Page 129 - Bugle Autumn 2014

BASI Snowboard level 1 Course
This Snowboarding Instructor course on the Stubai glacier in Austria was run for a week alongside Ex Snow Method, the Army’s Freestyle training week with a competition at the end. This would qualify me as a BASI Snowboard Level 1 Instructor, allowing me to instruct military and civilian
bit of experience in a snow sports school and I would be fully qualified to lead snowboard training in the battalion.
Overall, it was an excellent course, my riding skill improved more in one week than in the previous two winter seasons
that I had done. With the recent change
in policy where Reservists are now able to compete in Inter-Service championships, this is going to be an invaluable qualification for the benefit of the Reserves and for 7 RIFLES. Snowboarding adds an additional opportunity for the Riflemen, offering travel and adventure opportunities. Snowboarding
encourages many of the same values that we hold as soldiers, such as the courage to work outside of our comfort zone; maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle; the pursuit of self improvement; and the desire to push yourself to your body’s limits and make some great friends while you do it. It’s a fast growing sport in a fast changing Army, and one that I am very excited to be a part of, and encourage all of you with an interest to get involved.
Cpl Sven Benavides, F Coy
personnel. We used the first day to ‘get our
legs back’ as it had been almost two years
since I had been on the snow. This also
allowed the instructors to gauge our level
of riding, and give us a few points to focus
on before the official start of the course the
following day. The instructors spent a few
days teaching the fundamental elements of snowboarding. Our previous instructional experiences within the Army meant that we all performed quite well, and everyone in the group passed this phase of the assessment with only a few minor points to work on. Towards the end of the week we practiced riding our technique on steeper slopes, manoeuvring through moguls or bumps, and touched on a little bit of freestyle like 180 and 360 degree spins before our final riding assessment. Success! Now all I needed to do was complete an online module and get a
my riding improved more in one week than in the previous two winter seasons that I had done
7 RIFLES Shooting Team
The middle of June saw the members of the 7 RIFLES shooting team take up residence in Brunswick Camp in Pirbright to start our two week shooting concentration in preparation for the Army Reserve Operational Shooting Competition. Prior to this there had been one weekend of live-firing per month since January for Riflemen from across the Battalion to engage with the shooting team. During these weekends, as many soldiers as possible from the Battalion were encouraged to attend to improve their shooting.
During these build up weekends we
took the opportunity to start with the basic building blocks; practicing fire positions
to find the most comfortable, natural and repeatable position to hold the Rifle, training our “muscle memory” so that we could quickly and easily adopt each fire position. As the weekends progressed we moved on to the advanced application of fire, to learn and understand our fall of shot so that we could identify where to aim on the target to get our rounds in the high scoring areas. The finale was the Battalion SAAM, held prior
to the shooting concentration, a thoroughly enjoyable and competitive weekend with
F Company emerging as the Champions having been narrowly beaten in the final of the falling plate competition by G Company.
We enjoyed good and consistent attendance for this training allowing a competitive selection process for the final team amongst those at the shooting concentration. The first week of the shooting concentration was clearly spent enjoying long and
“Eh what??” “Fix what???”, eventually we managed to educate the masses!
By the time that the competition started on Friday 27 June we were ready to compete. The 7 RIFLES team came third overall, with LCpl Filgate, LCpl Frater and Riflemen Carter getting into the top 20 and Riflemen Coote joining them in the top 50. L/ Cpl Frater and Riflemen Coote also won the
machine gun match and Rifleman Carter won overall “B” class shot, and came 2nd in the Imperial & Tobacco Cup (Defence Shoot and Advance to Contact). LCpl Filgate won overall
Rifle and Pistol on day 1, and came 2nd overall in the pistol and overall 3rd in the defence shoot. A good overall result with some room for improvement; our decision
to remove the dedicated shooting team members is improving the quality of shooting across the Battalion but making it harder to compete in team matches, a policy that will pay dividends in the longer term.
Maj Laurie Gomes
productive Ranges days
in beautiful weather [no
complaints], followed
by lessons, shooting
reviews and some
MATTs training in the
evenings. During the
second week the ranges were centrally administered, we took over the running of the Advanced Mover practice on Langley MMTT Range. The RCO for this range was Captain Neil Perriton who ably ran this range in good RIFLES fashion, but caused confusion for the other capbadges; during the phase where the firers advance down the range the shout “Fix Swords” provoked some very confused stares and remarks of
The RCO for this range was Captain Neil Perriton who ably ran this range in good RIFLES fashion
THE RIFLES
SEVENTH BATTALION 127