Pistol Qigong Is A Blast

Minimizing the Arc of Movement With Qigong

“No pistol shooter, no matter how expert, can hold a pistol in firing positions without some motion.  This is called the arc of movement.  The very best that any shooter can do is to keep the arc of movement at a minimum—it cannot be eliminated.” The N.R.A.’s Basics of Pistol Shooting (57).

For humans, perfect stillness does not exist in the living. Our bodies constantly make adjustments, large and small, to maintain even simple postures. In marksmanship, constant adjustments add up to what is called the arc of movement. The arc of movement is the amount that the firearm moves as a result of a body’s natural inability to maintain perfect stillness.  The greater the arc of movement, the more difficult it is to maintain proper site alignment which leads to inconsistent marksmanship.

At first we might think that to minimize the arc of movement we need to force our arm into stillness. This severe willing of stillness inevitably leads to muscles contracting, causing tension as well as motion. Anyone who has tried showing off their bicep could tell you that intense muscle contractions cause trembling in surrounding muscles. We can conclude that forcing our arms into stillness leads to a greater arc of movement, the exact opposite of what we want.

Now we may conclude that, since willing our bodies into stillness causes an increase in arc of movement, then perhaps relaxing our bodies has the opposite effect. This would be correct, but it overlooks the fact that if we were completely relaxed we would collapse to the ground under gravity’s pull. The arc of movement decreases dramatically, but we couldn’t stand to shoot a firearm.

The answer is, you guessed it, somewhere between these extremes, but where? And how do we find it? Muscle tension is required to stand, hold the firearm up, and squeeze the trigger. We must figure out what tension is necessary and what tension is superfluous. To figure out this challenge, we will examine Qi-gong.

The ancient art of Qigong brings insight into minimizing the arc of movement.

In Power Taiji, Erle Montaigue explains that “Qigong literally means ‘internal work’…any physical and/or mental actions combined with certain breathing methods that cause an internal flow of energy” (1). Qigong is practiced as a meditative, relaxing exercise to increase health, and it’s used to cultivate physical and mental power and awareness. It’s practiced as a moving exercise or as a static, standing one. To explore minimizing the arc of movement, we will concentrate on standing Qigong.

In static or standing Qigong, the practitioner holds a particular pose. This practice usually focuses on experiencing relaxing while still maintaining proper posture. In other words, practitioners aim to learn to use only the necessary amount of muscular tension to hold the pose. This is difficult because, as the practitioner starts to tire, more muscles crave participating to compensate.

Relaxing into the pose, teaches practitioners to tap more into Type I Muscle Fibers. According to Gerard J. Tortora and Mark Nielsen, in Principles of Human Anatomy, Type I fibers “are very resistant to fatigue and are capable of prolonged, sustained contractions for many hours…[and are]…adapted for maintaining posture….” (298).  Once we teach these muscle fiber the posture, we need to get out of their way and let them do their job.  Keep in mind it isn’t black and white.  Through experience, we learn which other muscles besides Type I are necessary and which are just excess.  In addition, by relaxing, practitioners may begin to feel the tensile strength of their connective tissues and the supporting role they play.

Through regular practice of Qi-gong, we discover deeper awareness of our bodies and tissues. Our awareness can be applied to the stance and body structure needed for the practice of marksmanship. Instead of relying on muscular tension to position ourselves in front of a target, with our new found awareness, we work to relax all those muscles that unnecessary. By minimizing the amount of muscles doing work we will minimize bodily tremors that accompany excess tension, and we, in turn, minimize our arc of movement.

Quiet down and allow your body to do what it knows how to do.

We examined physical awareness. Let’s turn our sights to the mind and its relationship to the arc of movement. In the Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey tells us that “if the conscious mind thinks it…knows which muscles are actually needed…and tries to control those muscles, it will inevitably use muscles that aren’t needed.  When more than necessary are used, not only is there a waste of energy, but certain tightened muscles interfere with the need of other muscles to relax…which will actually impede…[the outcome]” (35).

In other words, when we use more muscle energy than we need, we end with an outcome opposite of what we seek. Moshe Feldenkrais describes this phenomenon in his classic book Awareness Through Movement: “People who know how to operate effectively do so without great preparation and without much fuss.  Men of great will power…who often have poor ability…tend to apply too much force instead of using moderate forces more effectively” (58).  In terms of ability vs. will-power, someone who owns ability and trusts that ability will be much more effective than someone who lacks ability or who does not trust that ability.  In the latter, the person compensates by using will power which translates to using excess force.

Both Gallwey and Feldenkrais emphasize the effects our thoughts have on our actions. If we’ve competently performed a particular skill in the past then our body can do it again. However, by focusing too hard upon a desired outcome, we encourage tensions beyond what we require for proper performance. Even if we have never competently performed an action before, by desperately willing or forcing it, we create excessive tension and poor performance. In relation to the arc of movement, if we focus too-intently on decreasing the arc of movement, our bodies will respond to our brains’ desires by forcing extra tension.

Qigong, in addition to helping us become aware of necessary and unnecessary tension, also aids us in managing self-defeating thoughts. While practicing, our awareness can bounce back and forth between our bodies and our breathing. Inevitably, thoughts will arise, but, as we practice returning to our attention to body and breath, we learn to manage and minimize self-defeating thoughts. The more we become comfortable with this practice, the easier we achieve stillness while practicing marksmanship (or any activity for that matter). Instead of getting caught up in thinking, really hard, about how much we must keep our arm from moving, we return our awareness to our body, to our breathing, without engaging in the thought. Once that thought is gone we can allow our body to do what it knows how to do.

Physically, to minimize the arc of movement, one balances tension and relaxation. The difficulty is finding the balance. Qigong is one way we explore and experience this balance. Once we experience it, we can apply it to our shooting. Mentally, once we know how to minimize the chatter in our minds, we can also reduce unnecessary tensions in our bodies that arise from our thoughts.