2003-03 March 2003 Coaching Hour – Pre-shot Routines

 This time around, consistency is a hot topic, which naturally leads us into a discussion about the burden of expectation. We ask Carlos to talk about his experience with that — how he’s dealt with expectation in his tournament game, and what sort of effect it’s had. Other highlights include Dick Baker’s experience of seeing the joy of visualization through Craig Hill’s eyes, a detailed discussion of pre-shot routine, addressing weaknesses in practice and an overview of practice percentages.

Lateral Movement

 Gil: Dave Wrens came to Houston this last Tuesday and took a lesson from us for two days. He had what we call a “jick-jack” gun mount, which means it’s quick up to the face and chasing after the birds. And we worked with him quite a bit on his lateral movement. He sent us an email today and said he went out to the gun club and practiced a fast 25-yard crosser and a high long 40-yard crosser and just couldn’t hit anything. He wanted to know if I had any tips for him. He shot really well on the quartering birds even back to 30 and 40 yards.

I was going to answer him on the air tonight, but I just want to encourage all of you, any time you pick up a new move or are working on a weakness, go to the skeet field if you’re working on crossers. Get on station six and shoot the high house, and make the birds as easy as you possibly can. Whenever you’re working on anything new, make the targets as simple and easy as you can possibly make them. That was Dave’s mistake and I guess when he hears this CD he’ll get his answer.

Just like everybody else, you want to go too far too fast and you end up falling right on your duff, and you end up beating yourself up emotionally. It just doesn’t have to be that way. One more thing: Dave was having trouble with the crossing move, but he wasn’t having trouble with the quartering move, which tells me that he hasn’t slowed down enough to really get in sync with the crosser. His quick move on the quartering target, because it takes such little time, puts him in sync on the quartering move.

Carlos on Consistency and Expectation

 Gil: Carlos? Tell us about what you talked to me about a week or so ago.

 Carlos: Well, last year I was on a quest for consistency in my shooting. I was practicing and set up some short-term goals for myself, and whenever I went out to shoot a practice round I pretty much adhered to a pre-shot routine and started focusing a lot more. Got to where I met those short term goals that I had in practice. What I found was, every time I’d go to a tournament I would go in pretty confident, knowing that I’d been doing well and shooting well in practice. Then I’d get into a tournament and find I never really could perform as well as I did in practice. I know that targets are ratcheted up a notch or two at tournaments, but still I missed some of those basic birds, and some of the other birds that were presented were stuff that I was breaking in practice.

 Gil: I’m so glad you explained that because none of us have ever had this problem. (laughs) Go ahead.

 Carlos: I started thinking about where I was going wrong, and I think what triggered it for me a couple months back was listening to the CDs and the discussions on expectations. I would catch myself and think back, and even as early as January of this year, the first tournament of the year that I shot … I was going in there with expectation. It was:“Okay, I know I’m a little rusty but I should do okay here. I’ve been doing pretty well in practice, and I know this course, and I don’t think they’re going to have the targets set up all that hard knowing there’s going to be a lot of people coming out and getting the rust off the hinges so to speak.” And yet again, I just went back to the same old thing and didn’t perform anywhere near where I had expected.

After listening to that, I started thinking: “I’m going to have to ditch this. I’m going to have to do something.” I listened to one of the talks that you gave, and then the next month I went to another tournament. This time I just went over there to see some familiar faces, shoot a course that I didn’t get a chance to shoot very often, and I had no expectations whatsoever. I didn’t care if I placed last. I didn’t care if I didn’t break a target at all. I just wanted to go out and have fun. The weather was nice for a change instead of all the snow that we get hit with up in the Northeast, and I improved my score by 10, 12 birds. So I was like, “You know, there’s probably something to this.” (laughter)

 Vicki: Don’t go out on a limb or anything.

 Gil: Well it’s an “ah-hah” when you get past the expectation and you really get focused on a goal. I remember probably 15 to 18 years ago I was messing around with stock fit. I was re-inletting stocks, trying to change the cast and drop, and I had ruined about 15 straight stocks trying to get my Browning to where I wanted it. I finally got it to where it would shoot right and I had a patterning board set up in the front yard, and Vicki and I and a guy named Arnie Townley were supposed to go over to Beaumont. I went out in the front yard and I shot a pattern and out of a box of shells, my whole pattern was no larger than 10- inches wide. It was just a perfect fit, and I’d made my mind up that I was just going over to Beaumont to look at the targets and just shoot. I was very focused.

We went over there, and I think I was down one bird, maybe two, at the last station. Of course the clubhouse cleared out. They said: “Ash is on a roll; we’ve never seen him shoot like this; we don’t know what he’s doing but get out here and watch this.” And the last pair of targets was a true pair coming over the woods, and they were about 35 yards out, real high and I went just about as mechanical as I could.

“I’ve broken these in my sleep so many times, I’m just going to get the gun out there, find the lead and pull the trigger.” And I missed the first two pair. And Vicki came up behind me and I can’t tell you what she really said. But she said, “Just shoot the darn bird,” and I ran the station out.

But I did the same thing you did. I went into that station with an expectation. And when you have an expectation you have no plan. And I wasn’t focused like I was on the other stations to do a specific certain thing. I went mechanical, I went conscious … I was chasing the lead, and luckily I had my wife behind me and she straightened me up, so I was able to run the thing out. I think I beat everybody else by eight or ten birds.

I wouldn’t have known what I was doing then Carlos. I’ll be honest with you. I wouldn’t have known expectation from a jumper cable at that point of time. I didn’t know the difference, and I wasn’t enlightened like we are now, but it’s an easy thing to go into a tournament trying to win and trying to beat somebody else. I think Craig said last week, or Jeff or Nate: You can’t beat somebody else. It’s you you’ve got to contend with. And going over there, just going to have a good time, at your stage, is a good thing to do. At any stage, to go in there trying to beat somebody, is self-defeating.

 Carlos: Guilty.

 Gil: Thank you very much for sharing that. Anybody have anything to add?

 Dealing with the Urge to Speed Up

 Brian: There was an article in one of the sport’s sections when Tiger Woods was getting ready to play the Buick Open. He said, “Training and practice are quite essential,” but he said he couldn’t wait to get into the competition because the whole pace begins to pick up. The guy asked him what he meant and he said, “Well mentally, your game, all your thoughts are accelerated.” And he said the guys who can manage that are the guys who can play the game.

 Gil: And that goes back to the little thing I did three or four months ago about when you feel like you’re losing it, everything seems to speed up. What he was saying was: you’ve got to be able to control it. Now I didn’t read the article, but I would suppose what he was saying was that when he gets into a competitive situation, he becomes much more focused. You can try to duplicate the game in practice sessions, but there’s something about the smell of the air on game day. It’s just a little bit different. And I think several of our shooters have said over and over again that there ain’t nothing like going out there and hanging that number on your back. There’s nothing like having to perform, and doing it and succeeding to give you the confidence to know that you can go ahead and do it.

Train it into Comfortable

 Gil: Guys I had a lesson with Craig today, our first lesson of the year, just kind of getting back in the gun. He shot a few tournaments, and he’s been shooting really well. But he just wanted me to watch him. I threw different targets all over, but there was one thing I wanted to share with you.

We were working on a specific type of target, and I had the target set really simple, really easy, letting that curler come to the gun. Just letting those targets that are in transition in the wind come to the gun, and he has a tremendous ability to ease into the line of a target and just kind of ease out right at the end.

He didn’t miss a lot, but he might miss two or three a day in a two- day shoot, which is six birds, four to six birds on the whole tournament is the difference between Master three and high overall for him.

I was working on letting it come to the gun with him, and he’d hit it one way, then hit it another way and then hit it the way I was trying to get him to hit it. And I said, “Craig, this is going to feel a little strange to you.”

He said, “No, it’s only strange because it’s new. After I do it with you today, I will train it into comfortable.”

I just kind of stopped when he said that. We’ve said attitude has a lot to do with success and failure; it has everything to do with success and failure, on this coaching hour many times. It’s that attitude that dominators have. They’re never afraid to try something new and they’re convinced that there are no problems. There are only solutions. And the solution comes through training and practice with the right attitude. And they know in their heart of hearts that there is nothing they can’t fix. And they’re never afraid to fail. It was a really unique lesson.

Dick Baker Discovers Fun in Visualization

 Gil: Dick Baker drove up, he had booked me right after Craig. He came out and watched Craig from the tent a little bit, and we came back over to the tent and I asked Craig just to talk to Dick Baker a little bit about his visualization, what he did and how he did it. And Dick, do you mind sharing a little bit of what you saw when Craig talked to you about that?

 Dick: I’d be happy to. First of all, this was the first time that I had officially met Craig. I knew who he was, and I’d seen him shoot a lot and you know, he’s a master shooter coming over. Gil’s winding up with him, and Gil asked him that question. I expected him to turn to me and say, “Well Dick it’s sure something you need to work on. It’s very essential.”

But he turned to me and he started smiling and said, “It’s the best fun you can have.” And he started shooting targets with his hands, as if he was mounting a gun. He said, “I’m going to get some left to rights and right to lefts.” And for about 10 minutes, he started inside the tent and then moved outside the tent.

He said, “I go down the road shooting red lights.”

He said, “I walk through the parking lot shooting if a bird comes over.”

This guy was so into it, enjoying it so much, that it really left an impression with me. It was just like, you’ve seen boxers warm up in the corner, and you know jabbers just sit there and start moving their hands and warming up.

He moved and it gave me a whole different outlook on visualization and feel because I just saw him doing it. Here’s one of the best doing it and enjoying it. I don’t know what else to say. It was just magnificent. It helped me so much, and on top of that I didn’t have to pay for that. (laughter)

 Gil: Well I’ll send you a bill for that later. I’ll make you buy Craig lunch some time. I gotta tell you guys, I looked over at Dick about halfway through that, and it was just like you lit a fuse on a roman candle when I asked Craig to do that.

He said, “Man, I just do it everywhere. It doesn’t matter what it is, I’m just doing that.” He said, “I can visualize inside, I can visualize outside.”

He said, “I’ll even be sitting there watching TV with my wife and my wife will turn to me and say, ‘Craig, what are you thinking about?’”

And he says, “Honey, I was just watching some targets break.” It’s the kind of thing where he just does it   constantly.

And I think Nate referred to this a couple months ago. He said you can just be walking along and spontaneously choose something to be a target and then just shoot it. I think the thing that was so mystifying to Dick, was that every time Craig talked about visualizing a target … his hands were moving like he had the gun in them.

 Dick: Absolutely. And on top of that … he was enjoying it. I’ve been trying to make work out of this. Concentrating on it. Working on it. To this guy, it was just a fun thing with him. It was fun, but he’s been getting a lot out of it. He’s been doing it so much, and he just enjoys doing it, and that was what impressed me. Quit getting so serious on it. Just go to doing it. Visualize. Anyway he said, “I go through every move there is. Any creature that moves, you know I just visualize blowing it away.” It really impressed me.

 Gil: It’s kind of like going to a tournament and not caring whether or not you win, Carlos.

 Dick: I’ll tell you another point he made. He said, “When I shoot the Nationals I never have time to warm up. We all have to shoot one early course.”

He said, “That used to bother me because I used to like to warm up. Now I’ve substituted this visualization. If I don’t want to go warm up, I can visualize targets. And by the time I step on my station I feel like I have warmed up sufficiently.” He said it just works beautifully.

 Gil: The thing that I want to emphasize to everybody, and I made a point to Dick two or three times. I pointed to him when Craig had his backed turned to us shooting different targets. I touched Dick on the shoulder and I said, “Look at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s feeling everything that he’s visualizing.”

We talked about this visualizing with feel about six months ago, but there is a different level of visualizing when you can visualize with feel. Yes you can do it with the gun and I’m going to get into that in a minute when I talk about what I did with Dick, but just visualizing a target come out of a trap and you breaking that target—and right now guys, when I just said visualize a target coming out of a trap, both of my hands moved on a left to right rising quartering bird and I broke the target. But my hands are moving constantly. And whenever you’re doing that … you’re programming the brain and asking it to do what you want it to when you have to shoot that kind of target. Bottom line, it’s how many times you’ve done it that allows you to be able to do it under pressure. So once again I want to encourage everybody to visualize as much as you can.

We heard from Steve Mancinelli a couple months ago about how much visualization has helped him and he’s even carried it to another step which is visualizing winning the tournament … visualizing his last round, visualizing shooting two birds on low eight for 100 straight in the 410, walking up to the podium, hearing the crowd cheer. You can do so much through visualization but you’re handicapped in my opinion if you just visualize with your hands in your lap. In fact, I even likened it to two kids playing in the sandbox with toy bulldozers. You know how they’ll be down there on their knees and they’ll be going, “vrooooom vrooooom!” They’re really putting emotion or feel into what they’re doing. And Dick would it not be fair to say that Craig put a tremendous amount of positive emotion into his visualization process?

 Dick: No doubt. That’s what I wanted to emphasize. I was just expecting a few words of encouragement and when he got started, he just lost himself in his visualization so much that he went out from under the tent into the rain and imagined himself shooting imaginary birds from every direction. He just couldn’t stop it he was enjoying it so much. It really was impressive.

The Inner Workings of Pre-Shot Routine

 Gil: Well good. I’m glad you were able to witness that and I’m glad that we were able to share that with everybody. I want to tell you all a little bit about the lesson I had with Dick today. And that’s going to lead me into my next topic, which is about the pre-shot routine.

Dick called me earlier and said, “I don’t really know what I need to work on, I just want you to set up four or five pair and watch me shoot it like I’m in a tournament. I’m going to put my game face on and just shoot it.”

He got there, and I put him on his first pair and he shot and missed the first three or four birds. Then he broke a few pairs, and then we went to another station and he shot four pair and hit one, missed one, hit one, missed one. Then all the sudden, he started doing something different.

He’d start hitting birds right and left, then he’d do what he did first and he’d miss a few and then he’d fidget around, and I just stopped him.

I said, “Wait a minute.”

I went and got my gun. I went over to the first pair and said, “I just want you to watch something. This is what I’m going to talk about tonight. My cue to start my whole routine on a station is having the gun open in front of me, and loading the bullets.”

I said, “My over and under is broken in front of me  and  I’ve  dropped the bullets in the chambers. The gun stays open, and I go through my plan. I’m going to see the first one there, kill it there, see   it there, kill it there. Okay, I’ve got my plan down. I know the location of my breakpoints. I go to breakpoint one, breakpoint two, and back to breakpoint one. I confirm breakpoint one. I close the gun. I set the gun and call pull, boom, boom.”

And I did it again. And I kept doing it. I kept doing it and I said, “Do you see what I’m doing? Every time I’m doing the same thing.”

Then I showed him what he was doing. What he was doing was loading the gun, closing the gun, and he was still consciously thinking about his plan. The gun was ready to go. The gun was moving around, and he really had no definitive trigger. No, he had a trigger, but what he did prior to his trigger was different every time. Now, Dick, when I showed you that and we went back over and I let you start shooting again, go through what it did for you.

 Dick: Let me back up. All last year, coach had said, “Get a pre-shot routine. Get a pre-shot routine.” And I thought I had somewhat of a pre-shot routine. I had worked on it. I came out today and, you know, I don’t care how long you know this guy, when you first step in front of him there’s a certain amount of tension.

Pre-shot routine was the furthest thing from my mind. Just like you said, I was just thinking this, thinking that. No pre-shot routine. After we set it up, I loaded the gun and that’s where your visualization comes in. You pick that breakpoint but you visualize as you go. You pick the second bird and then, to me this is real critical, you close the gun and I mean within two seconds he wants that gun to go off.

 Gil: I want you to call pull within two seconds. The gun is going to go off when the bird gets there, but I want you calling pull within two seconds.

 Dick: Okay, we started that routine, and it was amazing. Birds started breaking, my consistency, which is what I really need to work on, it was just amazing. From station one to station five, as you commit to this and close that gun and holler pull within two seconds, it’s a confidence builder.

I got down to five and I said, “Gil, you know, there’s something odd here. I’m doing this within two seconds but the confidence at station  five is ten times what it was at station one.” As you proceed and stick with that, it builds confidence. It’s unreal. Hope I covered it  all.

 Gil: Whatever you don’t cover, I’m sure I can get a hold of.

Dick: That’s right, I’m sure you’ll follow up and cover  it.

 Cindy: Why? Why does that build confidence? What’s being omitted or added?

 Gil: Go ahead, Dick. I want you to answer that.

 Dick: The confidence comes from having no doubt. You don’t have time to doubt yourself. You’ve got to do one thing within that brief time. You’ve got to focus, and I mean your eyes are on that target, and it just happens. You don’t have time for any doubts or second thoughts at all. And to me, it works.

 Gil: Now Cindy, I’ve talked to you about pre-shot routine. I’ve talked to all of you about pre-shot routine … Vicki’s talked to all of you. We always refer to pre-shot routine as what happens after your trigger. My trigger is closing the gun, and I have a rhythm. It’s close … address … pull.

And about 1.7 to 1.9 seconds after that gun closes, I will call pull. It’s over. I’m on autopilot, and if you wait longer than two to two and a half seconds, we say 2.4 seconds because it’s not two-and-a half, but a little bit longer than two. If you wait longer than 2.4 seconds, the voice is going to get in.

I want to address this with everybody here tonight because it’s something that Vicki and I do, but we’ve never really outlined it. For lack of a better term, I call it a cue to start. Let’s just say, for example, that I’m the first shooter, and I haven’t seen the pairs. I’ve got to get in that cage with my ammo, my chokes, whatever I want. I’m going to get in there and ask my questions: “What are they? Where are they coming from? How many pair?” Yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I’m going to look at the view pair, and when I look at the view pair, I look at where they cross, I watch them come into the crossing point. I watch them to the ground, and I’ve made my plan. I’m going to shoot the right bird there and shoot the left bird there. I know my plan. Here’s my cue to start … my gun is open, and I load the shells.

When I load the shells into that gun, there is a door that closes behind me. Because from that point on, I’m going to do the same thing every time, all the way up to when I call pull.

Now follow me, I’m on the station. I’m ready. I’ve got my plan. I know my breakpoints. My cue happens. I load the gun. I visit breakpoint one with my left hand, and say, “I’m going to kill the  first one there, and I’m going to kill the second one there.” I come back to the first breakpoint. I want to kill the first bird right there. When I know where that is, I come down, I close the gun, I address the target and I call pull. Boom, boom, and the birds break.

As I’ve said, we’ve talked about the trigger. Everybody has to have a trigger in the routine. It’s a gesture or a movement or a thought or something that you do that stops conscious planning. It stops all that conscious thought, and it allows subconscious function to happen. Are you with me so far Cindy?

 Cindy: Yes.

 Gil: Okay. What we have never talked about is the consistency of making the plan in the certain same way every time prior to the trigger. You understand what I’m saying? And so what we’ve come up with is a cue to start. Now, if you shoot an automatic it can be loading the gun—

 Cindy: When the bolt closes.

 Gil: Yeah, when the bolt closes. And you can load the gun and rest it on the rail or hold it in your hands. I’d prefer that you rest it on the rail, simply so that you can use your left hand, when you visualize the first breakpoint, you can feel your left hand, the movement of the gun going to that breakpoint … your eyes going to the second bird, and your hand going up to the breakpoint so that you’re preprogramming what you’re asking your brain to tell the muscles to do.

Now you’re ready. You’ve made the first breakpoint. You look at the second breakpoint. You come back to the first breakpoint, and you’re convinced that it is where you’re going to kill the bird. Your hand comes down, gets the gun, you address the targets and you call pull.

As I said, we have worked with a lot of people on routines, but I feel like we have not emphasized enough the consistency in the planning part prior to the trigger in your routine because that needs to be the same every time. Dick, was it the first time that you’d ever used your left hand to go to the  breakpoint?

 Dick: Yes. I’d just been picking a breakpoint … see it, break it, but I had not used my hand. And that made a difference. That is a very important part because you feel it. It adds that feel.

 Gil: I will tell you, and I know Dick is a born again Christian about this tonight because he saw what Craig did. And every time Craig talked about visualizing something, his hands were moving just like he had the gun in them. And he wasn’t trying to make the perfect move. He was just playing. He was out there having fun.

So I made Dick watch me real close. After my cue, when I went to the first bird, after my cue, I said, “Now Dick, I want you to watch my hands. Just watch my hands.”

My eyes were in the right spot and I said, “Okay, I’m going to break the first one there.”

And when I said that, my eyes started visualizing the target coming out and my hand went right to the breakpoint, and I said, “Right there.” My eyes looked up for the second bird and I said, “Right there.” My hand moved with the same tempo that the gun needed to move to break the first bird. And it moved with the same tempo that the gun would move to kill the second bird.

 Audience: Was this your left hand?

 Gil: It was my left hand. Always with your left hand, always use your left hand because the muzzle is there.

 Cindy: You just answered a question of mine that I never could answer. You know I don’t shoot FITASC and you’re not allowed to use the gun to make believe you’re shooting the target … so I’ve used my hand. And I could never—

 Gil: What do you mean you don’t shoot FITASC?

 Cindy: Well I’m going to. I have a couple times, and I shot it halfway decent a couple times, but didn’t understand why. I pretended that I was shooting the target with my left hand because I couldn’t point the gun.

 Gil: Hmm. Do you think it might work in sporting clays too? (laughs)

 Cindy: That’s exactly what you’re talking about. You’re so smart.

 Gil: Cindy, are you going to come take some lessons with us this year?

 Cindy: I already talked to Vicki about that.

 Gil: Guys, I want you to know that Cindy has made a big commitment this year. She’s going for the whole deal. She called Vicki and talked to us, and she’s going to come take some lessons, and we’re going to help her get that gun out of her face and learn to be a real shooter this year. And Cindy I’m excited for you.

 Cindy: Yeah, I can’t wait. I’ve talked thousands of people into taking lessons, and I don’t.

 Gil: But you’ve made the commitment, right?

 Cindy: Yes I have.

 Gil: Alright. Now guys, if she backs out, I’m going to dog her every night on the Coaching Hour.

 Cindy: You’re going to put me on the bulletin  board?

 Gil: (laughs) But anyway, I just wanted to emphasize, because I don’t think I can emphasize this too much. Everybody has a good routine     from the trigger to when you call pull. But it’s the consistency of how  you set it up, because if there’s any doubt when you’re setting up, if  that voice is talking to you, you’re going to have problems.

For instance, I asked Dick, “What the hell are you talking about when you’re sitting around moving your head back and forth on that first pair?”

And he said, “Well, I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to see it. I got beat by a target like that last week or last month, and I just didn’t know where to put my eyes.”

I said, “Why the hell did you go ahead and call pull?” After you do your cue, when you make that move from the focal point to the first breakpoint … you’ve got to believe it. You’ve got to trust it. It’s got to be right. There cannot be one ounce of doubt in your mind that when you see that target, you’re going to meet it in the breakpoint and kill it. And when you go up and find the other target, you’re going to kill it. There can’t be any doubt in your mind.

That is where the confidence comes from, because you don’t practice confidence. Confidence happens due to the absence of doubt. When you’re in there feeling that target in your left hand, in your visual process, it makes it so much easier to visualize. Because when you see that target come out in your mind and you move your hand out there, you’re preprogramming everything you’re asking your body to do. Is that right Willy?

Willy: Yes.

 Gil: Okay. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t   asleep.

 Willy: I have two questions about your routine.

 Gil: Go for it.

 Willy: If I come up on a big bird, a lot of times I’ll spend a little more time just really focusing in that breakpoint. Just burning a hole in the breakpoint. Should that part of the plan have it’s own rhythm? Am I kind of allowing doubt to creep in there? I don’t know. I seem to break birds better when I’m really focused on that breakpoint.

 Gil: I would tell you that it’s important you do the same things, but the rhythm is not nearly as critical in the preamble as it is after the trigger. Did I make sense?

 Willy: Yes.

 Gil: And you all understand what Willy is saying? I’ll do that too. If I’ve got a big bird or I’m on a roll and I’m trying to close on a good score, I’ll spend plenty of time after my cue going to that first breakpoint and going to that second breakpoint. I may do it twice. I want to get in there. I want to make sure I burn it in my mind: where I want to kill that first bird, and where I want to kill that second bird.

Willy, sometimes I’ll spend an extra second or two focusing in that breakpoint, especially if I’m on a roll or on a big bird, because that is the place where doubt is going to come in. You’ve got to drive a stake through the heart of doubt right there by making your commitment to: “When it gets there, I don’t care what it looks like, I’m going to pull the damn trigger. I’m going to trust it. I’m going to let it go,” and when you make that commitment, whether it’s a half a second or a whole second or two seconds, you keep burning a hole in that breakpoint till that voice shuts up. If that voice is talking to you when you’re looking at the breakpoint … you keep focusing in that breakpoint until it shuts up. That’s where the voice is going to get in.

 Willy: And that is the other place that I’ve used it. Either it’s a big bird or my emotions are just going wild.

 Gil: That so seldom happens with you. I’ve got another thing jotted down here. When you’re using this cue to start, it will make you give every bird, regardless of difficulty, the same amount of respect.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a couple of cupcake incomers that are just right up there. If you do the same thing every time after your cue, you’re in good shape. Remember, the last thing you do before the trigger is go to breakpoint one, breakpoint two, back to breakpoint one. The reason you want to revisit breakpoint one last is because the subconscious works on thought inventory. Last in is first out. The last thing you visualize, and the last thing you burn into your brain before your trigger, is the first place everything’s going to go. And that is the ideal scenario.

You don’t want to go to breakpoint one, breakpoint two and then go to your trigger. Because breakpoint two is the last thing you visualized. And you’ve heard Mark Faggard say this. That’s his routine. Begin to use the cue to start and what you’ll find, like Dick found today, it’s like two big doors closing behind you. Nothing exists but what you’re about to do.

I want to add one more thing. I know I’m talking too much, but I’m excited. I hope you’re as excited as I am. After you shoot the pair, if it’s successful, if it feels good, start your cue again. Go to breakpoint one, breakpoint two, breakpoint one. And focus, “I’m going to kill it there. I don’t care what happens.” Then close, address, boom boom.

If you miss one target or even if you miss them both, at that point in time, open the gun and don’t even think about putting your hand in your pocket and loading the gun. You visualize immediately what just happened. Play it over. Analyze the problem, once you have committed to a new plan, then and only then, take your bullets out of your pouch and go to your cue to start. Make the correction so that there are no ‘ifs,’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts.’ After your cue to start, don’t ask yourself, “What should I do about that?” After your cue to start, you’ve already made your plan. Everything’s right, you know what you’re going to do. But if you miss a target don’t go to loading the bullets. And Dick you’ll want to load those bullets won’t you?

 Dick: You bet.

 Gil: I mean, you want to get that bullet in that gun so fast and call pull to break those birds so that everybody behind you knows you can break them. You’ll have a burning desire to reach back there and load that gun and call pull again.

Don’t even move to load the gun until you have visualized and played in your mind what just happened. Once you know the problem, and once you’ve made the correction and you know and believe the correction is right, then and only then, make your cue to start. And it’s the same thing over again. Cue to start. The gun is loaded. Choose breakpoint one, breakpoint two, breakpoint one. Okay, close, address, boom boom.

 Jack: Gil, what is the last thing you think before you call pull?

 Gil: Breakpoint one.

 Jack: Breakpoint, not focus?

 Gil: That’s a good question. My routine from the trigger, when I close that gun, the minute that gun starts to close, my eyes go to the focal point immediately. They are in the focal point for two thirds of the routine after the trigger. My routine after the trigger is 1.7 to 1.9 seconds. Once I begin to close the gun, my eyes are already in the focal point immediately and my subconscious puts the gun in the hold point. So my eyes are always still when I call pull. I’m not going to think about it. I’m not going to have to look over there, and I’m not going to have to put the gun right here, because that is conscious planning. You’ve opened the door for the voice. Those are conscious thoughts. You want to be so steadfast in that routine after that trigger, that everything that is supposed to happen—eyes still in the breakpoint, gun still in the hold point, hands at neutral ready to go—all of that is a subconscious function. It happens the same way every time after that trigger. If you’re thinking about breakpoint, hold point or focal point, you’re thinking swing mechanics. And the voice will be there. Dick what did you have to say?

 Dick: On that trigger point, even if I’m breaking targets, I have a tendency to rush. I’ll start off, and before I get to the fourth or fifth pair—

 Gil: Brian Brewton, are you listening to this?

 Brian: Oh, I’m listening to that music.

 Dick: Yeah, you know, you’d think I was shooting the enemy coming in. But when you drop those shells, one thing I felt today, when you feel that urge to rush, drop them in slowly. Just make a point to watch them go in slowly, and it will calm you and slow you down from that rush. I just wanted to inject that for anybody who has that problem.

 Gil: And you don’t hold them tight, do you Dick?

 Dick: Oh no, real softly drop them in, and it’ll kind of relax you. Then, when they hit solid down, you go on with your routine.

 Gil: Let me say this, just go out and try it. Go out on the skeet range or sporting clays range and shoot some targets. Try using your left hand after your cue, whatever it is, to confirm your breakpoint and see what happens. I think you will be surprised at how consistent you will become. Work on your cue to begin and get it in your routine and learn to trust it.

I’m telling you, Dick Baker looked like a farmboy in his first Japanese fish market when he started. He was going around looking at everything. And he went from that to shooting as smooth and consistent as Craig was in his lesson. And it just happened like that.

And he looked at me, and it was like I had pointed ears and a third eye. He just looked at me and said, “I’ve felt this, but I’ve never made myself feel it.“

I’d planned on talking a little about the routine and a little about the cue, but after watching what happened to Dick, I just had to get him involved in this tonight, because I think this will be a big thing for you guys out there working on your routine. We’ve always taught routine from the trigger, whatever your trigger might be, it has to have a rhythm, it has to happen the same every time. You have to do the same thing every time, and the more subconscious everything is after the trigger, the better you’ll shoot. But I’ve never really talked about planning the shot from the cue the same way every time. So I ask you all, please try it and please email us with your results.

Practicing the Weak Points

 Gil: Willy, I’ve talked too long, talk to me a little bit about what we talked about.

Willy: I had to confess to Gil this last week that my log was really not very good. I had a real time writing in my log, and the information I did put in it wasn’t very good. Last session with the difference between training and practice made me realize that pretty much all of last year, probably 90 percent of my time was spent training.

I think that is one of the reasons I spent so much time being mechanical. Since then, it’s like I can’t wait to write in my log. The information I’m putting there, and the interest I have in the targets that are giving me difficulty and the things I want to improve in my training — it’s like a night and day difference. The same goes for shooting well in my practice. It has changed so many things in how I go out to the practice field or how I go out to the training field.

I was just tickled pink the other day because I went out and set up a course, I try never to shoot the same course twice on my home course, but I set up a course that did nothing but exploit my weaknesses that I’ve noticed more distinctly since the last Coaching Hour. And it was really a great day. I didn’t shoot a great score, but I felt like the value of that practice session compared to last year, I thought it was a month’s worth of practice compared to what I was doing last year. It was just really neat.

 Gil: Do you think you were not ready to write in a log? Do you think it was too early in your curve to write in the log? Or do you think you were trying to make it too perfect or exact?

 Willy: Last year I really had a lot of targets that I needed to work on. I had too many questions, and that was a comment I made to you. I just felt like: “I’m not ready for this. I want to wallow in my discomfort,” and I had a lot of discomfort last year. (laughter) Don’t laugh at me. (laughs)

 Gil: What did you say? Wallow in your discomfort. Is that the same thing  as whining?

 Willy: Yes sir.

 Gil: Okay, Cindy? Will you be willing to fill out a  log?

 Cindy: Sure.

 Gil: Okay, I’m going to make sure we get you some log pages. If any of you guys haven’t gotten our log page, I admonish you to email us or call us. If you want to get a quick response pick up the phone, if you want to get a slow response, email us. That is just the way it is at our house. By the time we get in from teaching we don’t want to go sit in front of a computer, but I can have a drink and talk to you on the phone all you want.

I would really admonish all of you to start filling that log out. Bob Shannon has said it needed to be done. Jeff has told you. Nate has told you.

A Testament to Visualization

 Gil: I talked to Dean Olson, just a little quick thing on Dean. He took off four months, and never touched his target gun. He shot ducks  and doves and quail with his son. But that’s all he did. Just shoot game birds and have fun with his son. On January first, he started listening to the CDs again, and did his visualization. I know he didn’t put forth any shooting practice at all. He did his gun mount practice at home.

He went up to Scottie Robertson’s place up in Dallas, won third overall in the main event and won second in five-stand with no practice. Now, all he had to do was listen to the CDs and reread his log and visualize what he needed to do. He said it was just absolutely phenomenal. He said, “Although my timing is not as good as it was last year when I finished, I’m shooting as good as I was last year.” He said, “All I need to do is spend another thousand to two thousand rounds over the gun, and I’ll be there.”

Now guys, let me explain what I just said. The guy hadn’t picked up a gun or shot a clay target in four months. He listened to the CDs, did his visualization and did his gun mount practice. That’s a big thing. He did his gun mount practice. He went up to Dallas with the right attitude, Carlos, not expecting to win, just going to have a good  time, and won third overall in the main event, as well as second in the five stand.

There’s a tremendous amount of power in this visualization stuff we’ve been talking about, especially when you visualize with feel. As we go through this journey with you guys, Vicki and I are having “ah- hahs” every day about this. You know, we thought we were teaching what we discovered, but we really weren’t until we started to pick it apart into finer pieces what it is we do and what we see others doing. There’s so much more out there.

One more thing I’m going to go over briefly, and I’m going to cover it next month. Jack Parker wrote us an email and said, “We were talking about shooting birds in different spots and working on our breakpoints.

An Overview of Training and Practice Percentages

 Gil: I’ve got just enough time just to go over the percentages. This is an overview of what I’m going to talk about next time. I want you to appreciate this, these are general percentages, they will vary, but I want you to look at this as an overall view and a comparison between how much training and how much practice you do in your normal practice session, and how much training and practice you do in a tournament practice session two to three weeks out.

If your normal scores are about 65, you should spend about 80 percent of your time training and 20 percent practicing. If you’re somewhere between 72-75, then go for 60 to 70 percent training and 30 to 40 percent practicing. That means you’re going to spend 60 to 70 percent of your time moving the breakpoint … working on your move … working on the parts of your game that aren’t as good as they could be. When you get into that 78 range, it’s a 50-50 toss up. If you feel like your mechanics need a little more work, if you’re having trouble with a particular move, maybe spend a little bit more time on it. Maybe 60/40, but typically, what you want to do at that point in your game is to begin to work on your routine and train about the same amount  of time you’re shooting pairs.

When you move into the 80s, it goes to 40/60, training and practice. When you’re in the mid 80s it goes to 20 percent training and 80 percent practice. And when you get into the 90s, it goes to 10 percent training and 90 percent practice. That’s a normal practice training session that is not a pre-tournament practice training session, okay? If you’re getting ready for a tournament, listen to how the percentages change.

If you’re around 65, instead of 80/20 like a normal practice session, you’re going to spend 40 percent training and 60 percent practice. You’re going to start shooting more pairs to get ready for the tournament. When you’re in the mid 70s, it goes from 20 to 30 percent of your time training and 80 to 70 percent of your time shooting easy pairs.

And when you’re from 78 to 81, now here’s the big jump, it’s about 15 percent of your time training and 85 percent of your time practicing shooting easy pairs. I’m going to go over this more next month, but listen to this. From 84 to 92 pre-tournament practice should be 10 percent training and 90 percent practice. 90 percent pairs, five pair in a row, move the bucket, five pair in a row, move the bucket. But every time you go out, spend 10 percent of your time, maybe 15—understand these are just general percentages to give you some feel for how much to train and how much to practice.