INTERVIEW WITH BILL DEMAREST
Bill Demarest was a member of the US National Team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He specialized in Free and Air Pistol. This interview was conducted at the 2000 Spring Selection Matches at Fort Benning, where he won both events. A few weeks later, he won the Milan World Cup in Free Pistol with a then-world record score of 577+99.2=676.2.
You’re shooting a Feinwerkbau P34 for air?
Yes
I assume you’re shooting a Toz?
Right now I’m shooting a Toz free pistol, that’s correct. I was getting some light strikes out of the Hammerli 150, it’s fine during the match but it’s not okay during the Final. Seventy five seconds is not enough time to deal with three or four light strikes.
And what have you shot in the past, before you shot the P34?
I was shooting an Anschutz M10 for a short period of time. It was during a developmental stage, the first batch that came out of Anschutz, I had some really good performance scores out of it. Unfortunately I just wasn’t receiving the service support that was necessary to maintain world class scores. Prior to that I was shooting a Model 2 Feinwerkbau, that’s also a very good piece of equipment.
How did you get started in shooting?
I started shooting at the age of fourteen back in Massachusetts. I was shooting three position rifle, NRA style. My cousin was getting me into it. That was very short-lived, it lasted for about six months. My cousin and I didn’t continue the training sessions, so I took up racing ten speeds and soccer, cross country and track.
How did you get back into shooting?
That was real interesting. Early nineties after certifying the MD-11 with McDonnell Douglas my wife challenged me to do an activity and get back into running, and I chose pistol shooting. Actually it was 900 section at 2700 matches with the 22. I had a little Browning Buckmark. And somebody saw me shooting that 22 and said that it was too easy for me so they decided to introduce me to International, Free Pistol and Air Pistol, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
What exactly do you do in the civilian world, since you’re not a full time athlete?
No, definitely not. Boy, wouldn’t that be nice? I work for a company called Boeing, we manufacture aircraft. I work for the department that certifies the aircraft with the FAA, part of instrumentation operation support. So we’re responsible for making sure the product meets the promises and expectations of our customers prior to delivery.
How do you handle the mental game during the match?
When you’ve been doing it for a while and get a chance to compete at international level it just becomes another day’s shooting and you realize that the actual match is the competition between you and yourself and not the other people on the line. So you draw on a whole mixed bag of past experiences and most of it comes from your training routine. You know that you’re capable of achieving certain scores during training and there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t attain those same scores during competition. The only thing that’s a little bit different in competition to training is in the Finals. You don’t get the opportunity to train in Finals very often, so for me I draw from running. Out of running and cycling, I deal with an elevated heart rate and I do a lot of interval training where I can bring that heart rate back down. You get over excited from running six miles or ten miles or riding forty or fifty miles, your heart rate gets up, you get to a stop light and try to bring everything back down to relaxed, and that’s what I draw from during a Final.
Some of the other athletes I’ve interviewed talked about running and getting their heart rate up and then coming in and trying to shoot ten shots.
That doesn’t work too well for me (laughing). You’ll notice I’m usually the first one with the gun up as soon as “Attention” is called, so I get the most time to abort a shot if things don’t look correct or if I feel a little anxiety coming on I’ll go ahead and lower the pistol. I have plenty of time left to come back up for a for a second or third attempt at a shot.
How would you describe your typical training?
My off range routine usually includes three to four days a week running three miles, usually one to two days running six miles, every other week I try to cycle at least forty to fifty miles each day over the weekend. So that would be anywhere from eighty to a hundred miles on the cycle every other weekend.
So you do a lot of aerobic exercise?
A lot of aerobics. Some light weight lifting, a lot of reps, low weight, and some in-line skating to build up the ankle strength. The cycling and the in-line skating also help with the lower back muscles. A lot of people are doing situps and stomach crunches which are great for the front abdominals but it doesn’t take into account that the other side of the equation needs to be balanced out as well. So those are some of the things I work with. As far as on the range I usually try to get off a hundred and twenty shots a day. Six days a week is optimum for me, I’ll do a hundred and twenty shots or two matches of air pistol for three days in a row and then I’ll try to do the same for free pistol for another three days. I’ll break up the monotony with an air rifle – just get off of the pistols altogether, play with something different. Other side of the body, different weight, longer sight radius, a lot of breathing, it just really helps.
You told me earlier that you find that with rifle you learn to focus a lot more on the front sight because of the longer sight radius?
Oh boy, it’s something else, yes. I have a lot of respect for rifle shooters, they have to stay right on top of that firearm.
And the rifle has helped teach you breathing as well?
What I find with the air rifle is that I’ll have to breathe through the shot, I’ll keep the rifle up there and keep the rhythmic breathing going, while with the pistol I’ll take a little bit of a deep breath, let half of it out during the raise portion and then get into a rest and hold and usually try to produce a shot within eight to ten seconds. With the air rifle that doesn’t work so well. I’ll go ahead and bring the rifle up and I’ll breathe for a good to thirty to forty five seconds at a normal rate, let everything settle down and then attempt to approach the trigger and execute the shot.
Do you fiddle with your front sight much as far as changing widths or your rear sight widths or notch depths going to different ranges and different lighting conditions?
No, I try to stay consistent with that front sight post, make sure there’s adequate light space between the rear sight aperture and the front sight post. The brighter the range gets I usually find myself using some sort of batter’s black underneath the eye. Like in Barcelona, Spain, at the World Championships I didn’t use the batter’s black but I used band aids. Doc gave me some cloth band aids to put underneath my eyes to stop the glare, just trying to help my eye…
Was that with Free Pistol, not Air?
Definitely, with the Free Pistol. If you recall it was really light sand out there. I think Phoenix, Arizona, for the first selection match for the Pan Am Games was the same way.
What’s the most valuable advice you would give to a beginner or junior shooter?
The most valuable advice to give to a beginning shooter are the shooting basics, which will be the same for them today as it will be in ten years when they’re national champions. Sight alignment, trigger pull and follow through.
What sort of mental routine do you go through when you bring the gun up?
I think there are some basics you need to understand internally inside your own body. You know how you feel, you know what your anxiety level is, you know what your skill level is. The challenge shouldn’t be any different from day to day, you’re still looking at the same sized black hole or piece of paper. You need to be aware of how you feel, and you need to be aware and focused enough on how to bring your anxiety level down or bring your skill level up.
How about most memorable shooting experiences?
National championships last year I won my first title, a very special event, and I think that would be second to making the US Shooting Team. That was a goal I had set for myself, an attainable goal, and I accomplished it. It felt very, very good.
How long have you been on the US Team?
This is my third year.
Do you train any differently in the off season than you would say in the last month or two coming up to the Olympic trials?
I don’t have an off season, actually. Coaches in other countries stay pretty on top of their scores throughout the year and the US needs to do the same thing. So taking that in stride in my training routine it stays the same pretty much throughout the year. Granted there is a time during holidays where we can have a couple of weeks off, other things are going to happen, you need to be with family, you need to eat a little bit more, have a beer or two. It’s a good mental break to take that two weeks off. The rest of it you need to be in your full routine.
How do you motivate yourself for the future now that you’ve achieved your goal of making the US Team?
You need to be thinking what you’re going to be doing short term and long term. I have a five year plan for myself as well as a one year plan, and it’s important not to set those goals unachievably too high. I try to operate within my performance levels right now, and keep my motivation up. Otherwise I’d become too complacent and bored when I can’t achieve something.
How long ago did you start back into shooting?
I went to my first National Championships for international style shooting in 1993, and I didn’t start seeing results for about five or six years.
Do you think those years were because you really weren’t focusing on what you should have been, or it was just a slow uphill curve?
I’ve looked at some of the Olympic coach periodicals that USOC puts out and it seems to be a general consensus in my reading that every activity takes a good five to six years to really attain good scores or a good performance. I don’t think it’s a norm to see someone come right off the street and start shooting world class scores in their first one or two years of competition.
But you couldn’t pin down one area of improvement you saw over that period of time? No bright light that came on?
No, there’s no bright light. Your training just continues to improve, your performance in matches continues to improve, you become comfortable with the venue, you become comfortable with the other competitors and it’s a natural progression.
You’ve got a profession, you’re not a full time athlete, and here you are excelling at the sport. That should motivate a heck of a lot of people, shouldn’t it?
And yet, do you feel that most of your impetus to perform is coming from internally, not from external stimuli that has pushed you to go harder?
No, it’s not external stimuli, it’s all internal. The reading and the understanding of other areas of my sport have been solely on my own, and we’re talking about sports psychology and how you utilize your skills to reduce your anxiety, or how to increase your skills to deal with boredom. There’s a challenge and a skill level, and when those two match you get into a little class that’s called flow in your training. The actual physical parts of your sport become automatic. You don’t have to think about pulling that gun up there and looking at the sight alignment, the sight picture, it just happens naturally. That leaves you with the mental side of the game, you need to stay in that flow state. That’s pretty much what I’ve experienced over the last eight years.
Would you say the mental aspect of when you’re into that flow has taken place more in the last few years because you’ve taken the time getting the physical aspects to a repeatable level?
I would say it’s a two-edged sword. Your skill level continues to improve because your mental focus is in the appropriate place. It’s strictly a challenge and skill formula. When one of those is off balance it creates either anxiety or boredom, one way or the other. Those two have to be matched. The challenge and the skill have to match. If you’re going to a PTO thinking that you’re not going to have any problem producing that top level score and win that match, and the skill level you think in your mind is too high for the challenge, then you’re more than likely going to end up in boredom. Whereas if you come to a National Championship and feel that you’re not going to do better than tenth place there’s just no way that you’re possibly going to win that match. Now you’ve automatically in your head set up that challenge to be higher than your skill level, and you’re going to come in over anxious and have a tough time.
There’s been some talk about having a ranking system over the year’s shooting. As you progress in skill level is that something you think would have been beneficial to you as a shooter or are you better off to focus on your own scores and performances?
I believe you should be setting your own personal goals when it comes to scores, doesn’t matter where you sit within the team or within the US. You should be setting your own goals based on your performance, not where you sit in relationship to the other competitors.
Anything you’d like to add?
For the beginning shooters you should be setting goals for youself that are realistic. Maybe improving your score by ten points, stick to those goals, don’t give up. If something happens where your score drops, don’t give up, reassess your situation and try again. Continue to practice and follow the basics and you will see results. There’s no doubt in my mind.