Lessons from Lehigh Valley
We had a great trip to Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. For those of you who haven’t been there, it’s at an old limestone quarry with target presentations like you haven’t seen. You will have targets coming out of buildings and over the top of smokestacks. The terrain is very hilly, with targets under your feet that always create a visual issue. As a teaching facility, it is great. Different targets are abundant — a lot of quartering targets and few crossing shots, but we will fix that for next year.
Great staff and great targets and we found a great place for lunch called Sheetz. They make your sandwich or salad fresh and you order through a kiosk. It’s a smart invention – fast and fresh. I would make a good commercial, eh?
We had several repeat customers (or as I like to say, “repeat offenders”) who had gotten a lot better after the lessons last year but had come to a plateau in their shooting. So we pushed them on and over that plateau. We also had a lot of new faces that really improved their shooting. There were so many folks in attendance that we had to add a day. So we began on Thursday and went through Sunday, with each day filled.
The big “a-ha” for everyone was how much easier the OSP system is than what everyone else is teaching. The shotgun is a very forgiving instrument as long as you keep your focus on the target.
One thing I found that was hard for some was beginning their move away from the target as soon as they saw it. They wanted to wait until the target got really close to the barrel before beginning their move. Well, we all know what happens then; the target beats you and you’re behind. We spent each morning with the animations. That was a big deal to everyone, but especially to those new folks. They were able to see how it is supposed to work and also realize the folly of trying to get to the front of the target from behind.
Another big item was the gun mount (or lack thereof) for so many people. People, you are only going to get as good as your basic move and mount. Even if you start with the gun almost mounted, you must be able to put it on your cheek in the same place each time.
I got a lot of good videos of folks who didn’t put the gun in the same place twice, which makes it confusing as to why the target didn’t break. I have proof. The camera doesn’t lie.
All in all, it was a great trip. Now home for a little R and R at the bay house for Labor Day Weekend. Hopefully, the winds won’t be so high so we can do some fishing! So far, between our busy schedule and the winds, we haven’t been able to do much fishing… and buying fish is not the same.
