Start the Season with New Goals

Posted On: 08-18-2023

I have always reminded youth shooters of the importance of goals.  I will not here reiterate my thoughts.  What I will say is this is also a great time to drop old habits and begin with something new.    In the summer at my Annual Trap Academy one of the things I see most often is when working with youth directly and hands-on, I see them re-position their feet, change their hand on the forearm, adjust their body movement, correct their eye and soft focus and finally maybe even reconsider their hold points.    All day we work on these items and at the end of the day as the kids shoot we see almost all of them shooting exactly the way they were shooting when they arrived at the camp.  What can I say about falling on deft ears, but maybe all of this takes a personal commitment to change.    After you begin the season or if you really want to make a commitment before, start making the changes coaches have discussed with you last year or recently.  Now is the time to realize some chaos in your shooting, but it is also the time you might start to realize change is resulting in better shooting.    Start with the simple things like your hold points.  Make the adjustments from where you started when you first learned to shoot.  After all you are indeed no longer a beginner and have so many skills being corrupted by simply not adjusting the hold point.  Make the change and stick with it.  Another easy change is pushing your eyes out to a soft focus EVERYTIME you prepare to call “Pull”.  Get that routine down so you don’t even have the think about.  These are two easy adjustments to make you better.   Next time you shoot with your squad stand back and notice each shooters stance.  I would guess they are not the same, but what stance is best?  Now take some time to watch a couple videos of competitive shooters and notice how they stand.  Most are upright, stable, feet are positioned and they are balanced.  Ask yourself if that is you and maybe now is the time to address that footwork.    My point here is after a year or so of shooting with no improvement in your scores, something must be out of sorts.  No change you make will result in immediate improvement save opening your eyes versus shooting with both eyes closed!  The small things you adjust or change though correcting bad habits might indeed lead to better scores as the season progresses.   If you will, indulge me and let me say this about change.  It is not easy.  If you are consistently shooting high target counts then think about when you want to make changes.  The season is starting and you need high scores to compete.  Maybe delay until the off-season for major reconstructive changes.  On the other hand if you are not a high target count shooter think about making changes and monitor your success.  Are you getting better?  As a final comment if you change stick with it.  Let the lows happen until the better scores start to show up.  I assure you it will happen if you practice consistency and accurately the correct way to shoot.     David R. Vaught, Ph.D. Executive Director