My Pistol Training and Shooting Goals for 2023

With the help of Paul Hughes and the community of shooters around him, I’ve finally made a comprehensive goals document for 2023 and the years to come, based on his Big Hairy Audacious Goals. You can find everything here: from why I shoot to my process and outcome goals, and how I plan to execute them. Having this goals framework will help me do a lot less work every year.

Defusion Techniques for Pistol Shooters

One of the helpful techniques I’ve learned with Paul Hughes’ 4R mental training course (interview here) is the defusion technique from ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). When we are shooting (and in many other areas of life) we are going to have thoughts and emotions we cannot control, they just pop up and start playing with our minds. What we can do (this is the core of ACT defusion) is change how we relate to them, so that we can reduce their impact.

This has been a life saver.

Do Hard Things: Practical Toughness & Resilience With Steve Magness

Do you fit the topical image of what toughness should look like? You and I are not alone in not fitting it. Luckily for us Steve Magness comes to the rescue with science in his new book Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness (all links to Amazon in this article are affiliate links). I have bought the book as soon as it was available to pre-order and responded to one of Steve’s emails proposing an interview for all of us sport shooters that have to face the difficulties of our sport in competition and training, to take on our difficult challenges without falling into the fake toughness trap.

Series & Concentration Notes & Training Plan

When coach Philippe Stiel sent me this training plan he included this helpful explanation on the importance and how to manage shot series and concentration to help maintain attention where is should be all along a 60 shot match.

Routines, Rituals and Superstitions Training

Philippe Stiel sent an very interesting training program and notes about routines, rituals, and superstitions, explaining how they interact, how they are important, and why. I really liked how he went deep into explaining things to make sure that I understood and value them.

Mental Training Program for Sport Shooters: Paul Hugues’ 4R Method Review

I’m a lucky shooter. Thanks to my constant search for knowledge to improve my shooting skills I discovered Paul Hughes on Instagram. His posts spoke to my shooting mind that wanted to improve its own mental game. Paul kindly let me into his course as soon as he launched it and I’ve never looked back (DISCOUNT INCLUDED).

Philippe Stiel’s Pistol Shooting Recommendations

While training in person with coach Philippe Stiel he gave me a lot of useful advice on things like journaling, acceptance, mental fatigue, keeping the pleasure of shooting, visualization… Here are all of them for you to easily put in practice.

Pre Competition French Nationals Training Plan For 10m Precision & Standard Air Pistol

To prepare next week’s French National Championship air pistol competition, Daniel brought in the MOP team for a full day to finish up our training. We trained for both precision and standard air pistol, and did a very interesting session to help us deal with the pressure and have sensible goals.

My First Training With Philippe Stiel

These are the notes from my first ever training session with Philippe Stiel, former coach of the Belgian pistol national team. He’s the only ISSF pistol coach I found in Belgium and the commute to the training range was manageable with a new born and a small kid at home. Working with Philippe was great and it also gave me the opportunity to meet the friendly people at the CCAT range.