Success in Des Moines

Gil and I just got back from Des Moines, Iowa where we were training the SCTP group and their coaches.

What a great group of adults and athletes to be around. A big thank you to Larry Gay who is in charge of the group and took such good care of us. We did coaches on Friday and athletes on Saturday and Sunday.

What did we learn? Other than to not go to Iowa in April where it’s still cold…

SCTP athletes have to shoot trap, skeet, and sporting clays. The coaches were so happy to have us so now they can all be saying the same thing to the kids. We have found out in doing this for so many years is that the kids get better in spite of the coaches so now they will be able to all get better quicker.

Most of the coaches are parents and have never really taught someone to shoot. So you could see the relief in their eyes when they now have a system to work with.

The athletes were soaking it up. We spent a few hours on shooting trap then went on to the sporting clays course, which some people like better. The teams had had a skeet lesson the week before, so we briefly went over hold points and focal points.

We like to go to the sporting course or have two or three traps set up with crossers. That way they can learn how to shoot a crosser from left to right and right to left.

Encouraging them to put the gun far enough in front was different for some. But we were able to get that gun “stupid in front” and match the speed of the target and the target broke. Then they could repeat the shot over and over again.  Lots of BIG SMILES. It was fun to watch.

Everyone had a great time and learned a lot about shooting and about themselves.