Shooting a Moving Target
I shot today in Grants Pass, Oregon, and was amazed again at how lethal it is to move the same speed as the bird.
It’s not so much the shooter’s ability to get the gun in front on long crossers, but the ability of the shooter to see the bird farther and farther behind the barrel and see it come to the lead. This allows the brain to choose any lead necessary to hit the target as it merges the barrel with the speed of the target.
The shooter must be stubborn enough to not pull the trigger until the picture is stable. The stable picture is the key to having a real effective preload, which is necessary to be clear to the brain what you want it to do with the data from the eyes.
The more the reality it equals to the preload, the quicker the brain will begin the suspension of the clutter in the picture. My picture is suspended to the point that there is only one barrel and all leads on long birds look the same. The journey of missing and correcting creates the greatest amount of uncertainty. And paradoxically it’s the missing that is key to training the brain. But missing the target is something that all shooters are trying to avoid, which makes them check the lead and the barrel gets in the way.
Then all the eye dominance crap comes out and nothing good happens. Eye dominance is real, but not the life sentence that the majority of shooters and coaches think it is. Shooting a moving target is a neurological function, not a visual function. The eyes transmit to the brain. The brain interprets and responds with movements. When you finally realize the benefit of playing too far in front of the bird and letting it come to you as you stabilize the shot, the brain can clean up the picture and you begin to shoot with a suspended circuit.
This is why trying to “see” what a good shot sees is impossible unless you have has as much experience as they have. It’s also why there is such a discrepancy in what different shooters perceive when they shoot. The interesting thing we see is that the better you become as a shooter and the more suspended your circuit becomes, the more similar the perceptions and pictures become.
You cannot jump from beginner to advanced. It’s a gradual journey, and the more you are motivated by becoming the best you can be, the sooner the real journey becomes and the sooner your pictures will become real because you finally have control of your gun speed.
“No improvement happens without change. For every change, there is a price. The value is in the commitment!”
-Vicki Ash
“Consistency comes from having a constant you can count on. The constant in shooting moving targets is bird speed equaling gun speed.”
– Gil Ash
