“When You Are A Beginner, Everybody Is An Expert!”

“When you are a beginner, everybody is an expert!”

A student in Nashville made this statement in a morning session on his second day of a three-day clinic at the Nashville Gun Club, echoing his gauntlet of lessons and coaching sessions he had been through. 

“Yes,” Gil responded. “Everyone wants to give you $10 worth of free advice in the hopes that they can help you hit the next target so they can take credit for your success! Just remember that free advice will always cost you more than you paid for it.” 

There is constant teaching or sharing that goes on in our game among friends and even strangers who will gladly help you with how they break a target. And if you can do what they do as well as they do it, then you have a better than average chance of hitting it the way they do. 

There is, however, a big difference in learning from a shooting buddy who can hit a target that you can’t, and learning how to shoot based on your height, weight, age, vision, willingness to change, and goals from a professional coach – certified or not. As products of the NSCA Instructor Certification System, we will be the first to say that, while our system of training coaches is the best in the world, certification does not ensure credibility! 

Based on our experience, it is the beginning of the journey. And the thing that ensures credibility as a coach is experience coaching, as well as the amount of research into sports vision, the way the brain perceives and stores data, and how it turns that input into a physical reaction. These are all critical for coaching on the highest level. 

If a coach has been coaching for several years but the majority of their coaching has been shooters at corporate events and fun shoots, then they will be good at coaching shooters at that level, compared to a coach who has been coaching competitive shooters at all levels. 

What we as Level III coaches have learned on our 26-year journey is that it takes a lot of deliberate practice to develop an ability to coach or shoot at the highest levels. We have also learned that you coach shooters at different ages and ability levels differently. 

For instance, a 14-year-old shooter in B class is coached much differently than a shooter in B class who is 54 or 64 years old. The speed of building the circuits in the brain of the 14-year-old is as much as 10 times faster than the circuit building speed of the 54 or 64-year-old shooter. 

The other thing we have learned on our journey is that breaking the target is not the point of the lesson for most shooters. They will never become top-level master class shooters simply due to the amount time it takes to achieve that level. 

The point of taking lessons is to improve, of course. But in older shooters, it becomes more about understanding why they are not consistent, feeling better about learning from failure, maximizing their time at the range to get the most out of every shot they take and keeping it fun.

Only in dreams and fiction books does someone who has never shot a tournament go to the U. S. Open and win the shoot.  

Skill is a circuit in the brain that, through repetition becomes insulated with a living protein called myelin, which insulates the circuit so it can fire faster and faster with less interference. 

There are several phases of learning that we go through to reach unconscious competence – the nirvana of performance. And depending on your experience in other similar sports or your experience in other competitive environments your personal trip to excellence in our game could be longer or shorter than most. The thing that will keep most from ever pushing their potential will be the time that it takes to really imprint the fundamentals in the brain. It is not the money, because you can make more money. It is time. 

No one takes up sporting clays with an empty dance card. Everyone would like to shoot in the mid-80s without having to put in a lot of time practicing. And that is just not gonna happen. 

We often see shooters who have been very competitive in other sports or arenas who often excel quickly up into the top ranks of sporting clays. The obvious conclusion is that their skill as competitors in another arena allowed for them to be competitive in sporting clays sooner. That would be a mistake, at least in our 35 years as competitors and researchers. 

What we have repeatedly witnessed is that peak performers from other arenas know what it takes to isolate the fundamentals and practice them until they are flawless so they can get on with a better understanding of the strategy of playing the game. They have unusual drive and goal-setting capabilities that they learned from reaching the top in another field. They simply apply that determination and approach, and that allows for them to accelerate their learning process at what seems to others like a rapid rate.

Athletes who are at the top of their field cannot use those skill circuits in another athletic arena; it will just not work. The brain does not work that way. 

One such athlete comes to mind in the arena of basketball: Michael Jordan. When you study his history and talk to his coaches, a common thread emerges that begins to substantiate our research and the conclusions we and many other researchers have come to. Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team the first time he tried out. But he applied himself and succeeded in making the team. And the rest, they say, is history. 

The common thread in all the goals he achieved was that every coach he had along his journey said that, without exception, he worked harder and longer than any other player in their cumulative histories. His greatness is unequaled still today.

So, why did he quit playing basketball? Enter Mr. Myelin, the living protein that insulates the skill circuits in the brain and is built by firing the circuit over and over. 

As we age, we must fire the circuit more and more to maintain its critical insulating capability. Younger athletes get better faster, not because they are young or have young eyes, but because of their brain’s ability to build myelin more rapidly with fewer repetitions than older athletes.