I
want to start this month’s piece by congratulating Randy Travalia and all of
the Minnesota Horse and Hunt’s 2002 US Open organizers on an excellent event! I
have not been to a shoot in a few years but was fortunately able to attend this
one and the targets were so challengingly seductive that I can barely wait to
grab my gun and start shooting again. I also want to say thanks to all of the
people at the US Open that came up to me and said how much they enjoy these
articles. I enjoy writing them but since I don’t go to shoots often, I don’t
see most of you or hear comments except second hand via John and I tend to
assume that he embellishes! It was nice
to hear it first hand so thanks again!
Another nice thing about going
to the US Open was that observing and talking with many shooters gave me
several ideas for article content. This month I want to address focus during an
event. On my way to Minnesota a non-shooter that was intrigued by my destination
asked a question that I felt it necessary to address with everyone. This person
was a pilot for Northwest Airlines and she said, “How long does it take to
shoot the course and how do you manage to focus for that long?” Being a pilot
she explained that the most demanding time for them is the descent which takes
usually 20-30 minutes of massive focus and concentration and she is often
mentally drained at the end of it. She couldn’t fathom us keeping up the
concentration throughout a two or three hour round of sporting clays. Voila,
article content!! A common
misconception is that we need to focus throughout the entire round but on the
contrary we should do just the opposite!
I have mentioned before that practice is the time to analyze your
misses and calculate a strategy for improving. Let me reiterate, competition is
NOT that time. The whole goal in practicing is to establish as second nature
the correct moves on all possible target presentations so that you don’t have
to think about it during competition. The correct moves involve gun mount,
focusing on the target, distance perception and lead recognition. Following
profitable practice, these factors should not come into question while on a
competition stand about to call “pull”. We all know that when you start
questioning your actions, you can no longer give the required focus to the task
at hand.
Writing this reminds me that I
once read a book that supported this same conclusion I had drawn, so I
scrounged it out of my collection to quote to you. In George Digweed’s book
“It’s Got To Be Perfect…” there is this quote, “My preparation is for 50-60
instances of a couple of minutes’ concentration during a typical shooting day.
Nobody can concentrate for hours on end. If you can relax in between the short
periods of maximum effort it’s amazing how much more you can achieve.” Nobody
can question that George Digweed is one of the top shooters of all time and I
believe if you ask any of the top American shooters they will tell you the same
thing. Competition is not the time to dwell on your misses and analyze your
shortcomings, save that for dinner with your spouse after the event (I know
John does!).
So how do you implement this
strategy? It is a matter of enjoying yourself between stations. Talk to your
squad mates about the stock market (unless it is going to upset you like it
does me) or talk about where you are from or families or whatever, just nothing
about shooting. Although I guess it would be okay to talk about guns or
ammunition but not choke size for the next stand. Here is a scenario we can probably all relate to: you shoot
station 8 which is two report pairs from a tower, you miss 3 out of four and
the people around you tell you afterwards that you were behind. You leave the
stand asking everyone “where was I” and they all say you were behind although
none of them were looking over your shoulder. It’s a fifty-fifty chance they
were right. You go to the next stand
and immediately think, hmmm if I was behind maybe my lead evaluation is off, hmmm
maybe I should give this teal a bit more.
SAVE IT FOR PRACTICE! The better option during competition is to shoot
the target and if you miss three out of four, forget it! Walk off the stand
smiling, wish good luck to the next shooter and go get a drink of water. Think
of your family, the fabulous dinner last night, the fact that you are out
shooting rather than working, anything but the misses and the score. Go to the
next stand as though it is your first and smoke those targets like you know how
to do since you have practiced teal to perfection!
If
need be you can relate every single target later in the day to someone who
cares and can maybe help you see a pattern. I know that at the US Open, John
took me around in a golf cart after he had shot the blue course and showed me
all of his misses and I noticed that at least 75% of them were left to right
quartering away. Following the advice that he advocates in this article he had
never picked up on that during the event but in hindsight it jumped out like a
deer in headlights. Now he has something to work out in practice. Don’t worry;
it will come back to you when it’s over. During the event, just focus on the
future target and breaking it like you know how to, analyze later.
Like
my pilot friend, this challenge really only requires 20-30 minutes of intense
focus, the rest of the time it’s all about having your seatbelts fastened and
enjoying the ride. Of course there is a bit of talk about the weather thrown in
there too! Thanks for reading and enjoy your final destination!
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