ZEN SHOOTING - SHOOT LIKE YOU ARE MAKING TEA
The Japanese have a tea ceremony which embodies much of their traditional domestic culture.
It is about reverence of the elders and right action but also about focusing on the small details of life. Whilst not the same level of ritual, the principle of practicing zen in an everyday mundane activity is a key one in translating the flow experience into the use of shotgun to be the most effective and therefore the most humane hunter you can be.
FLOW WITH A SHOTGUN
I want you to try to have a flow experience while making a cup of tea in your kitchen. Everyone makes tea differently so the details are not the point. It is finding from within yourself the rhythm and timing that can transform the everyday task into one that inwardly feels very beautiful – almost like a dance. When the concept and practice of a fluid activity almost becomes more important than the end product, then it is possible to translate it and recreate it in the game shooting field.
We start by filling the kettle. The turn rate on your tap should by now be second nature turning just the right amount. The water itself you can watch as it fills the kettle and use it as a guide to the fluidity you are trying to model yourself on during this process. As you move around the kitchen if you are in a state of flow it will become something of a natural dance. You don’t have to count how many steps there are to the fridge to get the milk you know that intuitively from the hundreds of times you have been through this process before. The strides you take to and from the fridge with the milk don’t need to be measured – they are subconsciously computed by the collective knowledge of your experience. You are aware of them but not controlling them.
Now you reach for the cupboard to access the essentials. By your memory your eyes are drawn instinctively to the tea bags and your hand naturally follows. If you are me, one Earl Grey tea bag floats into the bottom of a favourite cup like a flattened rain drop. The sugar is next and the tin is heavy as it has been recently refilled but it does not interrupt the dance: you realise its newly acquired mass make the friction lid easier to remove and it lies facing up on the side. The spoon is within easy reach and fingers make it leap out of the draw, the tip of the handle controlled by the palm of your hand as you reposition it for action. One sugar, the grains aiding you by levelling themselves, the excess falls back into the tin but the delicate peak is prevented from becoming an avalanche by the smooth action of your arm towards the cup. If you thought about how you are so steady, you would try to control it and prevent yourself from spilling any. In so doing the stuttering muscles under conscious control would almost certainly bring about what you are hoping to avoid. It is tipped and the spoon remains in the cup as your hands go back to the milk. The lid unscrews in one swift turn of dextrous fingers and just the right measure is poured in an unwavering flow as your coordination and non-measuring mind are suddenly acting as one. The kettle clicks off having boiled and you rise it naturally and introduce it to the cup. The non-measuring mind allows a myriad of muscles to pour just the right amount of water into the cup so a good continuous stir will not overflow the lip. The kettle is returned accurately to its base. Now as you stir the water tea, milk and sugar together all work as one with the whirl rate very quickly matching your speed just as the speed of your stir matches the whirl rate. Then you catch the tea bag with the bowl of the spoon but not as to interrupt too much the natural whirl of the water. A few rises and falls with the spoon on an angle over the cup to drain the bag just enough to prevent dripping and lift it towards the bin, the pedal of which you already stepped on as part of your turn towards the final stage of the process.
The spoon is pulled down fast and away allowing gravity to guide the tea bag exactly toward the centre of the bin just as the lid closes behind it, all happening in under a second.
REFLECT
As you drink your tea, reflect on the process you have just undertaken; the muscles that were involved, the coordination you had to bring to bear to perform what is actually quite a complex task bringing together 4 ingredients (one of which if spilt can cause you some harm) and 4 different tools. It is something we do every day, so simple a recipe, such complex action and so satisfying a result.
Now shoot like you are making tea.
