Trapism’s

Posted On: 08-06-2020

We all have coaches that we remember and ones we wish we could forget.  I had a football coach many years ago that I keep in my memories even today.  He was positive and constructive, but more to the point he captured my attention daily with his words of wisdom.  Coach Davies was soft spoken, never yelled at us and finished each coaching moment with the words, “Hubba, Hubba, Hubba” which we all knew meant hustle.

The coaches that belittled me, demeaned me and systematically tried to dismantle any sense of respect I had for myself don’t hold a place in my memory of anything other than nightmares.  But not Coach Davies, he was always reciting things that I still remember today.  Every page of the playbook had these extra words of sage advice best of which I recall was, “A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link”.

I wanted to offer a few other ideas here that you might want to use if you have not already to encourage your youth shooters:

Stop blaming your gun

Trap don’t fly backwards

Beat the target, not your competitors

Sweep your emotions, mood and thoughts aside

Develop a winning attitude

Approximately 65% of your targets will be soft away targets – Bank on those!

Approximately 35% of your targets are hard crossing targets – Win with these!

Feet first then the target

There are not 25 targets – just one target – only one

Wax on Wax off, Sand the floor, Paint the fence

Do or do not – There is no try

It’s OK to lose to an opponent.  It’s never OK to lose to fear

You can be positive or negative on the trap line, but never both

Positive demeanor + focus = higher scores

Shoot from your eye, not your mind

Discouragement encourages discouragement

Silence is golden

Don’t expect to try something once and make it work – it might take a 1,000 targets

Experimentation is critical if you wish to become a competitive shooter

Apprehension of missing targets causes missed targets

Competition is where you put all you have learned on auto-pilot

Try More + Fail More = Win More

Give yourself a chance to fail before you win

Emotions mislead

Your mind is willing to wage war with you and it will likely win

You be the one that breaks the target and stops the chain reaction

Persistence + Patience = Accomplishment

Don’t try to learn trap too fast

Try a few of these as you coach to build and grow your team and individual attitudes toward shooting. Your team just might remember these for many years to come.

David R. Vaught, Ph.D.

Executive Director