A Few Practice Tips

Posted On: 11-25-2024

In the most basic terms, all good shooters start with good footwork.  However, of all the things I work with this is by far the most difficult to change.  Everyone learns to shoot from someone, but their learning is more emulating the person teaching them rather than a good start at proper footwork.  As a starting tip I would encourage all coaches to back everyone off the line and look at footwork.  Remember every shooter has a weak side and a strong side.  For a right-hand shooter your weak side is turning to the right and the opposite for a left hand shooter.  Getting feet in the right place it totally connected to the next point I want to make and that is motion. 

All shooters must be able to rotate at the waist.  Not the arms, but the waist.  Take a good look at your youth shooters to make sure the movement they have is at the waist and not the arms.  This is a very precise sport in that a very small movement of the barrel causes a large change in the shot pattern at 40 yards.  I have always read a ¼” movement of the barrel causes a 10” move at the point of impact.  Think about the motion and how important that rotation at the waist is to keeping the gun on the target path.  When arms are used, they tend to allow the gun to not only move right and left but unfortunately up and down.  So many misses are caused by the arms holding the barrel down especially as one forces the gun to their weak side. 

A little more on motion reveals how fluid one must be to track a target.  Remember we have mostly three ways to get ahead of a target: One we chase it and get ahead, two we track it from the moment it leaves the house and, three we intersect it simply by swinging the gun to a point our mind thinks will put the lead ahead of the target.  I believe the latter is most often used and because of this choice arms come into play more than the waist.  Watch and you will agree and ask your youth shooter how they track a target.

Finally, there comes a time (about a half a second) when one must pull the trigger.  Finality comes with either joy or disappointment.  The act of pulling the trigger I always equate to golf in that a round of golf only takes a few seconds as that is a compilation of all the shots and the time the ball is on the club face.  For the shooting sports the same is true as we think a round of trap takes about 15 minutes, but really the pulling of the trigger across 25 rounds is about second in total.   In a word the act of pulling the trigger is faith.  You have worked hard, trained, practiced and prepared for the point at which you pull the trigger with confidence.  That feeling of knowing you will break the target even before you pull the trigger is so important to hitting more and more and more targets. 

David R. Vaught, Ph.D

Executive Director