How to Get the Most out of a Lesson
How to get the most out of what you have learned from an instructor? Hopefully, you have come to the lesson with an open mind and a willingness to learn. No matter who you take a lesson from, if you don’t take the information and do something with it after the lesson, it will do […]
Practice: Have a Specific Goal in Mind
If you go out and shoot the whole course, you are not making yourself a better shot; you are just burning powder. There are times when you will go and do that, of course – like when you go shoot with your friends. But if you really want to make your practice sessions helpful, work only […]
Getting Started
Well, it’s February and the shooting season is just around the corner. If you are lucky enough to be in the southern part of the country, things are warming up a little, or at least the temperatures are moderate enough that you can get used to them. Hopefully, you have made your goals for the […]
Practice for Goose Season: Sit on It!
Getting ready for goose season? Gil offers this practice tip: SIT ON IT! Get a five-gallon bucket, turn it over, and sit on it. Shooting clays while sitting on the bucket is a good simulation for goose shooting. If you can go to a skeet field, set up on Station 4, two or three steps […]
Shooting Hard Targets
The first thing everyone in our clinics wants to do is to learn to shoot hard targets. Our first question is, “what is your definition of a hard target?” What may be hard for one person is not for another. Once we have established what is hard, we can go from there. You can only […]
Practice Routine
We have begun asking people how they go about practicing with their shotguns. Most people practice by going out and shooting their home course. They don’t try to isolate their problems. Instead, they just shoot each stand and gauge their success on how well they shot by their score. Practice is an important part of […]
Q&A: “What is a good age to start a child out shooting?”
I have an 8-year-old that I want to take hunting. What is a good age to start a child out shooting? ***The age of your child is not as important as the size, i.e. his/her weight. We have found that a child needs to weigh at least 92 pounds. Any smaller and they can not […]
There’s More than Just One Way to Look at It: Competence and Confidence
Last month we talked about what practice really is and how important it is. We also looked at how our game differs from the other shooting sports, in that we don’t have the luxury of practicing the course we will shoot on game day. This is the crystal meth of our game. When you mention […]
The Differences between Practice and Training
You are all familiar with the phrase “practice makes perfect.” We find that practice makes permanent and perfect practice makes perfect. To say it another way, how you practice is more important than how much you practice. In our experience, we find that people confuse practice with playing the game. Practicing incorrectly creates more problems […]
Smooth It Out
We were out early one morning doing our three-mile walk on the golf course when we were surprised by two foursomes of golfers. It so happens that we were walking toward them, so each time they were ready to address and hit the ball, we took cover behind a tree. We would have been much […]
“Why do I shoot so well in practice but not in tournaments?”
This is a constant question from all our students. — Practice with a purpose. Each time you are going to practice, have something specific to work on. Work on that one specific thing for at least 50 shots, then go play. — Practice the six trajectories. Make sure you can hit the targets thrown from the six […]
What Should I Practice After a Lesson?
The best thing to do after a lesson is to go and shoot easy targets and shoot singles. If you will do this for three weeks you will be making the move subconscious. Therefore, you will not have to think about it again. What we did in the lesson was to give you the data […]
What is Practice?
After coaching thousands of people, our findings indicate that practice is one of the most misunderstood parts of our game – as well as in the game of life. As this shooting year begins, it might be a good thing for you to take a closer look at what you call practice. You should actually […]
Hard Targets: To Practice, or Not to Practice?
We recently attended a tournament of 400 plus shooters. The targets were a little more difficult than usual. Our observation was that they were a little longer than the norm, which required a smoother, more precise move coupled with a precise breakpoint to be successful. The poor fools who mounted the gun and chased the […]
Gun Mount
Would you rather have students in a clinic who were new shooters, or people who had been shooting for a while with bad habits? George FournoyHouston, Texas *** Most people would think that getting a new student with no bad habits would be the easier way to teach. But give us someone with a good […]
When to Take a Hunting Shooting Lesson
As hunting season comes, here’s a little reminder of when to take a shooting lesson. We have so many people who call us three days before they are ready to leave to go to Argentina or on a dove hunt with their company They want a tune-up before the hunt and mostly so they will […]
Teal Targets
“Why doesn’t the teal target break every time? I see the same thing every time, but I’m inconsistent on breaking them.” How many times have you said this to yourself? The difference between a hit or a miss is usually the result of not having sharp focus on the target, or the movement of the […]
Gun Movement
“Any movement given the gun prior to focus on the target is wasted and increases the risk by the cube.” Would it be fair to say if you began to make your move to the target prior to seeing it that you would be anticipating or guessing where and how fast to move the gun? […]
Bird-Barrel Relationship vs. Gun Speed
As you become a more advanced shooter, does bird-barrel relationship or gun speed become more important? Gun speed is infinitely more important than sight picture. Before you think you are getting closer to proving that we are both crazy, let us explain. If the gun is not ahead of the bird when the shot is […]
Comment vs. Commitment
There is a difference in comment and commitment. It takes a lot of hard work to increase your performance at sporting clays, or anything else in life for that matter. When we are born we each have a certain amount of God-given talent. Some have more than others, but we all have some. To be […]
Your Attitude Toward Winning
Shooters who are so intent on winning are at a great disadvantage because these desires create tension and pressure. We become our own best enemy and you tend to lose the joy and fun of the game. Detaching from these external desires reduces tension and improves performance. When you go into a course and go […]
Another Way to Look at Competition
When you shoot sporting clays, you should be doing it for a reason. That reason should be personal. Without a reason, you will have no goal and therefore you will never get any benefit out of it. People who compete well and don’t get in their own way understand that the benefits of competition happen […]
Getting Ready for Sporting Clays Season
For most shooters, the sporting clays season wrapped up with Nationals last November, and you may not have given much thought to plans for the coming season yet. But, yes, if you want to perform at your best this year, it does require some preparation. And there’s no better place to start than with a […]
Desire and Winning
Shooters who are so intent on winning are at a great disadvantage because these desires create tension and pressure. We become our own best enemy and you tend to lose the joy and fun of the game. Detaching from these external desires reduces tension and improves performance. When you go into a course and go […]
