For those of you who have chosen to pick up a book on the mental side of marksmanship, you have decided to take the next step in your shooting in enhancing your performance and taking it to the next level. I have been working with shooters and elite level marksman for over 8 years, much of this experience has been with U.S. Army snipers and marksmen who have made it their goal and mission to get themselves and their Soldiers to perform optimally on a consistent basis no matter what the situations or conditions. This includes both competitive shooting and tactical shooting. When I started, I had the excellent opportunity to work with SSG John Brady, now retired, to introduce me the exciting and complex world of shooting along with opening the way for me to work with other great U.S. Army marksmanship instructors which included SFC Ash Hess (retired, he developed and wrote the most recent U.S. Army marksmanship manual) and SFC Joshua Swink (retired) both of whom introduced me to the world of tactical and close-range shooting. All these individuals were teaching aspects of the mental side of shooting but at times did not know how to fully explain how to apply and reinforce these cognitive/mental aspects of shooting or have a comprehensive knowledge or program for it. Through observing and working with these extremely knowledgeable individuals I was able to develop a plan to assist/train shooters with the development of their metal game and together with these marksmanship instructors, or you could call them gurus, we were able to help shooters to fire their weapons consistently and accurately even under the most severe of circumstances and stress.
This book will address different styles of shooting, which will include long range marksmanship, short range marksmanship, competition shooting, and tactical shooting which will include live fire/real life situations. The reason for this is that while there are some generalities in the mental skills, processes, and routines of shooters, these can vary depending on the situation, mission, and tasks of the shooter and their position within a team. I worked with SSG John Brady (retired) for over 6 years in regards to marksmanship training and we have encountered and dealt with many different challenges of training shooters to send it and send it so that it hits and neutralizes targets. Our work together was in training Soldiers and shooters for actual combat and for competitions that have included 4 United States Army Small Arms Competitions and 6 United States Army International Sniper Competitions. Besides these competitions I have trained multiple Snipers and shooters in mental/cognitive skills. Once on the range John spoke these words to the shooters he was training, "There's no such thing as high speed, only ownership, mastery of the fundamentals." These words are so true in the fact that being an elite level shooter takes practice of the skills of your craft, that is marksmanship. This includes the tactical, technical, and physical skills of shooting, this includes both physical and mental. Marksmanship does not have magic pills or equipment that makes you good, it is the mastery of a set of skills, which are perishable.