Seven Days in Beautiful Florida

Just returning from spending seven days in Florida. We got to Orlando and made our way past Disney World to Lakeland to meet with the Department of Natural Resources from Florida, Iowa, and Georgia.

We spent the first half day in the classroom, then to Tenoroc Shooting Center to see if they had learned anything. We had nine folks so we split them into two groups and we went shooting.

We told them we wanted them to not worry about hitting the target and just make the right move — like we tell everyone. The people that took that to heart and did just that excelled the most in their shooting. We had sent everyone the book “The Talent Code” and told them to do their flashlight drill and three-bullet drill. Most of them did, which is always a nice surprise. The fact that the Texas Parks and Wildlife folks told them that we would know and would harass them sufficiently probably helped.

In the two and a half days of shooting, everyone got so much better and they were amazed at how simple the system is to put into play. They all left feeling much better about their shooting and had a system they could improve with. And they could teach their instructors in their respective states a better way to get people shooting better.

Off to OK Corral in southern Florida. I thought it was supposed to be sunny and warm in this state. For the entire week we were there we had our coats on. Oh well, I guess it’s winter everywhere. We had three full days in Okeechobee at OK Corral – a great venue that is expanding and has two excellent courses to shoot. And we had a great group of folks ranging from hunters to competitive shooters to fairly new shooters.

“Wow” was the word of the three days. Several people were swing-through shooters and have found as they get more mature that it’s a hard way to shoot. They were amazed at how quickly they picked this up and how much easier it is than swing-through because they could actually see the target.

Another thing that’s interesting to me is how shooters don’t realize that they need to see the front of the target, not just the whole target. I had two gentlemen on Saturday who at first said they wouldn’t be able to see the front. But guess what? By the end of the day, they could see the front edge and were surprised that it made such a difference. The biggest difference in everyone’s game came when they went the same speed at the end of the swing and they knew when they were going to hit and when they would not. It gave them a big relief when they could fix their misses. We met a lot of new friends and will see them again, I’m sure.

Off to Las Vegas next week for the Safari International Convention and giving seminars for two days. We’ll let you know what we learn from the interesting people.