It seems that the more we teach, the more common the problems of our students become. Not that a problem should be referred to as common, because to the student it’s not common – it’s a big deal. Maybe common is the wrong word. Maybe similar would be better.
Shooting a shotgun is more about visual information than any one thing. Yet, there are reams of material written about what the gun does when you shoot a moving object. At the same time, you’re not only not supposed to look at the gun when you shoot, but you can’t be thinking about it either. You can’t be focused on the target and be even thinking about the gun because your focus follows your thoughts.
In the Editor’s Notes in the February issue, there were a few quotes from Dan Carlisle, the 2007 National Champ. But I doubt anyone really understood them. We certainly did, because we have been preaching these things all over this country for years. Some of the things he said need to be revisited.
“I’m a firm believer that you have to have some sort of control with the clay to be a consistent player.”
“Your subconscious does all the work for you. You just have to get the gun on the right speed in the right spot to start with. Then, you let it take over simply by focusing on the bird at the proper time. You never see the lead. You feel it. You do not see it. You cannot look at it. You cannot consciously see it. The barrel goes very invisible as you pull away from the bird. The barrel goes very invisible when you fire.”
It is a vision game, yet most of the comments you hear around the scoreboard or in the parking lot are about lead, sight picture, and swing mechanics. In fact, we would go out on a limb and say that in our experience the most talked about thing on the course while shooting is “lead.” Go figure!
We hear this often: “I can focus on the target and see the gun in my periphery.” This perception is held by many shooters. But the unfortunate thing is that the periphery cannot see anything sharply. It can only see movement. When you combine that fact with the fact that any visual information you perceive in the periphery arrives at the motor center in the brain as much as 200 to 300 milliseconds behind real time, is it any wonder that the overwhelming number of targets missed are missed behind?
They’re not missed behind because the lead was incorrect. They’re missed behind because the shooter was looking for the lead and when they saw the “picture” they pulled the trigger. The reality of trying to look for the picture before you pull the trigger is that what you think you saw, when you pulled the trigger really happened 200 to 300 milliseconds ago. Although it looks right, the target will not break. On the other hand, when we can just get a student to focus on the front of the target and get in sync with the target, magical things happen without looking at the barrel.
We were teaching at the 74 Ranch last year and one of the groups we had were officemates. The one who was having the most trouble with clays just happened to be the best bird hunter of the group.
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