Dear Gil and Vicki,
I have heard several of the better shooters say that you can’t coach anyone into master class or help any master class shooters get any better because you don’t shoot tournaments. I am looking for a coach, and before I decide on OSP, I need to know how you would answer this statement.
-Claude
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Claude,
We would like to ask, “What do you mean ‘we can’t coach anyone into master class.’ And if we were able to luck out and do that, we can’t coach them into winning in master class?” But we won’t. That is the rumor that we, and mostly our students, hear from fellow competitors when they get into AA and Master class.
It does make logical sense, especially if you are a master class shooter trying to make a little extra money coaching. We guess it’s believable to most who have entered the game in the last ten years, because our competitive tenure happened from 1983 to 1992 when we made the decision to stop competing and become professional coaches. That’s right, we did compete all over the country, mostly in the late ’80s, before the NSCA came about.
There were no all-American teams or anything like that, but we were a force to be reckoned with wherever we went on the circuit. We had been teaching part-time since ’84 and realized that there was a market for shooting instruction. In 1992, we decided to try to see if we could make a living just by teaching shooting. This was something that, to our knowledge, had never been done.
Oh, there were other teachers or coaches out there. But like today, they all had another job and taught on the side. So, we put our competitive hats on the rack and began to teach professionally, and had great success going around the country doing all-day clinics, gun fittings, and hourly lessons. We would not be telling the truth if we were to tell you that we did not miss competing, because we loved it, were good at it, and had a lot of fun doing it. But our goals had changed and we stuck to them.
Since then, we have authored 11 books with three more in the pipeline and done six instructional DVDs with even more on the way. We’ve authored countless articles in several different magazines across this country. We have each taught in excess of 28,000 hours. And we gotta tell you, when you have done, written about, and videotaped as much about shooting as we have, you learn a lot – not the least of which is that effective coaching.
Teaching is more about communication than being able to actually do what you are coaching. When you add our ability to shoot either left or right-handed, one-eyed or two, with our head on the stock or off so you can see down the barrel as we break the bird to our thousands of hours of teaching private and group lessons and conducting seminars in front of as many as 500 people, then you begin to see what we really bring to the table.
No, we might not be competing and winning tournaments every weekend. But our students are.
Why do you not hear them bragging about us teaching them to win in master class? Well, we think it’s simple. If it were a team sport, then the coaching has a great deal to do with whether or not the team wins. It is the coach’s job to improve the talent on the team and then orchestrate all team members into a symphony of movement to outscore the opponent. After the win, the coach explains the strategy and then gives the credit to the athletes’ never-say-die attitude.
In individual sports, it’s just the opposite. Think about it: in golf, tennis, track, martial arts, and yes, shooting, it’s the individual that makes the sacrifices in time and effort to put forth a winning performance – not the coach. The coach’s job is to shorten the learning and ability curve for the athlete based on his or her past experiences – not as an athlete, but as a coach. If the coach has athletic experience in the same sport as the athlete he is coaching, all the better for the athlete.
In what other sport does an aspiring athlete go to the athlete who is the current world champion to get coaching? None!
We did an article on this last year, and there’s no need to restate all the reasons why this does not take place. But we can give you some examples of our students being successful in all the classes. Just one note before we go further. We will never take credit for our athletes’ successes or failures because we did not make the sacrifices they made to achieve the level of performance they achieved. To us, it’s unethical for anyone to take credit for someone else’s successes. In great measure, this is why there is so much unsolicited free advice in our game.
The next time you hear someone say that we can’t teach you at a certain level, or if you do take a lesson from us we will screw you up, do this for yourself and us: Ask them if they have ever had a lesson from us. The feedback from our students worldwide, including Olympic athletes, golfers, fishermen, businessmen and women, and yes, shooters, tells us that the answer will be no. This myth is created and passed on to discredit us in the top ranks of shotgun shooters.
The last time I checked, the guy who won HOA at the last shoot didn’t stop and thank his coach for getting him to win HOA. He accepted the trophy as a personal achievement of his own. And he should have. Because if you’re not doing this for yourself, you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Enough of that. Let’s get on with a couple of examples of what we mean when we say “we coach shooters in master class.”
We want to tell you of an older man (55 or so) who got into shooting, not to be competitive, but just to improve his wingshooting. He has been taking lessons from us on and off for about ten years. About three or four years ago, the competitive bug bit him and he decided to put forth the time and effort to reach and be competitive in master class.
When he shared his goal with us, we mapped out a strategy for what we felt he would have to do to achieve his goal, and he went to work. Notice we said he went to work, not us.
Midyear two years ago, he achieved his goal and punched into master class. Then the real work began. He could shoot, but now he was going to have to learn how to compete, which was something we have a lot of experience teaching. He got on our Coaching Hour and came to our Advance Class, began keeping his log up to date, and man, he was serious about this. We were too.
Every phase he went through, he got better and better. But then something happened in his life that was going to cut his practice in at least half. We made some contingency plans and left him with the belief that he was close, and not being able to practice as much should not make that much difference if he just kept his head right.
We didn’t hear from him for a while, and then one day he called Gil and apologized for not calling much. But he just wanted us to know that he was having an incredible year. To date, he had won several HOAs and had 14 punches in master class, and had beaten some All-Americans. We weren’t surprised, because our system allows for continuing to learn without having to practice as much.
We will close with this example that you may find hard to believe, but it’s true.
We got a call the other day from one of our students who came to our Advance Class, got on the Coaching Hour, punched into master class, won a couple of shoots, and got some punches. He related a story we just have to tell. Again, no names.
It seems there was a good local shooter who had noticed his shooting improve, and had asked what our student had done to achieve the improvement, to which he said, “OSP.” This shooter was afraid to take a lesson from us because of what he had heard through the grapevine about us. Even when he asked people who were telling him how bad we would screw him up if they had ever had a lesson with us and they said “no” he was still afraid.
Our student, knowing he was afraid, asked him how much he would give to learn to become competitive. The shooter said he would give a lot. So, our student made him a proposition. For $100 and eight hours, he would guarantee to fix his competitive problem. Whenever he wanted to, just let him know and he would fix it.
It wasn’t two weeks until the shooter came by and gave him a folded up $100 dollar bill. Our student went to the pro shop and bought a selection of our books, put them in a sack, and put them on the driver’s seat in his car. He got him off to the side and said, “Just read the books and after finishing a chapter, stop and read it again and really understand what is said in each chapter in each book. Let’s see what happens.”
Well, at the time of this writing, that shooter has received 62 punches in master class this year. And we would not know him if he hadn’t come up to us and said hello.
We do not take credit for our students’ successes or failures. But we will tell you this: you’re not going to get better just doing more of what you’re doing. Your journey through AA class is about learning to shoot. When you arrive in master class, then you have to learn how to compete. Based on our record, we are damn good at helping you achieve both if you are willing to put in the time and effort. It won’t be us that got you there – it will be you!
The choice is yours. See you out there!
