I’m lucky enough to know the woman featured in this month’s Gal Gab, and it was truly a privilege to work with her. Shooting has been a part of Cherie Blake’s life for as long as she can remember. She grew up and lives in Australia, where children aren’t allowed to shoot until they’re 12 years old, but Cherie remembers following her father and older sister to the range and watching them shoot. “As soon as I turned 12, I was in!” she writes.
Cherie credits shooting with giving her the most important thing in her life: her family. She met her husband Mark through the Australian Defence Force Shooting Team, where she holds the honor of being the first woman selected for the team. Cherie shot for the pistol team while Mark shot for the rifle team, and she likes to say she taught Mark “everything he knows about pistol shooting.” Naturally they passed their love of shooting down to their daughter, too, and enjoyed many hunting, camping and competition trips together.
Cherie retired from action pistol competition shooting after winning her third Lady’s Champion title at the 2024 CMP Bianchi Cup. She still competes in other pistol sports, but not at the international level or intensity that the Bianchi Cup requires. Now she’s giving back to the sports by teaching women’s clinics, running range courses and filling several volunteer roles for different organizations. Cherie particularly loves her role as State Team Manager for the Victoria Amateur Pistol Association (VAPA), since she can put her administrative skills to good use and help mentor new state team members. She manages five different teams for VAPA and is also on their executive committee.
In addition to her many achievements, Cherie is a wonderful lady to be around. She always wears a smile and her fun attitude is contagious. One of the first things I learned about her was that she tried to eat her body weight in chocolate in just a year. While she didn’t quite get there, she consumed an incredible 100 pounds of chocolate. That year Cherie also ran 1000 kilometers to counter the effects of that much sugar. Read on for this fascinating woman’s answers to our six Gal Gab questions.
Describe a typical day in your work life:
Over the last few years, I have been blessed to work for myself, so I don’t really have a typical work day, which is really refreshing after having worked 11 years in the Army, as an officer, followed by 19 years within the Department of Defence. But a typical day for me starts with a gym session or a run; I’m really loving that I can prioritise doing that first thing in the morning for my personal well-being. My afternoons are either working for a client by writing government tender responses, preparing content for upcoming courses that I am delivering or fulfilling administration for the roles I’m volunteering in. I make sure I find time for a range session once a week, and also some archery practice, a new skill I’m learning and loving – it’s really hard!
#1 piece of advice you would give other females who want to break into the industry?
OK, you asked for one but I have three tips I like to give to any new female shooters:
On the range you will get more advice than you will know what to do with; it’s all well intended but most of it is crap! So, navigate this advice with humility, they are just trying to help, but be very selective on who you learn from. Take your time to work this out, and it will change over time as you grow in the sport.
If you want to excel in a shooting sport; find a match or discipline that suits your attributes and one that you actually love doing! There are so many shooting sports, when you think about rifle, pistol and shotguns and how each of those have a heap of different matches; if you can’t find one that you love, then you haven’t tried.
And lastly, it’s OK to put yourself first sometimes. We have so many priorities: partners, kids, parents, pets, work, community, the list can literally go on and on! So, when our plates get full, we often let things for ourselves drop off first, but it is important to prioritise yourself sometimes. Shooting is a wonderful sport because we can compete when we are young, we can compete when we are old. We can dip in and dip out as life dictates, but shooting will still be there with open arms every time we come back to it.
What motivates you?
When I was competing in pistol shooting, so up to last year, I’ll be honest, winning motivated me; not just a win but shooting a score that was the very best I could do and doing it under competition pressure. I think it’s a love / hate relationship – loved shooting well and the great things that come with that but hate the anxiety that you experience leading up to a big match – but conquering that anxiety and performing is a great feeling. It’s pretty addictive!
So now the thing that I am enjoying is a switch to archery, we’ve done Total Archery Challenges (TAC) in the USA over the past couple of years and I have found these events so refreshing – thousands of archers attending these events that are not a competition; just people getting out there, enjoying meeting new people, enjoying the scenery and up skilling themselves.
In my professional life, I am loving the opportunities to hold women-only pistol shooting clinics. I didn’t realise how important they were going to be for the women attending. Not only does it provide them a safe space to ask any questions that they may have felt intimidated to ask previously, but I can show these ladies techniques for shooting and recoil management that are often overlooked by men when instructing women. They have been really beneficial for those attending and I get such joy from helping them and seeing them have a ‘light bulb’ moment or getting a message a few weeks after the clinic saying that someone shot a PB.
Most unexpected thing you’ve learned, while working in this industry?
I’m coming from a competitive shooting background for this question – and the best and most unexpected thing I learned, at maybe my second or third Bianchi Cup, was that everyone gets nervous! That sounds really obvious, but you look at the other competitors and no one else seems as nervous as you! Because when you are out on the mover range, by yourself, with people in the bleachers watching every shot with binos, TV cameras on the range with you, and it’s often the last event, so you can win or lose right there, the pressure is huge and real and it’s a hard match to get right! I had a moment when a couple of great shooters came off the mover range and I overheard them saying how hard it was, because of pressure! Then I saw another great female shooter come off the mover range, and she’d actually won the event, but she started crying, just a mix of emotions; relief and joy and pressure! And then I listened to a podcast with Julie Golob (3-time Bianchi winner) and Jessie Harrison (4-time Bianchi winner) talking about the “magic” of the Bianchi mover range and how there’s nothing like it in any other event and how hard it really is!
So, the thing I learnt is that everyone gets nervous, and that to me, was a light bulb moment and made me realise it was an even playing field.
Favorite product in the outdoor or shooting market right now?
To get the very best out of my extremely accurate Bianchi pistol, I have always used Pro Shot Zero Friction (needle oiler); the way this is packaged with the needle applicator means you can be precise about where you place the oil. And a must in any competition cleaning kit is a Kleen Bore Kwik Klean Rope Cleaner so you can keep your barrel pristine without any fuss.
Let’s have some fun … what weapon would you use to battle a giant?
During my officer cadet days, I was picked out to shoot a “Carl Gustaf” 84mm recoilless rifle – the staff just thought it would be funny to pick a small female to shoot it, but little did they know I had a shooting background and I was wrapped to be picked! The looks on their faces when I hit the target was priceless! So, I reckon I’d take one of those … should smash any giant!
"Anna" is a teenage girl who loves to write, read, and do just about anything artsy. She enjoys writing about nature crafts and her experiences while learning to hunt and cook wild game. Anna firmly believes that backyard chickens lay the best eggs and that spending time outside with her flock every morning will start the day off happily. She is extremely grateful to her best friend, who inspired her to really take writing seriously. You can find her lost in her latest idea or listening to her sister "Rose" read book quotes. View all posts by Anna
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