position uses the tension of the sling and other things to let you keep your position without using muscle, which muscle use would lead to shaking. Then you have your breath that can alter your shot. As Don said, snipers even have to shoot between heartbeats.
After going through a clip practicing a certain technique, we went up to our targets and could see immediately how we did. It was interesting to see how much of a difference these supposedly "little" things made on our shots. It reminds me of a seminary lesson I once had. Two students held ends of a string on opposite ends of our classroom. One student remained stationary while the other had to move depending on how much the string was going to be rotated (measured with a protractor). It was impressive to see, as I did at the shooting range, how changes, even if they seem small from where we are, can have a big impact on the end result. A breath or muscle contraction can cause you to miss your target, and varying off course by even so little as 1 degree can drastically change your destination.
And so it is with life. A lot of times, I feel like it's so easy to get off track. All I have to do is barely twitch and I'm already on a set course for a place that I don't want to be. I'm getting better at doing the little things, so hopefully that means I'm on target. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, and there are few that find it.
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