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Confirmation

We were in Florida this past week for a series of lessons. First, we had two private lessons with a couple for a day. Vicki and I each had one person for the day. What a great opportunity to first discuss in-depth our OSP system and show animations and ShotKam videos. And we make sure the shooters understood what we were there to accomplish.

It still amazes me that so many shooters are chasing or trying to outrun the target. They don’t realize the benefits of controlling it from in front and how slow things happen when you do this.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that both shooters could mount the gun – something we are increasingly more aware of as our journey continues.

Why Not Learn to Move and Mount First?

Why so many shooters are trying to learn to shoot a shotgun without first learning how to move and mount the gun simply amazes me. This past week it occurred to me that when you shoot a moving target with a shotgun, you must look at the target and point the gun ahead of the target.

So you would have to know where the muzzle was pointing without looking at it, right? Hmm…

Why not learn from the beginning to know where the gun is pointing without looking at it? Just simply carrying the gun around the house in a safe carrying position would teach you this.

This past weekend, we talked about how muzzle awareness in the setup guarantees muzzle awareness in the shot. Shooters who cannot move and mount the gun will always be the ones who look at the muzzle in the setup the most, which ensures they will end up looking at the gun during the shot.

It occurs to me that shooters who cannot move and mount the gun are nervous when handling the gun because they have to consciously know where the muzzle is pointed. Why? Because they don’t know where it is pointed.

Also, shooters who can shoot only mounted gun will always be chasing the bird with the muzzle and their swing will always be accelerating to the target. Then it must slow down to get in sync with the target, ensuring they will have to look at the gun.

I had a repeat customer who had a lesson with a mounted gun pro shooter three weeks before, and he could not hit anything with any difficulty in it. He could hit slow incomers okay and longer crossers okay, but anything with speed quartering away, no way. He was slinging the gun all over the place and had to resort to swing through just to get the gun somewhere ahead of the target.

I remain amazed at the strange logic in shooters’ minds about learning to mount the gun. They don’t know or even understand how devastating it is to look at the muzzle in the setup. Not to mention how relaxing it is to not have to worry about the hold point being exact and never being in a rush.

Yep, there are still “barrel draggers” out there. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining because they are low-hanging fruit. But we could take them so much farther and quicker if they could only just move and mount the gun with some consistency and know where it’s pointing without looking at it.

I can’t say that loud enough. You’ve got to know where the gun is pointing without looking at it when you shoot the darn thing. So why don’t you learn how to know where it is pointing without looking at it from the beginning?

The Power of Controlling the Bird in Front

I had a shooter on Sunday who could move and mount the gun really well. And man, did he catch on quick to controlling the target from in front.

He was a pull-away shooter when he shot six or eight years ago, and he’s getting back into shooting. He had read our stuff and was intrigued by it. And wow, did he understand quickly seeing the bird come and the stabilized picture.

Without fail, those shooters who have learned to move and mount the gun will always learn faster and go farther than those who refuse to learn this simple basic skill. You’re not going to change my mind on this one.

I had a shooter shoot at American Shooting Center last weekend in his first tournament of the year after practicing only once and only shooting five boxes. He won HOA in the main, HOA in the doubles event, and third in five-stand… after only five boxes of practice the afternoon before!

We’re learning that this system of accessing the anticipation circuit in the brain by controlling the bird from in front and stabilizing the shot is not only lethal on live birds but much more forgiving on aging shooters. And you don’t have to practice nearly as much as other methods. It’s truly amazing.

The OSP Videos and Animations Work!

Back to the couple in Florida. They’re both highly intelligent people and great shooters but were not as comfortable controlling the bird from in front. But they caught on so quickly. I mentioned to the man to read Golf Flow by Gio Valiante and he remarked to me early on in the day what a great book it was. He had read just about everything else we had written or recommended.

The concept of seeing the bird behind the barrel seems to be coming up more often now, especially on right-to-left crossers at 40-50 yards with some speed. More on that later.

We have some new animations to put up on the Knowledge Vault about the new move we have adapted to eliminate this problem and make targets at that distance with a lot of speed and lead more easily broken consistently. More later.

We’re looking forward to shooting with the couple in a week or so for a day and a half. They are taking advantage of sending us video of them shooting so we can put it into Coaches Eye to critique. Oh, and by the way, we can do Coaches Eye in HD now. That’s a big deal!

We had a retired neurologist in the class for three days, and man, did he confirm many of our conclusions about the animations and learning and skill-building. Showing the mirror image of all the shots in the kill shot reviews seems to imprint in the brain what you want it to do sooner, and he agreed.

The anticipation circuit will take care of the lead if you will just stabilize the shot. If you can’t move and mount the gun, you will look at it in the setup, ensuring the gun will be seen in the shot. It’s a “last in, first out” thought process. The animations and ShotKam shots make it clear to the brain what you want it to do and also make the preload easier and faster and more subconscious, just to name a few things that we’ve observed that were scientifically justified this past week.

It’s amazing what we’re learning. And it’s amazing how the “eye problems” melt away when the brain understands how to see the target behind the gun. Truly amazing.

I am shooting better than I have ever shot before. Inkballing targets. The preload when shooting for me is becoming more automatic and easier. It’s almost as if it just happens – this would be what I call the zone. And it’s easier and easier for me to just enter on-demand, both when shooting and speaking.

We got a wireless hot spot and we were able to teach out of the KV this week. And we’re hunting down a website that has an app that allows you to download “lessons” for a couple of days while on the internet and view them on your tablet while offline that just vanish after a couple of days. We’re going to do this, so just hang on. It’s going to get a lot better.

That’s enough for now. More later. It looks like rain tomorrow, so I probably will blog again. There’s lots of stuff happening.

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Leaving Sunny Florida
Thinking is Seeing