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 your game plan. Each time you go to practice, have a specific goal, such as, “today I will practice only left-to-right quartering targets.” Go to the stands with those presentations and shoot singles. You can shoot the target where it is sweet, then choose a different breakpoint and shoot it in different spots.
In your practice, be real picky about the move. Did it feel right? was the mount perfect? Was the focus the best it could be? Then make it perfect. In your practice, you are making your mechanics perfect. Once they are perfect, you have to do them over and over again to make them become subconscious. Your move to the target must become subconscious so that you don’t have to think about it again. If your mind is thinking of the move, it is not 100% focused on the target.
How many times have you heard people say, “If I don’t think about the shot, I do better”? Make the move subconscious and instinctive and it will be correct.
We are not telling you not to go and shoot front edge or seeing the target before each call of “pull” will help you stay focused on just hitting the target. Too many people concern themselves with where they missed the target. That is irrelevant because it didn’t work. So be concerned about how to hit the target. Your focus must be 100 percent on seeing and hitting the target.
Spend more time on making the right approach to the target and having a positive attitude. You will be surprised at how easy hitting becomes. You don’t dread the targets and you don’t spend any of your time thinking of a miss – only of hitting. More importantly, you can stay focused for the entire sequence of targets because all you are thinking of is hitting the target. Your routine will make you stay focused for the entire time. You should be so focused that you don’t know which pair you are shooting until the scorekeeper tells you to get out with your score out of ten.
Remember, this is something you must practice. It doesn’t just come. Practice staying in your routine and shooting ten targets in a row. That way if you go to a tournament that only has six to shoot, you are ahead of the game.
