Learning from experience

By Isabel Newstead
British Paralympic shooter

I'm now at the stage where I am polishing things off so that I can feel secure and confident going into Athens.

I recently looked at my training diary from just before the Sydney Games and I know that what I am doing now is much better and I am making fewer mistakes than four years ago.

We as shooters are encouraged to keep training diaries and it is something I have been doing since 1999 and helps me enormously.

Newstead shoots for Athens

Sometimes at the end of a training session, I might feel I haven't improved but a look back at the diaries gives me great reassurance and helps to banish the negative thoughts that can sometimes creep in.

In shooting, every error is punished. It is not like a sport like tennis where you can lose games or even a set and still go on and win the match itself.

The concentration is so important and is one of the most difficult aspects of the sport.

Visualisation is widely used in shooting and archery because it is a precision sport and the same motion is used over and over again in the execution of the shot or the arrow.

I studied psychology many years ago and I have always been aware that altering the way you think can change the outcome of things.

Visualisation helps train my frame of mind

When psychology started to find its find into sport, I certainly wasn't hostile to the potential it had.

A lot of people think it is all mumbo-jumbo and they will be "taken over". That's their opinion but it isn't mine.

For me, I find visualisation a mental release and it helps me to train my frame of mind.

I do it so that when it comes to Athens and I get in line with the other shooters, I am doing something that I have visualised time and time again and I am totally familiar with.

I will be looking at the target 10 metres away and the rest will happen. It gives me a sense of security.

I have no more competitions until Athens but I am being kept busy with squad training weekends until I depart for the holding camp in Cyprus early next month - time is moving along fast.