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Blog

Gil Ash

Gil’s Blog

You’ll want to bookmark this page so you can come back periodically to see what bits of wisdom and information that Gil has to convey. It’s instructional, it’s honest and has been known to include humor on occasion. Send Gil a message if there are any areas of information you would like for him to respond to.

In order of date

Physiological Diplopia and Neurological Suspension

When a new shooter says something about the confusion, someone – albeit well-intended – throws their hands up in the air and proclaims that you’re left-eye dominant. You immediately feel...

December 25, 2023

Blocked vs. Random Practice

In our research, we have begun to understand that there are different kinds of practice. While there are many different phases of practice, we want to deal with two of them here- “blocked’ and “...

December 18, 2023

From Shooting to Building Your Own Game

When we see the obvious mistake, we know where the mistake began, and we attack the root cause which is rarely where the shooter missed the target! Remember that your skill is what you have trained th...

December 11, 2023

The Three-Bullet Drill and the Sight Picture

When shooters begin to learn to see the target behind where the barrel is pointed, they stop looking at the barrel. The barrel has a place in the picture, but it is always in the periphery. We have be...

December 4, 2023

You Can’t Practice Confidence

Consistency and confidence cannot be practiced; they are what is left over from practicing, which is why you must bring your practice game to higher and higher levels. There is a myth out there that y...

November 27, 2023

No Shortcut to Proficiency in Shotgunning

One big thing we have been emphasizing is that skill resides in a person’s memory. A person cannot visualize something they have never seen, so there is no shortcut to becoming proficient with a sho...

November 20, 2023

Desirable Difficulty

In our 31 years now as professional coaches, we have seen thousands of performers who have had differing degrees of skill with a shotgun, fishing rod, golf club, tennis racket, public speaking and man...

November 13, 2023

Gun Fit: Adjustable Combs and Cheek Pressure

Gun fit is a fairly broad topic that encompasses many different facets, starting with how consistent the shooter can mount the gun. Of course, this comes from repetition, repetition, repetition. We ar...

November 6, 2023

The Sun Will Still Rise

The ability to take disappointment out of a situation is a full-time job for a coach. It also needs to be a full-time job for a competitor if they really want to be good. Our brains will take the nega...

October 30, 2023

Keep Process-Oriented

The one trait that seems to be common among all successful competitors is the ability to stay calm under pressure, which leads to the ability to think clearly and act according to a plan – to st...

October 23, 2023

Do You Need More Cheek Pressure?

Have you ever heard this phrase? “That gun fits you but to shoot it well, you will have to either use a little more cheek pressure or just float the bird a little” Our 30 years of research has sho...

October 16, 2023

Knowledge and Understanding – Consider the Railroad Tracks

“I wonder where in the learning process the unlearning of bad habits comes in. Maybe you don’t unlearn at all. Maybe the process of learning anew writes over the old habits in the brain!” Look a...

October 9, 2023

Are You Making it Stable?

I had a lesson with a fellow, and we worked on a station had trouble with at a tournament. I had him shoot them as a true pair, which was a pretty tough one. The wind was at our back and it was blowin...

October 2, 2023

Practicing with Just One Flat of Ammo

I was working with Craig Hill after he had gone to the world shoot and finished eighth in the world. He came to me again and awked, “Okay, what do I have to do different?” “Describe your practic...

September 25, 2023

Sleep is a Commodity You Can’t Do Without

There’s a direct correlation between preparation and performance. We can get by when we’re on the road with less-than-ideal nutrition or exercise. But we have to have sleep. Sleep is a com...

September 18, 2023

Fixing Unforced Errors

“I’ve been shooting for two years and should be shooting better than C class. I have too many unforced errors. Thoughts on my dilemma?”   This shooter wants to know: is it focus? Is it rout...

September 11, 2023

Taking a Six-Week Break

When people shoot year-round and compete in winter tournaments in Florida and Arizona, somewhere between June 15th and July 15th, they hit a wall and plateau out and go down. It takes them until the e...

September 4, 2023

Accepting the Visual Confusion

Brian set an especially deceptive set of targets at American Shooting Center one time, and I did a clinic on how to read targets. He had a pair coming from the left and the traps were real close toget...

August 28, 2023

Minimizing Visual Confusion

“When a true pair is thrown, either close together with similar flight paths or crosses early in their flight path, are there some general practices to minimize the visual confusion? Move pick-up po...

August 21, 2023

Force the Brain Out of its Comfort Zone

Most people practice in their short-term memory, but you’ve got to force the brain out of its comfort zone to put together a new circuit. The more you do that, the better it becomes at recall. So, w...

August 14, 2023

Practicing Slower Moves

I had a student who was really good out to about 30 to 35 yards, but when a target was any further than that, he wasn’t so good. “Okay, tell me what kind of targets are giving you problems,” I s...

August 7, 2023

Flipping Negative Thoughts

Our brains are wired to focus on the negative. This can be a major hurdle for athletes who aspire to excel in competitive environments like skeet or sporting clays. But the key lies in flipping this t...

July 31, 2023

You Need a Strategic Approach

I had a client from the Northwest who was advancing well by focusing on single targets, determining breakpoints, and testing her predictions. However, her progress derailed after taking advice from an...

July 24, 2023

Staying Calm Under Pressure

One trait stands out amongst successful competitors: the ability to stay calm under pressure. This calmness fosters clear thinking and a focus on the process rather than just the outcome. The mental s...

July 17, 2023

Why Are You Scrambling?

In our sport, lots of shooters impulsively close their gun and call “pull,” proceeding to hurriedly track the targets and trying to hastily correct their shot at the last moment. This often leads ...

July 10, 2023

The Science of Skill: Building Blocks in Shooting and Life

Skill development is an intricate process rooted in biology and psychology, both in shotgunning and life itself. The key to mastering any skill, including shooting, lies in understanding how our brain...

June 26, 2023

Skill Comes from Repetition

You can think of skill as a series of railroad tracks. When they’re not used and exposed to the elements, they become rusty. But when they start to be used again, they get shiny – almost polished-...

June 19, 2023

Being Honest with Your Score

You can’t run away from the score, but your ability to admit what the score is and admit the situation you’re in is huge. Controlling doubt and fear is also huge because if you can admit the fact ...

June 13, 2023

Fear is a Funny Thing

Shooting with confidence and trust is a whole new and wonderful way to play our game. It’s very typical to learn conscious sight pictures, and one day hopefully you’ll be able to trust them. But i...

May 29, 2023

Honing Your Self-Talk

Most of the time self-talk is just babble. It’s just going on and on and on. There are times and places for self-talk, but most of the stuff that we hear on the sporting clays course is a justificat...

May 8, 2023

Jitters and Your Learning Curve

All of the disappointments that shooters go through are just spots on the learning curve. You know the ones I’m talking about: The first station jitters, the last station jitters, the station runnin...

May 1, 2023

What Fear Does

Expectation comes about because of fear. Fear will bring the eye, the bird, and the gun together. Fear puts the gun in the way, puts the gun in the equation, and the first thing that fear does to you,...

April 24, 2023

Fear is a Precursor to Courage

Fear always pulls the gun into the picture. Fear always puts the gun between the eyes and the bird. “I have a hard time admitting that I was afraid,” a student once told us. “But the more I thou...

April 17, 2023

Don’t Confuse Your Subconscious!

Emotional post-shot routines define success as making us happy. Non-emotional reactions to success confuse the subconscious. It is not sure whether it should continue breaking the target or not becaus...

April 10, 2023

Don’t Neglect Nutrition and Sleep

You might not think of shotgun shooting as a physically strenuous sport. Now, if you’re an E-class shooter, shotgun shooting is probably not a very strenuous sport. But when you get into the master ...

April 3, 2023

Turning Fear into a Motivator

You can turn your fear into a motivator. That’s what I’m trying to do. Every time I come to an impasse and I know fear is there, I can feel it. I know that there’s something good getting ready t...

March 27, 2023

Being in a Position to Fail

You’ve got to be willing to put yourself in a position to fail in order to succeed. And you’ve got to be willing to look at it from the standpoint of “the more times I put myself out there in a ...

March 20, 2023

Crossing Bird Confusion

If the crossing point is confusing visually, then accept the confusion. And give yourself a picture of what you want to happen after the confusion. It has to be a picture. You can’t resist the c...

March 13, 2023

Analyzing Your Scorecard

A shooter reached out through our website and I called him. He said he’d been working with his local coach and hadn’t gotten any better and needed help. He had sent me photos of eight to t...

March 6, 2023

The Evolution of Gun Fit

There are certain things that you need to assume or that you need to get out of the way. Working with a lot of high school athletes and high school coaches, gun fit is a huge thing for them. There are...

February 27, 2023

The Quiet Eye Sequence

When I’m in the zone (whether it’s teaching or competing) my conscious plan has to be taken care of before I ever load the gun. I have to know what it’s going to look like. I have to...

February 19, 2023

The Paradox of the Anticipation Circuit

We have become so much more aware of the power of the subconscious mind and how quickly it can make things right. This is especially true in shooting clays because we see them every day. I’ve seen s...

February 13, 2023

Failure Shows You Your Patterns

Don’t be afraid of going to three shoots and having the same thing happen to you over and over again. Because if the same thing happens to you over and over again, guess what? You can look at it as ...

February 6, 2023

Looking at Your Top and Bottom Scores

You’re not always going to bring your “A” game to the show. As hard as you try, you’re not always going to do that. I went to the Beretta World Championships in 1987 and was fortunate enough t...

January 30, 2023

The Limits of Working Memory

Working memory is limited in duration and capacity. It can hold on to things for about 10 to 20 seconds if you don’t do something with them. And there can be no more than four things in the work...

January 23, 2023

How Do You Start Your Shooting Year?

When you begin your new year or come back from your break, it’s important that you write down what kind of targets you practiced; how many, the frequency of practice, and the duration of practice. W...

January 16, 2023

Being Prepared for a Variety of Conditions

There are a couple of different kinds of practice. There’s conditioning practice like when you go to the gym and work out and run to stay slim and fit, and it could be your gun mount practice. It co...

January 9, 2023

Being Competitive in Master Class

“The last year and a half have been relatively easy for me to goal set – punch into A, then punch into AA. Now my short-term goal is master class. But I’m trying to figure out a long...

January 2, 2023

Practice and Compete with the Same Intensity

Every shot you take in practice and in a tournament, big or small, has to be with a hundred percent commitment to the plan and your routines. When you’re congruent and in the zone, effort is optimiz...

December 26, 2022

Skeet Chokes and the Feedback Loop

The first year that the World English Sporting came to our country, I was doing an experiment in the offseason leading up to it. I had a full in the top barrel and a modified in the bottom barrel, and...

December 19, 2022

Visual Pathways

Science has proven that the visual pathway processes the lead and the line data of the moving object. In fact, the visual system of the brain actually anticipates where the object is going to be even ...

December 12, 2022

Learning to Compete in Master Class

As you work your way up through the classes you’re actually learning to shoot; but once you punch into master class, you have to really learn how to compete. As you’re going along doing your best ...

December 5, 2022

Sharpening Your Anticipation Skills

When you react, you’re going fast. When you anticipate, you’re going slow. What do we want you to do? We want you to get to the breakpoint early so that in effect slows the bird down so you can co...

November 21, 2022

Turning Fear Into a Motivator

You can turn your fear into a motivator. That’s what I’m trying to do. Every time I come to an impasse and I know fear is there, I can feel it. I know that there’s something good getting ready t...

November 14, 2022

Practicing Before Nationals

So, let’s talk a little bit about how we practiced the three times we had time to practice leading up to going to the actual tournament. In our research, we have determined that when we shoot differ...

November 11, 2022

How We Practiced Before Nationals

In our three practice sessions before the National Championship, we shot no more than three or four boxes, and shot only singles. But we each announced what approach we were going to shoot and where w...

November 8, 2022

Evaluation and Living in the Past

Back in the mid-80s, I finished a really good round of sporting at Greater Houston Gun Club. Andy Banks watched intently as I ran the last station and asked what my score was. I didn’t know. So, And...

October 18, 2022

Speeding Everything Up and Cortisol

Most shooters’ reaction to adversity is to allow themselves to speed up in everything they do – especially in how fast they talk. This leads to a timing problem, which leads to hope. Then this...

October 11, 2022

How Shooters React to Missing a Target or Two

As coaches to many shooters worldwide, both in person and through our Knowledge Vault, we’re often asked about helping them overcome a missed target or a loss by only one or two targets. The typical...

October 4, 2022

A Change in Our Approach to Shotgunning

Six to eight years ago, we dramatically changed our approach to coaching clay and wing shooting after reading Anders Ericsson’s book “Peak,” where he talks about why and in what detail the brain...

September 27, 2022

The Process of “Neurological Suspension”

When the approach is to not see the barrel, shooters are calling on their limited capacity working memory system to do too many things. This is why they are so inconsistent and on different birds on d...

September 20, 2022

Where Do “Positive Sound-Alikes” Come From?

Committing to the shot you are about to take is the most important thing at the moment you enter the cage. A vivid movie of where and how you want the shot to come together is necessary for the brain ...

September 13, 2022

Shooting Without Thinking

The core purpose of our visual processing system is the prediction of what’s coming next. Vision, along with data, form our other senses that provide sequenced information to the central nervous sys...

September 6, 2022

Visual Anomalies and Shooting Plateaus

We each do 8-10 scheduled consults each week, and without exception, 95 percent of the shooters tell us they have plateaued and don’t know how to get better. Our first question to them is “Do you ...

August 30, 2022

What Good Shooters See and Why

Talk to a good shooter and they might say they see “the front” or “the rings.” Or they see “the target slow down” or “the target get really big or clear.” But that is a result of the t...

August 23, 2022

Accepting the Muzzle in the Periphery

The overwhelming majority of what we perceive when shooting a moving target occurs in the periphery. And things we perceive in the periphery are really behind real time. Remember, it takes the periphe...

August 16, 2022

The Problem with Well-Meaning Shooting Advice

When you’re shooting with someone better than you, quite often when you have a trouble with a certain target, they might want to help you by telling you what they perceive when shooting the same tar...

August 9, 2022

The Anticipation Circuit

When we ask shooters to describe what they see that tells them to send the shot, they usually say “I see the front of the target” or “I see the target get really clear.” But they don’t descr...

August 2, 2022

“Positive Sound-alikes” and Consistency

In our travels doing clinics, and in our Skype or Zoom consultations with new shooters, we often hear these phrases: “I don’t see the barrel. I just focus hard on the target.” “When I see the ...

July 26, 2022

Matching Muzzle Speed and the Road to Consistency

We have shooters from Canada, Europe, Australia, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, and Chile who email us to say how much less confusion they’re experiencing in their wing and clay shooting and how mu...

July 19, 2022

Seeing the Target BEHIND The Barrel

Here’s another really big paradigm shift in shooters as they become more experienced on clays and birds: they begin to see the target behind where the barrel is pointed. Now, we know this sounds lik...

July 12, 2022

The Three-Bullet Drill: How to Do It

The Three-Bullet Drill is designed to show your brain what it really looks like to have the gun ahead of a target coming from the right or the left. And the two pictures are really different. Place th...

July 5, 2022

The Three-Bullet Drill: Creating Your Reality

One of the quickest pathways to proficiency is a gun mount drill we have dubbed “The Three-Bullet Drill.” Tens of thousands of wing and clay shooters all over the world have used this simple drill...

June 28, 2022

Practice Improves Your Sight Pictures

We don’t even check for dominance anymore in our clinics because the eyes don’t see – the brain sees. What the brain perceives in shooting a moving target is a product of how we’ve trained...

June 21, 2022

Being Aware of the Periphery When Shooting

When shooting a shotgun at clays or birds, the target is always in our primary visual circle and the gun is always in the periphery. What that looks like differs greatly shooter to shooter and depends...

June 14, 2022

The Difference Between Shooting a Rifle and Shotgun

When shooting a rifle, the shooter is looking down the barrel and lining it up with the target. While holding the barrel on the target, the shooter begins to squeeze the trigger and the gun goes off. ...

June 7, 2022

Focus on the Target: The “Mainest Thing” About Shotgun Shooting

Whether you are a clays or wing shooter, none of us start with the same game we end up with. What we do and what we see is an evolution based on how much we practice our passion with the smooth bore. ...

May 31, 2022

Foot and Hand Positions on Targets Below Your Feet

The elevation of the target has a lot to do with foot position and the front hand’s grip position. When shooting overhead targets off high towers, the front hand must come back towards the action of...

May 24, 2022

Young Shooters Sticking Their Elbows Out

Here’s another anomaly we often see often in younger shooters. With the gun mounted, their elbows are sticking straight out to either side. To this day, we cannot understand why they do this. Your e...

May 17, 2022

Shooting Single Targets with Prediction

Shooters who practice more single targets moving the breakpoint and predicting how and where they will break the target and then executing their prediction gain a consistency in their game quicker tha...

May 11, 2022

The Height of Skeet and Sporting Clays Targets

Skeet and sporting clays are similar in many ways, but there is one basic difference: the height at which the targets are broken. In skeet, the targets are hooped and set so they have a common crossin...

May 3, 2022

Variations in Weight Displacement

When the stance is right for the individual height and body shape, maintaining balance is simple and repeatable. Maintaining a central balance point and good shooting posture so the gun fits is a resu...

April 26, 2022

Balance in Trap, Skeet, and Sporting Clays

Let’s talk about the different clay target games: how their similarities and differences affect stance, weight displacement, and balance. In trap and skeet, the targets are the constant. Both games ...

April 19, 2022

Different Centers of Gravity and Your Shooting Stance

Because of the balance issue, shooters with different centers of gravity could need a more open stance, a more closed stance, or more upright or leaning forward stance to position their head and cheek...

April 12, 2022

Routine, Anticipation, and Balance

We find ourselves observing people doing things they’ve practiced enough that they can be done without thinking. Then it becomes more and more evident that, through repetition, the brain has learned...

April 5, 2022

The Importance of Balance

While balance alone allows for us to move through our complex lives every day, maintaining balance is taken for granted by humans until you reach your 70s. Then you’re made aware of just how importa...

March 29, 2022

Maintaining Your Balance

You don’t give it any thought as you travel through your everyday life but staying in balance is a full-time job that has been turned over to the automaticity part of the brain. This is due to the m...

March 22, 2022

Why Are Most Guns Stocked Too High for Americans?

Here is another phrase we have heard in conversations: “To shoot that gun well, you’re going to have to apply more cheek pressure and have to roll your head forward to pull your eye down closer to...

March 15, 2022

Cheek Pressure in the Showroom vs. Cheek Pressure While Shooting

One of the first things we learned is that when shooters mount a shotgun in the showroom, they always put more cheek pressure on the comb than they do when they’re actually shooting the gun. When we...

March 8, 2022

Gun Fit and Mounting Consistently

Ask any well-read shooter and they will tell you that gun fit in wing/clay shooting is really important. But few know what gun fit really is. Because they haven’t put in the time to consistently mou...

March 1, 2022

Simple and Complex Repetitions

Skill is built through simple repetition in the beginning. As you become more skillful, the repetition becomes less simple and then more complex, as well as predicted prior to performing it. Through t...

February 22, 2022

Should I Change Chokes?

Choke is a mystery many will never understand. And as a result, it will confound more people than it will help. My research has proven that you can adjust the diameter of the shot cloud inside of 25 y...

February 15, 2022

Recoil is the Enemy

At the end of the day, recoil is the enemy. Anything you can do to mitigate recoil will be an advantage. We all have Isis recoil systems on our Krieghoffs and absolutely love them. One-ounce loads at ...

February 8, 2022

More on Chokes: Skeet vs. Modified

Improved cylinder, light modified, modified and improved modified have the same 25” reliable killing circle at 25 yards. A .020 modified choke has the same diameter reliable pattern from 25-45 yards...

February 1, 2022

Using Chokes: Too Much vs. Not Enough

Using too much choke on close targets is just a bad as not using enough choke on distant targets. The normal progression in skill building in sporting clays is lethality at 25 yards, then at 35 yards,...

January 25, 2022

Your Gun Fit Evolves with Repetition

Relentless repetition builds skill. Building skill with a shotgun is a long-range goal and takes a lot of patience, time, and effort – not to mention money! Remember, the gun is the cheapest par...

January 18, 2022

Long-Term vs. Working Memory

The file for the next shot is created in our long-term memory and then handed off to the working memory to execute the shot. Our long-term memory is infinite, but our working memory is limited in both...

January 11, 2022

How the Brain Retrieves “Files” While Shooting

Most shooters don’t realize that each time they prepare to take a shot at a moving target for the first time, the long-term memory takes bits and pieces from different files it remembers from its pa...

January 4, 2022

More Consistency with Less Practice

The OSP system of shooting allows for better, more consistent performances with less and less practice once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of setup and movement and have a defined, comfortable amo...

December 28, 2021

Same Speed at the End

“Same speed at the end” allows you to see what it looked like as the shot was triggered so the shot can be replicated or corrected. When shooting the OSP system, do not get involved with the lead....

December 21, 2021

The Problem with the Pull Away Method of Shooting

I’m amazed at the number of shooters who are still trying to pull away from targets and are erratic at best in their scores. Pull away shooters miss a lot of targets in the last half of a stand and ...

December 14, 2021

Your Gun Fit Leads to Better Sight Pictures

One conclusion I have come to about gun fit is that when it really does fit with light cheek pressure and shoots 50/50, all your sight pictures make sense. This makes them more consistent, as well as ...

December 7, 2021

Do You Need a High-Rib Shotgun?

A local shooter here in Houston who is moving from skeet into sporting clays has learned a valuable lesson about stock fit. He’s in the pattern stock phase and is shooting an “Ashed” comb on his...

November 30, 2021

Light Cheek Pressure: Less is More

If you feel like you have to mount your gun perfectly to hit anything, your gun does not fit. Did you know the harder you have to put your cheek down on the comb to make your gun shoot where you want ...

November 23, 2021

Putting in the Time to Build Your Sight Pictures

Building sight pictures is why you practice. Not enough shooters put in the time to practice deliberately to build their inventory in their long-term memory. Most shooters just go shoot the course and...

November 16, 2021

The Only Two Things to Consciously Think About

Just looking hard at a target will land you solidly in the mid-60s to low 70s. There are two things you need to consciously think about. One, keep the target on the correct side of the barrel. And two...

November 9, 2021

You Have to Know What it Looks Like

It seems that there are coaches out there who tell shooters to just look hard at the target and not see the muzzle. But if you don’t know what it looked like when you pulled the trigger how do you r...

November 2, 2021

You Need to Build Trust

Without prediction and execution of your prediction in practice, you are not building long-term memory. The part of this game that you are supposed to trust is what you have built in practice and in t...

October 26, 2021

Random Practice on Single Targets

Random practice, as opposed to blocked practice, requires the brain to retrieve skill circuits from your long-term memory. While you don’t get the feel-good of shooting the same target over and over...

April 20, 2021

Shooters Who Want to Learn Too Fast

The more we watch the shooters we work with evolve, the better we get at communicating the little things that speed up that improvement. While each shooter is different, they all must make similar com...

April 6, 2021

Score Plateau: 93 and Above

Score Plateau: 93 and Above It’s hard to call 93 a “plateau.” Most shooters would love to be able to say they had plateaued at 93. But the sad truth is, few shooters have the commitment to do wh...

March 23, 2021

Score Plateau: 83

Score Plateau: 83 You are here because you have a perfect gun mount that happens consistently without thought. You have stopped looking at the gun in the setup and down the gun during the shot. And yo...

March 16, 2021

Score Plateau: 75

Score Plateau: 75 You are here because 75 percent of the targets in the round can be shot with three inches of lead or less, and the size of your pattern makes up for many mounting and pointing error...

March 11, 2021

Score Plateau: 65

You are here because you have fallen in love with the game and you can’t get enough of it. Up to now, you have just been playing around with different things. While you can hit some of the targets s...

December 29, 2020

The True Commitment Required for Greatness

Great performers are not born with some innate ability that predisposes them to be able to be great at anything. They all have spent thousands of hours doing what it is that they do. But each person b...

December 21, 2020

“What Are You Going to Give Up?”

Some think if they would just try harder, they will improve and eventually find the “holy grail” of consistency. But try as they may, that holy grail turns into a nosegay of excuses that simply ma...

December 15, 2020

The Move and Mount is Crucial

Here’s a little-known fact: shooters who can move and mount the gun learn as much as three times faster than those who don’t! Said another way, people who refuse to learn to move and mount the ...

December 8, 2020

Building Long-Term Memory in Practice

We are finding out that practice is perhaps the most valuable tool in our game of shooting a moving target with a shotgun. At the same time, it’s the most wasted tool. Shooters shoot a lot and think...

December 1, 2020

A Flexible vs. Fixed Mindset

Our research shows that a person’s mindset is the greatest single determining factor that opens the door to higher and higher levels of performance because it must be learned. The majority of shoote...

November 24, 2020

The Myths of Skill

In his book Peak, Anders Ericsson mentions that there are three myths associated with skill and improving skill. We think it’s important to talk about them. That way, you can be aware of them and n...

November 17, 2020

Building Long-Term Positive Memories

You become what you repeatedly do, and eventually, you become what you remember. How you file those things in your brain as positive or negative will determine who you become. In their book Be A Play...

November 10, 2020

Inconsistency and Evaluation: What’s Holding You Back?

Ask a room full of sporting clays shooters if they would like to be more consistent, and they’ll overrun you with enthusiastic responses. Few, if any, really know why they are so inconsistent. T...

November 3, 2020

The Limits of Massed Practice

Our intuition persuades us to dedicate stretches of time to the single-minded repetitive practice of things we want to master. We’ve been led to believe that the regimen of massed practice is essent...

October 27, 2020

The Power of Learning and its Challenges

Remember that the most successful students take charge of their own learning and follow a simple but disciplined strategy. You may not have been taught how to do this, but you can do it and will likel...

October 20, 2020

Vary Your Practice as Much as Possible

In Houston, we’re fortunate that we have quite a few clubs to go to. But if you practice at the same place every time, you need to vary it as much as you can. I recommend mixing it up as much as...

October 13, 2020

Shoot Every Tournament You Can

Do you want to push yourself? I encourage you to go and shoot every tournament you have the time and money for. I’ve realized that this is one of the main reasons top shooters are top shooters. ...

October 6, 2020

Linking Your Movements Together

As you go on the journey of shooting single targets, you work on perfecting your game through repetition. You work on being critical; not about whether you broke the target, but how the target was b...

September 29, 2020

The Brain’s Synchronous Circuits

I’m intrigued by the concept of the brain combining parts of different circuits and coming up with a synchronous circuit that will break a specific target. I’ve never really looked at the fact...

September 22, 2020

Freeing Yourself from Mechanical Thinking

Shooting singles in different breakpoints is so critical, and playing the game is so powerful! Playing the game – shooting single targets in your predicted breakpoint – forces you to recal...

September 15, 2020

Make the Post-Shot Routine a Habit

The vivid preload is so essential, and it comes from making the post-shot routine a habit. People don’t do a post-shot routine, which is the part of building performance that’s wasted the most. Th...

September 8, 2020

Using Your Anticipation Circuit

The more you get involved with the mechanical process, the more you get in the way of what the brain does the best. And it does it in an amazingly short amount of time. Remember: the anticipation circ...

August 25, 2020

Recalling is Essential… and It Works!

Allowing the brain to recall opens up all the subconscious databases. It allows you to concentrate more of your focus on the target when your visual process is vivid. The more vivid your visual proces...

August 18, 2020

How Your Brain Puts Circuits Together

On a recent Coaching Hour, I talked about how there’s less emphasis on the mechanics of the shot back in the cage and more emphasis on the last 15 percent of how I wanted the shot to go, as well as ...

August 11, 2020

Your Perceptions Change with Consistency

As professional coaches, we must define where a person’s ability to focus is and what they perceive when they shoot. That way we can coach them to the next level of perception and performance. In fa...

August 4, 2020

Learning to Compete: It’s Lonely When You Do it Right

As you from E through B class, you’ll practice more singles than pairs. You’ll be working on your move and mount and moving your breakpoints so you can begin to play shape on the first bird in a p...

July 28, 2020

Developing the Right Attitude about Failure

Your attitude and reaction to your practice and tournament results begin to build a file in the memory part of your brain that you will be able to call on in future pressure situations while competi...

July 21, 2020

The Challenge of Barrel Awareness

The barrel is part of the picture, and you can’t “unsee” the barrel! Once a shooter accepts the muzzle as part of the picture and, through the mounting drills, gets their brain to deal with it ...

July 14, 2020

Practicing Correctly

The reason shooters practice a lot and don’t get better is they are not practicing correctly. “Correctly” means something different depending on the level of their game. The shooters between lev...

July 7, 2020

“Winners are Never Afraid to Lose”

I was watching a NASCAR event on TV the other day that had a lot of collisions. One occurred with 20 laps to go. As the pace car came out to restart the race, the announcers talked about the drivers w...

June 30, 2020

Prediction and Long-Term Memory

Regardless of the outcome, any shot without a prediction and an execution based on the prediction will not make it to long-term memory. It will remain in your short-term memory, which is an expert at ...

June 24, 2020

Deep Deliberate Practice: Honing the Circuits

Practice is not about breaking the targets. It is about preloading the shot and deliberately firing the chunks sequentially. This makes it easier for the brain to anticipate ahead of the present and ...

May 19, 2020

Deliberate Practice: Perform the Skill Without Thinking

If you practice deliberately and with a detailed preload of the movie of the shot coming together before you close the gun and call “pull,” then, through repetition, the brain can recogniz...

May 12, 2020

Developing Skill Through Deliberate Practice

When you have been shooting well in the past, nothing matters and everything is quiet between your ears. But how does this “not thinking” occur? When you are shooting well, it’s as if th...

May 5, 2020

Negative Self-Talk While Shooting

Our research has shown us that almost every thought a shooter has while performing will eventually bring focus and attention back to the barrel and/or the lead. In some instances, the omnipresence of ...

April 28, 2020

No Argument in Your Brain

When shooting your round of 25/25 on skeet, there was no argument in your brain!  This allows you to access your long-term memory and not think while the target is in the air. We see shooters who ar...

April 21, 2020

Self-Correction: The Big Step

Until every shot you take is first a prediction of when where and how you are about to break the next target, and then the shot mirrors that prediction, you are not building long-term memory or skill!...

April 14, 2020

We See It Every Day

When I am shooting well, things really look the same to me. Everything is in slow motion like the ShotKam videos in our Knowledge Vault! The futility of trying to see what someone else sees comes from...

April 7, 2020

Oh, To Know Then What We Know Now!

As I said in an earlier post, when I am shooting well and really in sync with the targets, everything looks almost the same and seems to be moving in slow motion. The mental pictures just come as a fl...

March 31, 2020

Focus on Target

I have 95 to 98 percent of my focus – awareness, attention, thought, intent – on the target and enough awareness of the muzzle to know the target is behind where it pointed, and that the m...

March 24, 2020

The Secret of Change

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new! Many people would learn from their mistakes if they would stop making excuses! The quote of the da...

March 17, 2020

50/50 Flat Shooting Gun

A range owner in North Carolina shot my gun and instantly wanted me to cut his Guerini so it would fit and shoot like mine. So, he sent it to me and I cut it to fit me and sent it back. He has had......

March 10, 2020

The Sight Picture Makes So Much Sense

The biggest common reaction to shooting a flat-shooting gun is the shooter’s pictures are reciprocal on left-to-right and right-to-left targets and the sight pictures make so much sense! I shot ...

March 3, 2020

Rib Height and Gun Fit

Rib height has little to do with how well you will shoot one gun over another. In the end, it is the relationship between the rib height and the shape and height of the comb and where your cheek softl...

February 25, 2020

Make Progress or Make Excuses!

One of the reasons you can’t learn from any book or coach is that you must see how these emotions and circumstances manifest themselves in you. It is not the end of recognizing the problem that you ...

February 18, 2020

Gun Fits Don’t Correct Sight Picture

You hear a lot about gun fit and follow-through. While they are important, here is where we have come to after thousands of shooters and 55,000 hours each over 26 years as professional coaches: If th...

February 11, 2020

Your Detailed Mental Representations

The body eventually turns back into itself. Learning is about fulfilling your innate potential. It requires challenging homeostasis and taking control of your destiny. What does the shot look like at ...

February 4, 2020

Give the Task Your Full Attention

You must give the task your full attention. You must push yourself past your comfort zone. Finding the barrier is critical for improving. You must isolate what keeps you from getting better. Coming at...

January 28, 2020

The Brain Sees Skill as a Pattern

The brain sees skill as a pattern: a series of skills that have been repeated enough times so that they happen without thought. At this point, the skill moves to long-term memory to free up more shor...

January 21, 2020

The More Times You Create the Pattern the Same Way

We see shooters who are practicing just trying to break the target. When the broken target is a result of a detailed preload and happens just like the preload, you can believe it and begin to trust it...

January 14, 2020

Defining Mental Representations

Creating long-term memory is defining mental representations: a visual image we see when a phrase is introduced to our brain. Long-term memory enables the brain to process enormous amounts of data in ...

January 7, 2020

Deliberate Practice: Three to Four Basic Moves

I went to range Thursday night and shot three boxes. While I missed some easy shots, I stuck with the program and did not get emotionally involved. I went back to range on Saturday and shot seven boxe...

December 31, 2019

Your Brain Needs a Mental Representation

To do anything, the brain must have a mental representation of what it is about to do! The better the mental representation, the better the shot. The better the shot, the better the mental representa...

December 24, 2019

Predicting with Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice is about predicting what you are about to do and committing to do just that. The more detailed the prediction, the clearer it becomes for both sides of the brain to be comfortable ...

December 17, 2019

You Cannot NOT Think!

Just like you cannot “not think,” you cannot shoot consistently without being aware of the barrel. It’s there. It’s part of it, albeit a small awareness. Trying to feel your way throug...

December 10, 2019

Accept Variablilty

Accepting the variability swing to swing and shot to shot was a huge understanding for me as a shooter and as a coach! Knowing that I can’t make the same perfect move, mount, and shot every time I c...

December 3, 2019

The Biggest Mistake We See

At the end of the day, the biggest mistake we see athletes make is a lack of a detailed preload of the movie of how they are committing to make the shot come together. It is the leading cause for pe...

November 12, 2019

It’s Not What You See That Makes You Good!

The biggest mistake we see other athletes and coaches make is they think it’s what they see that makes them good. As chunking occurs, the brain learns what to ignore. This allows them to see ...

November 5, 2019

The Brain Creates the Zone

How does the brain create the zone? And what is actually happening when you are in the zone, which in turn allows for more people to trust it and experience it? It is about repetition and anticipating...

October 29, 2019

Exaggerated Stress

“Like all weak men, he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.” ― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage...

October 22, 2019

Yogi Berra’s 10 Best Quotes

• “When you get to a fork in the road, take it.” • “It gets late early around here.” • “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” • “The future ain&...

October 15, 2019

Keep Standing

“Regardless of how many times you are knocked down, keep standing!” “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra &#8...

October 8, 2019

Never a Wrong Time to do the Right Thing!

“Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity. Pride is the virtue of a foolish person.” – Rick Rigsby “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence should be a habit...

October 1, 2019

True Measure of a Person

Failure is inevitable and is the most feared confrontation of most people’s lives. But at the same time, it is a necessary part of skill-building. I said something the other day in a way that I...

September 24, 2019

Wisdom Through Failure

Wisdom can come to you in the most unusual of places – a lot of times through failure! When you combine wisdom with optimism, you can get the perfect storm of rapid skill development because you...

September 17, 2019

Three Myths of Skill Building

In studying skill-building we have come across something that we think you will find interesting as we did.  The Three Myths of Skill-Building “Skill is Genetic.” “She is a natural....

September 10, 2019

The Value of Practice & Training

The true value of practice and training is that they allow you to train your brain to anticipate farther and farther into the future. Repetition begins the process and detailed correction allows for i...

September 3, 2019

You Live in the Past!

You don’t know this because your brain lies to you and then covers up the lies, which is a good thing. If your brain didn’t fudge reality, you wouldn’t be able to hit a baseball, drive a car, or...

August 27, 2019

Learn From Your Own Failures

We temper our corrections with all of the things about the shooter in mind. This ability must be learned and honed from years of experience being wrong over and over again. Good judgment comes from ba...

August 20, 2019

Why Pro Shooters Don’t Make Great Coaches

Why don’t pro shooters make great coaches? They invariably try to get you to do and see what they do and see when they shoot. They believe that you can do it, but you can’t. More often than no...

August 13, 2019

Don’t Let Your Opponent Outwork You!

You coach a beginner, encourage an intermediate, and share ideas with an advanced shooter. The shooters you are talking about are only missing two to six targets per 100, and the smart ones are still ...

August 6, 2019

Learning with ShotKam

I go back to Doss and what we discovered last Christmas with his ShotKam. His picture was not stable. It was collapsing on all shots, which led to an inexplicable periodic slash at the end of his sho...

July 30, 2019

Pre-Mount in Routine

Our conclusions are typically drawn from how many times we have to make the same correction on thousands of students. Let’s say an elite shooter came to me and asked for help. If that elite shoo...

July 23, 2019

Sleep!

Sleep is the most often overlooked aspect of peak performance! Sleep is tied to: Reaction time Mental awareness Muscular recovery Converting what you just learned to memory! Only four hours of sleep a...

July 16, 2019

What is Your Choice?

Your optimism comes from your failures. Your determination comes from your attitude. Your confidence comes from your competence. Competence comes from your commitment. You become what you repeatedly d...

July 9, 2019

Evolving Gun Fits

At Drake Landing last week, the owner picked up my gun and was shocked at how easy it was to mount and how it was perfectly aligned every time he mounted it. “My gun will fit all five people in...

July 2, 2019

Sensory Shutdown

“Let’s look at an aspect of sensory shutdown we all have to deal with when performing in a pressure situation: making a decision when the adrenaline is flowing and your heart is pumping. A hea...

June 25, 2019

Pressure Increases … Awareness Decreases

“When the pressure we are under increases, it is natural for our awareness to decrease. This change might be almost imperceptible at first, but as the pressure increases, our peripheral vision narro...

June 18, 2019

“If you’re thinking, you’re stinking!”

“If you’re thinking, you’re stinking” Here is a perfect example. I have had eight to ten shooters call in the past weeks after Nationals who took lessons from shooters in their...

June 11, 2019

It’s Like Public Speaking

Learning to shoot at higher and higher levels is like public speaking. We can all talk, but how many of you could have a conversation about what we are discussing with 30 shooters? 100 shooters? 500 s...

June 4, 2019

Train with Prediction

Let’s say you’re approaching a shot under pressure. If you have trained it hundreds of times with prediction and execution of the prediction, it becomes easy to trust it. Hello! This is ...

May 28, 2019

Allow the Brain to Anticipate

The brain understands skill as a sequence of events. Through repetition, the brain allows it to see the sequence as one event rather than a series of events. This allows the brain to anticipate ahead ...

May 21, 2019

Greater Commitment

In the end, it takes a greater and greater commitment to train longer and at higher levels to achieve higher and higher successes. Sooner than later, that commitment is not met with the desire of shoo...

May 14, 2019

Skill-Building in the Brain

There is a lot of shooting advice out there. But few, if any have studied skill-building in the brain as much as we have. Focus is an evolving phenomenon from beginner to Master Class. The conundrum i...

May 7, 2019

Change Your Approach

To get a different result, you’ve got to change your approach. This requires the one thing that shooters will not do: put in the time and work to build the skill the right way so they can depend...

April 30, 2019

No Magic Bullet

I don’t know why shooters think there is a magic bullet that tournament winners know about. If they could just see what the pros see, then they, too, could shoot like them. I guess it fits their un...

April 16, 2019

Skill Building

For the last three years on our podcasts, we have been discussing how you can bring your game to new levels. It’s all there. And like this post, when you understand that you have to build your game ...

April 8, 2019

Shooting in the Automaticity Part of Your Brain

When what you do when you are actually shooting is in the automaticity part of the brain, you will be able to concentrate on the really important things that are in your control. Heart rate too fast? ...

April 2, 2019

Being in Control of Your Game – Shooting 100

Dean Olsen would shoot the corporate course at ASC over and over until finally one day he shot 100. There were lots of scores in the high 90s, but he kept at it. Eventually, you will go and shoot the...

March 26, 2019

Worrying Less About Hold Points

The more I am in the zone, the less I worry about hold points. That is unless the target is a really high tower shot or a shot delivered well below my feet....

March 19, 2019

What You Must Learn to Control

Things like your balance, tempo, pace, posture, adrenaline, and heart rate are things you must learn to control to win big. But you can’t think about them until what you do when you shoot becomes mo...

March 12, 2019

Automaticity and Awareness

Practice is about repeating everything enough for the brain to know what is going to happen before it happens. The more your anticipation occurs as an automatic circuit, the more it allows for concent...

March 5, 2019

The Vivid Preload

The goal in practice is to have the preload be so vivid that the brain knows what it is about to do before you close the gun and call “pull.” Binge watch the Kill Shot Reviews in the Knowledge Vau...

February 26, 2019

You Need a Preload of the Movie

Any kind of practice is futile without a preload of the movie of the shot coming together. Remember, you want the brain to anticipate the arrival of the target as well as where it will be in the futur...

February 19, 2019

It’s a First Bird Game

The game is really about the first bird of every pair. Eventually, if you can break every first bird of every pair where and how you want to, you will be in the mid-80s!...

February 12, 2019

Random and Varied Practice

When practicing random and varied shots on singles, if you find one that is a bit rough or hard to visualize, drop back to some blocked practice until it feels in control. Then resume random and varie...

February 5, 2019

We Recommend Random and Varied Practice

Random and varied practice on singles is what we recommend for most shooters, especially at the beginning of the year....

January 29, 2019

Repeatedly Training on One Specific Target

There is great benefit in shooting one single crossing or quartering target over and over with a preload the same way. And then shooting random targets the same way, only changing the timing of the mo...

January 22, 2019

What the Top Shooters Know

Top shooters not only know what it will look when they pull the trigger on each shot in the pair, but they also can vividly imagine how the shot will come together. They will not only break the pair b...

January 15, 2019

Recognizing Shots as Movies

Recognizing shots as movies allows the shooter to recognize where all the parts have a place. They are easy to recall and it becomes automatic. This is where patience and higher-level practice rapidly...

January 8, 2019

Knowledge vs. Skill

“It is not what you know that makes you better it is what you are willing to learn” – Vicki Ash. Knowledge is the presence of facts, and skill is knowing how and when to use them. You can&#8...

January 1, 2019

A Shooter vs. a Coach

Please don’t go to a shooter for coaching. Go to an experienced coach who has had years and years of practicing coaching, not shooting!...

December 25, 2018

A Realistic Look at Your Game

Have a realistic look at your overall game, then determine what needs to improve and create practice specifically to improve that skill. Here is where an experienced coach (not a shooter) really shine...

December 18, 2018

Unlimited Memory

Long-term memory is almost unlimited. It is perfect for controlling large intricate circuits with a lot of different parts. Deliberate practice is the most effective and powerful form of practice....

December 11, 2018

Thinking on Game Day

Because you don’t practice correctly, you will think on game day. You’ve got to practice like it means everything. Never accept second best. If you are thinking, you are using short-term memor...

December 4, 2018

Building Trust in Your Game

If you are having to think about setup or don’t have an immediate clear mental picture of the representation you are about to execute, you are not in control. The real game within the game is stayin...

November 27, 2018

The First Three Stands

Your goal is to always see the first three stands as establishing your pace, balance, and rhythm and then adjust from there. Make clear decisive decisions, trusting your gut....

November 20, 2018

Bring Your Game to New Levels!

We have been discussing how you can bring your game to new levels in our podcasts for the last three years. It’s all there and like this post when you understand that you have to build your game and...

November 19, 2018

Your Natural Rhythm

Your goal is to always stay within your natural rhythm, being aware of your breathing, your gait, and your heart rate. Don’t be excited or fearful or judgmental. Leave the result on the last station...

November 13, 2018

When You See the Look Pair

The goal when you see the look pair is to have an immediate mental representation of what you are about to do in the shot. You should not be thinking. Everything you do in your setup should be automat...

November 6, 2018

Mental Representations

Practice is about building mental representations. You’re constantly chunking things together at higher levels so what you do when you perform happens with less thought....

October 30, 2018

Chasing the Target – Not Following the Plan

The overwhelming number of shooters who try to improve are calling “pull,” chasing the target down with the muzzle, and then trying frantically to fix the shot at the end. They judge improvement b...

October 23, 2018

Knowledge Vault Forum

Go to the forum and get involved with the discussion shooters are having about doing the things they hear in the Coaching Hours and lessons with Brian, Vicki, or me! Join the Knowledge Vault now and d...

October 16, 2018

Get Better Faster!

If you want to get better faster, then watch the Clay Kill Shot Reviews before you go to practice or before you go to the tournament. You can’t watch them too much. When watching them, don’t look ...

October 9, 2018

Practicing with a Preload

Practice is where the repetition occurs that allows you to build habits. Practice is the most powerful thing you have in your toolbox, but at the same time, it is the most wasted because of how people...

October 2, 2018

Try Not to Think About it!

It’s impossible to NOT THINK!...

September 25, 2018

The Brain Can Anticipate Farther and Farther

When performing a skill at higher and higher levels, the brain can anticipate farther and farther out in front of where you are. You actually know more but are focusing on fewer and fewer things. Your...

September 18, 2018

The Brain Can Recognize the Exact Skill

If you practice deliberately and with a detailed preload of the movie of the shot coming together before you close the gun and call “pull,” the brain can recognize the exact skill you are planning...

September 11, 2018

Taking Your Game From 70 to 90

Check out the March 2017 Coaching Hour Podcast on the Knowledge Vault: “Taking your game from 70-90” The first of a six-part series. Check it out!...

September 10, 2018

Dropping Shots Video – Results!

After just watching the Dropping Shots video in the shot simulator in Knowledge Vault this is the result: Hi Gil, I went to my local club today and shot dropping shots after watching your dropping sho...

September 7, 2018

Focusing on Process with No Practice

Focusing on the process with no practice, working a shoot, and still shooting great! This just in from J. B: So, I really haven’t had a chance to do much more than practice a little, as we were ...

September 6, 2018

Watching Kill Shot Reviews Leads to Better Scores

Shooters who are watching the Clay Kill Shot Reviews before they practice and/or shoot tournaments are shooting better and more consistent scores. Vicki and Gil, Well, you did it for me again. First, ...

September 5, 2018

If You Are Thinking, You Are Stinking

If you are thinking, you are stinking. All thoughts have their origins in evaluating something. So when you find yourself evaluating anything, you are using short-term memory and the conversation will...

September 4, 2018

Deliberate Practice Turns Into Mental Representation

As you develop a skill through deliberate practice, you repeat the component parts of the skill enough times through repetition so that the brain chunks together all of the parts in the sequence. It e...

August 28, 2018

Your Judgments Come from Your Expectations

Typically, your judgment of whether something is good or bad comes from your expectations. This is especially true when shooting a tournament. Under emotional pressure, people tend to revert to past n...

August 21, 2018

Testimonial: “When you are a beginner everyone is an expert”

When you are a beginner, everyone is an expert. I just had to share this testimonial from Stephen with all of you:   I bought a sporting shotgun back in February of this year to learn to shoot skeet,...

August 15, 2018

Humans have a 3:1 Negativity Bias

Psychological research has shown that humans have a 3:1 negativity bias as our default setting in storing memories. The brain naturally stores negative memories faster and stronger than positive ones....

August 14, 2018

Become Present with your Senses

Through an awareness of your senses, your goal is to become present with your senses before you close the gun and call “pull.” By trial and error in practice, you determine which senses you as an ...

August 7, 2018

Smiling Relaxes Tension!

Smiling relaxes tension in your jaw! Smiling with your shoulders back and stand-up posture releases DHEA into your system which is a good thing for performance. The idea is simple and powerful. When y...

July 31, 2018

Mastering Quartering Shots

Playing too close to the target will make you aware of how forgiving it really is to let it come. With our system, crossers are dead easy. It’s quartering targets you need to master. Spend some time...

July 24, 2018

Short-Term Memory Confuses the Brain

If you are thinking, you are in your short-term memory and confusing the brain. The more you can chunk the circuits, the more it allows you to shoot without thinking. This also allows the brain to kno...

July 17, 2018

Having a Growth Mindset

Shooters with a growth mindset don’t care about failing. They actually look forward to learning from all their failures and always look forward to training and getting better. The person with a grow...

July 10, 2018

Clear Mental Representation

Shooters who don’t have a clear Mental Representation (MR) of the shot at hand could flinch, slash the muzzle, stop the swing and lose focus for any number of other reasons! A football game is just ...

July 3, 2018

Playing the Game – Coaching Hour Podcast

If you have not listened to the June Coaching Hour podcast, do so and implement the new practice procedure called “Playing the Game!” Shooters who are using this practice technique are shooting in...

July 2, 2018

Attitude Plays a Big Role!

Attitude plays a big role in performances and practice. We see shooters who are practicing just trying to break the target. Closing the gun and chasing the target and trying to fix it at the end does ...

June 26, 2018

No Perfect Way to Practice the Move and Mount

Be aware that there is no perfect way to practice the move and mount. There’s no perfect sequence or order. We continue to be amazed at the number of people who refuse to give proper emphasis to lea...

June 20, 2018

Creating Long-Term Memory

...

June 19, 2018

Does Your Practice Do These Things?

Does your practice do these things? Push you out of your comfort zone? Constantly be improving and nit-picking your move in practice. On game day use what you got in the shape it’s in. Give you imme...

June 18, 2018

The Three Myths of Improved Performance

The three myths of improved performance are: Abilities are limited by genetics or surroundings. (There are obvious exceptions. For example, height is an advantage in sports like basketball and footbal...

June 5, 2018

Random Practice Drills: A Student’s Testimonial

“I have been doing the ‘one show bird’ random practice drill on singles at different clays course each week for the last month. I thought you would be interested in the results. I have had a ten...

June 1, 2018

A Testimonial from Youth Coach

Here’s a testimony to the effectiveness of the Knowledge Vault. It really works!   “My 15-year-old son is rocking and rolling! He won A Class at Gamaliel and punched up to AA after our wi...

May 30, 2018

Shooting after Cataract Surgery

In the November 2017 Coaching Hour, Larry Peck, Max McCart, and others talked about their journey with cataract surgery and what they are experiencing in coming back to shooting. We have had several s...

May 29, 2018

Vividly Imagine the Shot

When practicing using single targets, always vividly imagine how the shot comes together. You tie both sides of the brain up with doing different things, thereby working together. This is a big deal b...

May 22, 2018

Balance and Focus

When you feel pressure on the course, have a heightened awareness of balance, tempo, and tension in your body, as they are non-cognitive. Focusing on them will move you to the right side of the brain ...

May 15, 2018

Committing to the Shot

Can you walk into the cage and, regardless of external or internal variables, hit the shot you have determined to hit in your plan and preload and become the shooter you have committed to being? Commi...

May 8, 2018

Spend More Time Simulating the Real Game

In “Be A Player,” Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson cite another study about trying to do the same thing over and over again: “’The nervous system was designed to be flexible, not to do the sa...

May 1, 2018

Create Synchronicity

Being perfect in the last 12-15 percent of the shot is what I am concentrating on. And I will engage both sides of the brain creating “synchronicity” throughout the shot. This stops the argument m...

April 17, 2018

Committed to your Decision

“Are you aware of how committed you stayed to your decision about your shot?” Many shooters have never really considered the idea of commitment to their shots. They enter the box without a plan, l...

April 10, 2018

Too Many Players Focus on Achieving “Consistency”

In “Be A Player” Marriot and Nilsson mention a study that proves the human brain is not wired to do the same repetition the exact same way over and over again which is why emphasizing perf...

April 3, 2018

Enhancing Awareness

To me, seeing the movie and my confidence in the movie gives me great awareness and confidence. Shooters who are watching the Clay Kill Shot ShotKam videos in Knowledge Vault are shooting better score...

April 3, 2018

More on Deliberate Practice

Last month we did an extra Coaching Hour on deliberate practice and we will be doing our fifth one next week on the topic! We have been learning even more about skill-building and the value of deliber...

February 6, 2018

Welcome to the Zone!

Now, read this sentence out loud over and over: “Better get to do to what know don’t but shot better a be could I wish I.” You got through the first four words fine because they began to make a ...

January 29, 2018

Pointing Your Nose at the Look Point

When I am the first shooter at a station, sometimes I have trouble seeing the target until it gets a way out. When I am scoring or pulling, I can see the target sooner. Is there any way I can see the ...

January 22, 2018

Long-Term Memory

All your skill is stored in your long-term memory and each skill circuit, due to repetition, creates a familiar picture in your brain each time it is fired. This allows your brain to anticipate ahead ...

January 22, 2018

Every Action with the Muzzles

In skeet, all but four targets are shot in the first third of their flight path, which means every action must be perfect. We have found one swing thought that has improved so many skeet shooters over...

January 15, 2018

An Experienced Coach

The most frequent mistake we see all shooters do is not practicing deliberately. Deliberate practice is designed by you to improve the exact part of your game that keeps you where you are score-wise. ...

January 8, 2018

Trying to Mount the Gun and Take the Shot

Trying to mount the gun and take the shot as you mount will result in inconsistencies that you cannot explain. You will never be consistently successful on longer shots that require a slower gun speed...

December 25, 2017

The Gun is Always in the Periphery

I don’t ever look down the barrel when I shoot, nor do any of our students. The gun is always in the periphery and the target is always in our primary vision, so we are always looking at the target ...

December 18, 2017

Eye a Little Higher Over the Rib

If I were a shooter that mounted the gun and looked down the barrel chasing the target trying to fix the shot at the end… Or if I shot pull-away, trying to fix the shot at the end… Or if I shot tr...

December 11, 2017

Consistent Transitions

Slight cheek pressure yields much more consistent transitions between the first and second target on a pair!...

December 4, 2017

Slight Cheek Pressure

Slight cheek pressure yields several things: A consistent 50/50 pattern at all distances. Easier and more consistent mount. Consistent results at close and distant targets, and Reciprocal sight pictur...

November 27, 2017

Cheek Pressure

The more cheek pressure you must apply to make the gun shoot where you look, the more perfect the gun mount must be. Also, the gun will be harder to mount consistently, and the more you will tend to l...

November 20, 2017

Mounting Pressure

Shooters rarely mount the gun while shooting it with as much pressure as they do when mounting the gun in the showroom or their garage....

November 13, 2017

Flat Shooting Gun

60/40 at 16 yards is much higher at 60 yards! 50/50 is 50/50 at all distances! 60/40 is great at skeet, but the average distance a skeet target is shot is 14-and-a-half yards. And a high shooting gun ...

November 6, 2017

The Game has Changed

I began my sporting career with a gun that shot 70/30 that I designed. It later became the Browning Special Sporting (crossover) and Lightning Sporting with a flat rib. But targets were rising or were...

October 30, 2017

Gun Fit and Cheek Pressure

We have learned a lot about gun fit and cheek pressure over the past 25 years as professional coaches, the previous 17 years as competitive skeet shooters, and then as sporting clays competitors since...

October 25, 2017

Deliberate Practice

The Coaching Hour is tonight and we will be beginning a discussion on “deliberate practice” and its effect on higher levels of performance. Last month we began this discussion and instead of an ho...

October 18, 2017

NSSF Shares OSP Tips on Social Media

We are just back from the National Shooting Sports Foundation where Brian, Vicki, and I did some tips that NSSF will be putting up on all mediums – Facebook, Twitter, etc. Some of them were the ...

October 9, 2017

Coaching Hour in Knowledge Vault

Perhaps the most overlooked section of the Knowledge Vault is Coaching Hours! We have been doing a one-hour conference call every month since November 2001 and they are all in the section. First, list...

October 2, 2017

Patterning Your Shotgun and Having a Quiet Eye

On our most recent Coaching Hour, we talked about patterning your shotgun first to make sure that the barrels are regulated correctly and then for the point of impact. We also talked about Hurricane H...

September 25, 2017

Vision Evolves as You Train

Be sure to check out the August 2017 Coaching Hour podcast where we talk about how your vision evolves as you train and your game progresses. We are just back from Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays in Penn...

September 19, 2017

Visualize in Detail

The top shooters never have to “check the beads” to see if they are lined up. Their mount is perfect every time, whether shooting gun up or down. Keeping their eyes on the target is a given and th...

September 4, 2017

Alter Human Behavior As It Is Happening!

As you become skillful, you enable the anticipation circuit in your brain to correct something in the shot you have done that will cause a miss while the shot is happening and before the shot is taken...

August 28, 2017

Anticipation

Your anticipation circuit in your brain can anticipate ahead of where you are. And it is in constant use while you are awake. The better you are at something, the farther in front of where you are the...

August 21, 2017

We Never Grow Up…

We never really grow up; we just learn how to act in public!...

August 14, 2017

Consistency and Confidence

Consistency and confidence cannot be practiced; they are the residue of practice....

August 7, 2017

Turn Habit into Skill

Skill is what happens when you are not thinking. As a habit turns into a skill through repetition and evaluation and correction and repetition again, the more your skill improves. And the better your ...

July 31, 2017

You Can’t Think and Perform

It is so important to learn the fundamentals so well that they happen at 95 percent efficiency 100 percent of the time. You can’t be thinking while performing. As Vicki says, “thinking while perfo...

July 24, 2017

Better Habits

The better your habits, the more available focus there is for the target. Duh! Another breakthrough for me to explain available focus: Focus is a see-saw effect between the muzzle and the target. You ...

July 17, 2017

Attention: Knowledge Vault Members

Don’t forget to listen to the new Coaching Hour podcast, Thursday, July 20th! Topics include: – Encountering the Voice, Addressing the Ego – The Differences between Sub-Gauge and Mai...

July 17, 2017

Conquer Fear

Fear comes in because you are not yourself in a tournament. Your body does not know how to act and your brain doesn’t know how to control your body. The reason you are not yourself is that you are n...

July 10, 2017

Merely a Wish

When shooting well becomes a result, rather than something you can practice, it immediately eliminates the frustration of not shooting well. In turn, this kills the goal of just shooting well. It is s...

July 3, 2017

Determination to Conquer

The journey is moving through the threshold concepts with determination to conquer them, not to shoot well. Everything you seek is a result of what you have conquered, not something you can practice! ...

June 26, 2017

It’s Not Your Fault…

I did not say it was your fault; I said I was blaming you!...

June 19, 2017

Stop Making Excuses

Being honest with yourself is the thing that opens the door to learning. Stop making excuses for not shooting as well as you think you should. “Excuses are the crutches of the untalented!”...

June 12, 2017

See the Bird Behind Where the Barrel is Pointing!

If we could just get shooters to stop trying to break the targets and focus on improving their move and seeing the bird behind where the barrel is pointing, they would instantly shoot better. When you...

June 5, 2017

Face the Facts!

Stop running away from failing and face the fact that you are responsible for the misses and the hits. Trying not to miss causes the learning to stop. You learn more from your misses than the hits. An...

May 29, 2017

Get the Gun out of the Way

We constantly see shooters who, for whatever reason, keep putting the gun too close to the target. And we spend 95 percent of our time getting the gun out of the way of the eyes.  ...

May 22, 2017

Stop Chasing the Targets

When you finally stop chasing the targets and putting the gun in the way, you will begin to be able to slow the targets down. Two things will happen. First, you will begin to hit more targets. But mos...

May 15, 2017

The Frustration Comes to a Head

The frustration comes to a head in the journey when the corrections you use are not breaking the targets but it looks right....

May 8, 2017

The Solution is Simple

The solution is simple. But sometimes it’s a bitter pill because the first person you have to blame is yourself. The helping hand you are looking for is at the end of your own arm....

May 2, 2017

Not a Freeway!

Everyone is looking for a quick fix. Nobody said the road to consistently higher and higher scores was a freeway!...

April 24, 2017

Watch the Kill Shot Reviews and Do the Drills

I am consistently amazed at how shooters at all levels view what they are trying to do to break the target and where they look for consistency and improved performance. Simply watching the Clay Target...

April 18, 2017

“Problems” You Will Encounter along the Way

The apparent “problems” you encounter along the way in building your habits are less dependent on a certain target you are missing. This is important to note. The issue is more of a breakdown in a...

April 11, 2017

Trying Too Hard

Trying too hard encourages evaluation during performance…and nothing good will happen! Evaluation is a necessary step in getting better. But the evaluation process begins with the last shot you fire...

April 4, 2017

Determination to Conquer

The journey is moving through the habit, building concepts with determination to conquer them, not shoot well. Eventually, it’s more important to just go shoot and become yourself, regardless of whe...

March 28, 2017

Like Brushing Your Teeth

Everything you do on game day has got to become like brushing your teeth! In the beginning, you could not even find your mouth. Now you can stick your foot in it without even trying! Then you became f...

March 20, 2017

What Trying Too Hard Reveals

We see shooters becoming someone other than who they are when they try too hard on game day. That really reveals how much fear is present, which creates evaluation while performing. In turn, that crea...

March 14, 2017

Skill Needs to Become a Habit

Getting better is about building habits. Nothing is a skill until it is a habit. We see this in many different places along the journey as you complete the habit-building along the way. Each and every...

March 7, 2017

Shoot as Many Tournaments as You Can

Shooting as many tournaments as possible is so important, regardless of outcome. You just got to go shoot. You have to have shot so many tournaments that shooting another one is just like having a ham...

February 28, 2017

You Can’t Be Someone Else

You can’t be someone else. If you become someone else, you can no longer become you. This is where the struggle is. Imagine what your brain is thinking as you go to the shoot and through expectation...

February 21, 2017

How Much Have You Shot as Yourself?

It is not as much how well you can shoot, but how many times you have shot well while being yourself. That’s what really matters. This could be the greatest breakthrough I have had in coaching perfo...

February 14, 2017

Setbacks and Your Attitude

Your attitude in practice is so very important in building a game. And that is what you are doing: you are building a game. Setbacks are determined by your attitude about them, not what they really ar...

February 7, 2017

Building Your Competition Persona

It occurs to me today the reason why trying too hard or trying harder doesn’t work: You must build a persona of who you are in competition to have a peak performance.  ...

January 31, 2017

No Quick Fix to Consistency

As we travel the country, we see over and over that the majority of shooters still think that getting the lead right will lead to more consistency. Then some say it’s “the six inches between their...

January 24, 2017

Neither Shock nor Relief

Rather than being shocked or relieved when the target breaks, the best shooters are shocked when it doesn’t break because they are so committed to a certain sight picture before they even close thei...

January 17, 2017

Another Satisfied Customer

“I did shoot my new Mossberg 930 sporting. It was hard for me to believe. I have a Benelli Super Sport custom shop, and a Beretta A 400 multi-target ACS.  I took your 930 out, and on my first shoot...

January 13, 2017

The Three-Bullet Drill and Consistency

A giant step in the right direction to become more consistent is to do the three-bullet drill to train your brain to accept the muzzles in the periphery and get used to what the sight pictures really ...

January 10, 2017

Visualization Separates the Top Shooters from the Rest

There are two things we see that separate the top shooters in both skeet and sporting. First, the ability to visualize exactly what the shot is going to look like before they even load the gun. And se...

January 3, 2017

Concentration: The Art of Thinking About Nothing

Your focus improves as your habits improve. The amount you have used that specific habit in competition in turn determines how comfortable you are when you are competing. I was in a shoot-off with Oly...

December 27, 2016

Developing Your Skills into Habits

The beginning shooter must train themselves to develop good habits that they can depend on when they are performing. Nothing is a skill until it becomes a habit. Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said, “W...

December 20, 2016

Knowledge Vault: Get More out of Your Practice

Before you go practice, always look in the Knowledge Vault and review companion videos in the sporting clays section of presentations you are about to practice. Then look at clay kill shot reviews of ...

December 19, 2016

The Mental Libraries of Top Shooters

Through purposeful practice, the top shooters have assembled a mental library of what it really looks like when they break a target, which allows them to send a detailed visual to their brains. When t...

December 13, 2016

The Brain Needs a Movie

Why are so many shooters so confused about why they can’t get the gun where they already know it is supposed to be? Well, our experience shows that top shooters can visualize exactly what they are a...

December 6, 2016

Don’t Short-Change Yourself!

Here’s what we learned from training and evaluating an eight-week skeet league in late summer and early fall of 2016… If you are not doing practice drills #102 and #102 from quick tips, watching t...

December 1, 2016

You Can’t Be Two Places at Once

On a recent Coaching Hour, our friend Dean Troutte said the following: “You are either in the cage thinking about what you are doing with the gun or you are downrange with the targets. You can’t b...

November 29, 2016

What Shooters Say It Looks Like

There are a lot of different perceptions about what really happens when you shoot at a moving target with a shotgun. And there are even more different approaches to getting the gun in front of the tar...

November 22, 2016

Sleep’s Effect on Performance

Check out the September 2016 Coaching Hour podcast! Sleep is really important. And not just the night before it starts; as much as a week before, and sometimes more than that. Things you do off the co...

November 15, 2016

Understanding Your Own Fear

The first and most critical step in dealing with fear is to be honest with yourself and understand yourself well enough to recognize a negative thought when it surfaces. The second step is to ask your...

November 8, 2016

Sticking with Your System

When we don’t perform well, we typically focus on our mechanical performance. But the mental mistake that may have contributed to the poor shots is too often overlooked. The game within the game is ...

November 2, 2016

Better Visualizations

After you miss, you can’t alter what has happened. But you can influence what will happen next. Get in the Knowledge Vault and watch the Kill Shot Reviews. You will better be able to visualize h...

October 25, 2016

Controlling Your Reactions to Your Mistakes

The key to success is not to eliminate mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen for everyone. The key is in controlling our reactions to those mistakes. The most destructive force you can unleash on the...

October 19, 2016

When Expectation Equals Ability

When expectation is equal to your ability, great things happen. That would be where confidence comes from. This begins with competence. And eventually, you become what you remember!...

October 17, 2016

It’s Not About Center Vision

It occurred to me today that it is not about training your center vision to stay on the target. It is about training your periphery to accept the gun and, through minimum movement, not switch primary ...

October 12, 2016

Frustration at Rabbits

...

September 6, 2016

Training Your Competition Circuit

Your determination to do the same thing the same way every time you step into the stand, regardless of the situation, is the first step to training the competition circuit in the brain. What we are no...

August 29, 2016

Turning it Off

Being able to “turn it off and on” during a competition is critical for accessing the correct part of the brain to find the zone. Check out the last Coaching Hour for more about this topic...

August 26, 2016

Last Coaching Hour

In our Coaching Hour last Tuesday, we discussed several things: What happens to you physically and chemically when you react to pressure. Why coming out of the gun between shots of a pair is an advant...

August 25, 2016

When It’s Easier to Visualize

I am beginning to understand that when the shot is easier to visualize, the preload becomes more vivid. And it is easier to switch the subconscious on and the conscious off. Why? Because it’s easier...

August 16, 2016

On Our Way to Scarborough Fish and Game

Well, we are on our way to Maine to visit Scarborough Fish and Game. I am really excited about the next few days. It will be our first time at the facility, and from what I have heard, there are a lot...

August 4, 2016

Real Results from the Kill Shot Reviews

When you watch the Kill Shot Reviews with your mouse on the pause button, it makes them interactive. We now have scientific proof that viewing them will improve your score! Check out the video on the ...

July 29, 2016

Eye Takeover

I talked to a shooter yesterday who is complaining about missing right-to-left shots, claiming his right eye would take over and make him miss behind. He is a lefty and was trying dots with aperture i...

July 27, 2016

Phenomenal Results Incoming

Check out the forum for some great posts! We’re on our way to Ohio for a few days to coach and we’re looking forward to going to Maine in a few weeks. We continue to receive performance emails...

July 26, 2016

New Kill Shot Reviews Coming

In the coming month, we will be making more sporting clay Kill Shot Reviews. These will include a wider variety of shots, closer as well as farther, teal, and rabbits, to give tournament shooters a wi...

July 25, 2016

Why We Don’t Put the Distances in Our Kill Shot Reviews

What the research has shown in the past is listing the distance makes shooters concentrate on the lead, not how the shot comes together. Research further shows that how the shot comes together and gun...

July 21, 2016

Kill Shot Reviews: Performances are Soaring

Amazing things are happening to shooters who are watching the Kill Shot Reviews. Especially those who are viewing them interactively with the mouse on the pause button. It doesn’t matter whether...

July 18, 2016

More Kill Shot Reviews Coming

There have been some great forum topics, so check them out. If you are not looking at the clay kill shot reviews before you go practice or shoot a tournament, you should. Our skeet study shows that sh...

July 11, 2016

Now, That’s Significant!

I introduced the clay kill shot review to two shooters recently, and they could not stop watching it. It was as if they were instantly transformed into better shooters. Today we are going to do the KS...

July 1, 2016

Baffled by Some Shooters

I’m still baffled by the number of confused shooters who are trying to get the gun ahead of the bird and not see the barrel! When I ask them how they visualize that they are dumbfounded. So many sho...

July 1, 2016

Skeet Study

If you want to participate in our skeet study, email us and ask to be included. Be specific. You will be expected to go to the study site and do the drills, go shoot two rounds of skeet and report you...

June 25, 2016

The Difference between Good Practice and Great Practice

Vicki and I were practicing on a range in Montana in a pretty good shifting wind and were both shooting well. Targets were inkballing in the altitude with mod chokes. On a quick quartering bird from t...

June 16, 2016

Please Don’t Let the Rain Come Down!

Please don’t let the rain come down! Well, our field is still underwater at American and we are teaching at Greater Houston and Sealy at Super Dave’s place. Hopefully, the rain will slack off and ...

June 13, 2016

Exciting Developments with the Kill Shot Reviews

Hi all, We’ve been gone a lot over the last 40 days, and between traveling and the flood I’ve neglected my blog… but the “Pac is back!” I have some exciting news to share with all of you. Wh...

June 7, 2016

Exciting Preliminary Results – The OSP System Works!

We have completed the second eight-week study on skeet shooters. They were asked to watch the skeet Kill Shot Review and do the flashlight drill and three-bullet drill every time before going out to s...

May 19, 2016

The Need to Feel Competent

We have read several studies about why people do recreational sports and how many of them seek coaching. While the number of people seeking shooting instruction is definitely increasing, the reason wh...

May 16, 2016

Success and Competence

Success has everything to do with the frequency and duration of tasking. The quest for competency is really a driving force for why people do a sport. But competence alone is not the driver. There is ...

May 12, 2016

Shooting While Being Yourself

Here’s the reason why trying harder doesn’t work: you must build a persona of who you are in competition to have a peak performance. You can do this for 2.5 hours a week for five to eight year...

May 2, 2016

The Journey Begins: Training Wingshooters

Helping Wingshooters Improve We spent the last week training Texas Parks and Wildlife staff to use our Knowledge Vault videos and data to begin their journey of improving shooting proficiency in this ...

April 14, 2016

Being Stubborn with the Picture

There are just certain things that you must face and go through such as dropping the last bird on a station or letting fear get into your game in any number of ways. Watching the kill shot reviews whi...

March 28, 2016

What Your Shooting Can Cash…

Don’t let your mouth write a check your shooting can cash!...

March 24, 2016

Great Quote

“Shooting from behind the bird and looking at the bird down the barrel are both silly!” – Ignacio Rodriguez...

March 21, 2016

ShotKam

I spent the morning with David and Emily Stewart shooting spots for their ShotKam website and had a ball doing them. I got to tell the world about how just looking at the ShotKam shots will actually m...

March 21, 2016

Shooting Guns That Don’t Fit

At South Florida Shooting Club from March 17th through the 27th, and without exception, every gun I have picked up is too high to shoot anywhere close to where the shooters are looking. On top of that...

March 20, 2016

A Gun That’s Too High and Long

I saw a shooter with a Syren that was – you guessed it – too high and too long for her. If they would just leave the Monte Carlo off the stock and thin the comb, that gun would fit a lot m...

March 15, 2016

Advance School Thoughts

It’s the third week of our Advance School. Being surrounded by shooters who really want to advance their games is both invigorating and inspiring. Conclusions that I am drawing from these 21 day...

March 11, 2016

An Unusual Series of Shooters

Well, the first Advance Class is over, and what a success it was! We had great weather, and of course world-class targets. Again, shooters are continually amazed at how proficient the anticipation cir...

March 7, 2016

San Antonio Rodeo Update

I’m just back from the San Antonio rodeo junior shootout. Man, what an organized shoot, and what a privilege to be there and talk to the shooters. As usual, I saw young shooters in such contorted po...

February 22, 2016

Great Things

“Great things never came from comfort zones.” — Barry Sanders, who tweeted this during the Super Bowl...

February 8, 2016

Think About It…

If you are not willing to be seen as STUPID, nothing great will ever happen to you!...

February 8, 2016

If Only You Weren’t Worrying About Your Muzzle…

Think about how much focus you could put on the target if you did not have to worry about what you are doing with the gun when mounting it. I long for the day when your mounting process is automatic: ...

February 2, 2016

Press On

The anticipation circuit in the brain can alter behavior as it is happening. And the better your moves are, the easier you’re making it on the circuit to correct! When you give in to evaluation, how...

January 18, 2016

Knowledge Vault Updates and Florida

We’re back in Florida and looking forward to the next three weekends. South Florida Shooting Club today through Tuesday. Sarasota Gun Club Wednesday through Sunday, and OK Corral Monday through Sund...

January 13, 2016

Be Forgiving and Forgetful!

I had a conversation with Jeff Wolfe the other day and he made a comment that I want to share with you all. We were talking about being able to forget the bad shots, and he said “you have to be able...

January 13, 2016

Have You Done the Three-Bullet Drill?

I had a question today about mounting quickly and not inserting and stopping the gun. My answer is as follows: Have you done the three-bullet drill? What you are describing is symptomatic of looking d...

January 11, 2016

To Improve You Must Change

We find that to improve you must change something. And shooters who can move and mount the gun without thinking about it or looking at it can make changes so much more quickly than those who can&#8217...

January 8, 2016

Dallas Safari Convention

We are at the Dallas Safari convention today and tomorrow doing seminars. And we’re excited to show the new HD ShotKam footage we have shot on clays, doves, and quail. We never know what we are ...

January 8, 2016

Not Too Late for the Perfect Gift

Christmas is just around the corner. It’s not too late to purchase a Knowledge Vault annual membership at a discounted rate on the 14-day test drive, so check it out. I’m sneaking away for a few d...

December 17, 2015

Amazed

Well, I wasn’t going to say anything about this but I just can’t keep it inside of me… I am still amazed at the people out there who are looking down the barrel while shooting a moving target wi...

December 17, 2015

Lots of Opportunities Coming Your Way

Our Carbon TV channel launches on December 22nd, so check it out. We will be doing some unique things in the quick tips section. It will be expanding on a regular basis as we have many tips planned to...

December 17, 2015

Returning from Florida

On Monday we returned from South Florida Shooting Club where we had a great time. And man, what a club. Holden has really done something here… 160+ machines on four courses, plus FITASC 5-stands, tr...

December 15, 2015

Mental Game

I said this earlier in my career as a professional coach: Learning to shoot is about learning how to move and mount the gun in front of the targets; learning how to perform is about learning how to th...

December 13, 2015

South Florida

We are in Florida through Sunday night teaching at Sarasota Gun Club on Wednesday and private lessons on Thursday. Then we have clinics at South Florida Shooting Club on Friday through Sunday. It’s ...

December 11, 2015

Nuisance Decisions

I was talking to Marcus Fielder at Greater Houston last Sunday, and nuisance decisions came up when we were talking about chokes. Our simple approach is “skeet or mod” and that is it. He had looke...

December 9, 2015

Great Day

Vicki and I did something Sunday that we don’t often get to do. We went to shoot by ourselves at Greater Houston Gun Club. The weather was unbelievable and we had such a great time. While shooti...

December 7, 2015

Great Things in the Works

At last, we are getting ready to come back to the States where the internet is immediate, the water is good, and we can sleep in our own bed. Shooting the new ShotKam II HD is a gas and the video it p...

November 11, 2015

Argentina – Wait until You See the Videos…

We are still in Argentina watching it drizzle, and we’re taking a day off. Yes, I said a day off. It’s hard work to shoot doves four days in a row! I realize there will be no sympathy from any of ...

November 10, 2015

Training in Cordoba

Well, I am sitting on the back porch of the lodge just east of Cordoba smelling the roses and watching the endless waves of doves fill the sky with the occasional pigeon and indigenous birds mixed in....

November 9, 2015

Clay Kill Shot Review

If you are not watching the Kill Shot Reviews twice the night before and once the morning of the practice or tournament, you are missing out on one of the newest and simplest ways to have high-level p...

October 25, 2015

Greeting Failure

The shooters who have the most filler in their brain are always the ones who learn the new concepts the quickest. They are able to shift the paradigms in their brains and fire the circuits in differen...

October 20, 2015

Threshold Concepts

It seems that the more we do this, the more we understand what really stands in the way of becoming proficient with a shotgun on a moving target. The threshold concept of the ability to correctly and ...

October 16, 2015

Tarleton U Kickoff Reflections

Monday and Tuesday we were at Tarleton University presenting our Knowledge Vault concepts and how they create perceptual-cognitive learning. For the next six weeks, the students will be doing the thre...

October 14, 2015

Seeing the Connection (Part Four)

If you feel like you are chasing the bird then you are behind it. You can’t chase it from in front. In our game, you can be in front and behind at the same time. This leads to flinching and horr...

October 13, 2015

Seeing the Connection (Part Three)

It’s what you do off the course that gets you there sooner. Brian said something in a clinic yesterday that stopped me in my tracks. “You must separate yourself from the gun.” Brilli...

October 7, 2015

Seeing the Connection (Part Two)

Your ability to focus is an evolutionary thing. The more of what you do that is automatic, the less you have to focus on what you are doing. The less you have to focus on what you are doing, the more ...

October 6, 2015

Seeing the Connection (Part One)

As I look back over our last few coaching sessions, I’m beginning to see a connection. It’s always been there, but I just didn’t recognize it or just now realized it differently. Fam...

October 5, 2015

Free Advice

I now know why there is so much free advice in our game…especially if you’re a woman! “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan!” I got that from Nike co-founder Phil...

October 1, 2015

Be a Puller

On a recent Coaching Hour, our friend Max talked about the things he’s observed while pulling at both corporate and registered events. And he discussed some of the conclusions he’s overhea...

September 30, 2015

It Pays Off!

“Thank you again for hosting a class in St Louis. Over the last two weeks, I have been watching the kill shots and working on what I learned with you. It all came together last weekend. I won my...

September 28, 2015

Being Honest with Yourself

The other day I had a lesson with a young female athlete the other day who wanted to really shoot great, but she had not committed to building the skills to do so. This was our first lesson together,...

September 24, 2015

Chunking

I am beginning to understand more and more about filler and this chunking thing and how all this evolves into having the capabilities to perform at higher and higher levels while at the same time bein...

September 17, 2015

The Jitters: Coaching Hour September 2015

The jitters are something you just have to go through. Most are caused by wanting to control what others think about you. But you can’t control that, so don’t even go there. But you are go...

September 15, 2015

Practice Every Day

Please, practice your gun mount every day. Don’t make your job and ours harder by not doing it. Saying or thinking that you’re eliminating risk by shooting a mounted gun means you need to ...

September 14, 2015

Touch Your Gun Every Day

If you are not touching your gun every day, you are not getting better. The more I shoot, the more I’m amazed at what the anticipation circuit can do, and the less I am focused on anything. The ...

September 11, 2015

Perceptions

It seems that the more we coach, the more we are dumbfounded by people’s concept of what they are trying to do. When we examine those concepts and translate them literally, they make absolutely ...

September 9, 2015

Stable Picture

I had a lesson with a multi-approach shooter who was so mixed up that he didn’t even know how to describe his shooting. Swing-through, pull away, and sustained lead all at once in the same targe...

September 8, 2015

Thought for the Day: Visualization First

You must have muzzle awareness before you can not have it. You cannot visualize not seeing the gun! The brain cannot do anything if it can’t first visualize what it’s about to do. The more...

September 4, 2015

Expectations

As you improve, it is easy for your expectation to keep getting in your way. Listen to more Coaching Hour podcasts. The answers are there. We will be talking about jitters and scoring on the next one....

September 3, 2015

Getting Upset at Missing

It seems that the very thing you should be looking for is the very thing shooters get so upset at. Missing the same presentation over and over again. If you will listen, the game will speak to you and...

September 1, 2015

Success

If at first, you don’t succeed… Try doing what your coach told you to do the first time!...

August 31, 2015

Skill

Skill is what you do when you’re NOT THINKING!...

August 25, 2015

Lehigh Valley Group “A-Ha’s”

I continue to be amazed at how the Kill Shot Reviews imprint in our students’ brains the concept of the target coming to the lead as the gun matches the speed. A Trap Shooter and Rifle Shooter L...

August 24, 2015

Video Analysis

One of your annual membership benefits to the Knowledge Vault is video analysis of your move and mount. Click here for more info. (Must be a Knowledge Vault member)...

August 23, 2015

Knowledge Vault Membership

The Knowledge Vault continues to grow worldwide. It’s incredible how our members are getting so much better in such a short time. What’s also incredible is what we’re learning about ...

August 22, 2015

The Two C’s

Confidence and consistency cannot be practiced. They are what is left over after practice. They are both a byproduct of competence and will not occur without it. You can never be more confident or con...

August 20, 2015

ShotKam II HD

We will be shooting many more clay kill shot videos and making trajectory specific Kill Shot Reviews as soon as we get our new HD ShotKam. We will be doing some target-specific shots at measured diffe...

August 15, 2015

Excuses

Each time you come to see me I will change what you are doing. For some, it seems we spend the first half of the lesson with them telling me what they have not been practicing and trying to hit the bi...

August 10, 2015

Patience

Your expectation of doing it once and “getting it” continues to put shooters in the situation of “getting in their own way.” Most shooters wait until they get it right. But the...

August 5, 2015

“A-ha” Moment

The Subconscious Takes Over Here’s a comment from a student who finally realized this is not a gun/cartridge/glasses/lead game, but a brain game. He describes his “a-ha” moment when ...

July 30, 2015

Kill Shot Review/Perceptive Cognitive Learning

I just got an email from Driscoll after a practice session at Caney Creek. He said he had been watching the kill shot reviews over and over before the practice session. And he said he shot lights out ...

July 29, 2015

The Second Day In Ohio

Well, the two shooters who went to two eyes shot out of their minds on the second day! One of them was shooting a high-rib Guerini and his eyes were easily 3/4″ over the top of the already high ...

July 28, 2015

Learning to Shoot with Two Eyes

I had two shooters in a group yesterday in Ohio who exhibited cross-dominance problems. One was “right eyes and look at the gun.” He complained about being in E class for way too long. The...

July 27, 2015

“What” Is More Important

When competing… WHAT you’re doing is more important than HOW you’re doing....

July 22, 2015

Pushing Beyond the Limits

What Fear Does to You Just remember, fear in any non-life-threatening situation has never done you any good. When the fear emotion enters the computer, three things happen: Your trunk muscles freeze u...

July 20, 2015

Life Begins at the Edge

“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.”...

July 18, 2015

Practice is Different to Different People

Here’s something you might want to consider. I will use our coaching experience as an example. We don’t need to practice coaching anymore. But that does not mean that we stop learning. You...

July 15, 2015

Observations on Blocked vs Random Practice

Blocked practice yields a high percentage of success during practice. But on game day it falls apart, the research shows. Random practice, while yielding fewer broken targets as you practice, will hol...

July 13, 2015

No One Just “Has It”

No one just “has it.” There is no “it.” Unless the “it” you’re talking about is hard work and time on targets, coupled with a passion to not accept anything l...

July 13, 2015

The Road to Greatness

Being great at anything is a lonely road. It evolves with a lot of time honing and re-honing your fundamentals until you can depend on them. You are really building a circuit in the brain. The more yo...

July 13, 2015

Overcoming Fear

Regardless of the arena, the one thing you must overcome is fear. The only way you overcome fear is to become competent. And when you become competent you become confident. When you are confident, you...

July 13, 2015

Competence Creates the Zone

Nothing creates the zone like competence. Competence first in shooting fundamentals and second in competing. Said another way, you must first learn to shoot. Then and only then can you learn how to co...

July 12, 2015

The Value of Practice

The most unused technique in this game is quality practice with a purpose and goal. Our research shows that the reason is that people don’t understand what practice is for. This is why they don&...

July 7, 2015

The Number One Reason for Missing!

The number one reason for missed targets is the aiming perception causing the target to be seen down the barrel or not far enough behind the barrel for any number of reasons. The more you understand t...

June 16, 2015

Commitment To A Plan and Why

The only experience that will benefit you is the successful or unsuccessful attempt of a specific plan. Indecision confuses the brain. When approaching targets you have never seen, make a plan and exe...

June 15, 2015

Argentina Dove and Pigeon Hunting: Lessons Learned

We’re leaving the La Zenaida lodge on our way to the pigeon lodge. Joe and Kate left to hunt today and go back to the US tonight. They said their goodbyes and we are making great time to the lod...

June 8, 2015

You’ve Just Got To Eventually KNOW

I’m now convinced more than ever of the importance of being able to move and mount the gun to the target. That is a precursor to improving a person’s ability to shoot moving targets with a...

June 4, 2015

Lessons Learned in Argentina (Part Three)

Last Pigeon Shoot No ShotKam this time. I’m just shooting. There’s an uncanny ability to see the bird and less and less of the barrel. It’s as if you must be aware of it when program...

June 3, 2015

Lessons Learned in Argentina (Part Two)

I’ve been shooting the ShotKam and struggled the first day with the weight. I had to rest every 10 or so shots at the dove lodge. I forced myself to keep shooting the Shotkam at the pigeon lodge...

June 2, 2015

Lessons Learned in Argentina (Part One)

We’re leaving La Zenaida dove lodge and going to pigeon lodge. Lessons Learned by Each Student Gerald: Expectation became his boundary which he overcame. Keith: Expanded his horizons. Richard: S...

June 1, 2015

Overview of the IHEA Conference

We’re leaving the IHEA conference with a few more states on our DNR program. I’ve realized that the hunting population in America is on the downhill slide and there’s not much that c...

May 22, 2015

Another Happy Customer

May 11, 2015 Denver, CO I had a great time on Friday following Gil around, making notes, and just observing and listening. It was great. And then, of course, I got to shoot with Vicki on Sunday. Man, ...

May 12, 2015

Teamwork In The Brain

“The difference between the top shooters and the rest of the pack is that we will not pull the trigger unless we know it is going to break.” -Scott Robertson Teamwork in the Brain In most ...

May 6, 2015

Confidence and Performance

Breakpoints create confidence. Transitions control performance! When you can shoot breakpoints at will, you become confident. And you must do this in practice. Once you achieve it, the quality of your...

May 4, 2015

It’s a Movie, Not a Snapshot!

I said something yesterday that I’ve never said before. We use the term “sight picture” to describe where our eyes are when we take the shot. This leads people to look for a snapshot...

May 1, 2015

What It Takes To Change Your Brain’s Pattern After Age 25

This is an interesting piece by Vivian Giang. “In most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.” That quote was made famous by Harvard ...

April 28, 2015

How the Brain Anticipates

We’re coming back from Camanche Hills Sporting Clays after three days of coaching and we’re looking forward to going to the bay to fish for a couple of days. While in California, I read a ...

April 23, 2015

Revelation!

Accessing the Filler in Your Brain I just read a recent study about the brain is constantly anticipating ahead of where we are. It will compensate for tiny differences in timing input and output to ma...

April 18, 2015

Building Filler

This brings a new face to practice. Rather than trying to memorize the move, you train the move and build filler. So when you perform, if you are trying to remember what to do, you are not using fille...

April 15, 2015

The Subconscious Anticipation Circuit

A Lesson From the Moving Sidewalk We’re in the airport today leaving for Fort Myers, Florida. After we got through security and walked to the moving sidewalks, we were chatting away. And as we t...

March 31, 2015

After Advance School

Lessons from the Advance School Well, I have been resting for a week after four straight weeks at 74 Ranch. The Advance Classes were great this year. We got all to shoot targets at 80-100 yards. It&#8...

March 29, 2015

The Filler Part of the Brain (Part Two)

Here’s why it eventually becomes so important to be honest with yourself. Your choice is to be constantly building filler – good filler, or some good and some bad. It’s not how well ...

March 16, 2015

The Filler Part of the Brain (Part One)

In the first Advance Class last week, I began to understand more about the brain’s ability to fill in the stuff that is filed in its automaticity part. This is how the brain is deceived. It&#821...

March 15, 2015

Welcome Aboard to Brian

Welcome, Brian! Our son Brian will begin his tenure with us next Monday. He’ll be in Florida with Bill Cline, looking at some ranges in anticipation of helping Bill produce a range owner manual ...

March 9, 2015

Keeping the Bird and Barrel Separate

Back from San Antonio and the 4-H Rodeo shoot-out. What a pleasure to be surrounded by so many young people with manners and respect. I got to look at a Dry Fire unit and watch shooters play with it. ...

February 22, 2015

Not Looking at the Gun

Become a Knowledge Vault Member! We’re about to have a new image tagline: LOL: Learning Online for our Knowledge Vault. We currently have more than 800 video lessons with over 1200 being added o...

February 16, 2015

Where Confidence is Born

Fitting Guns in Sunny Florida We spent a week in Florida, and the weather was incredible this time of year. That’s why we go there every year. We shot with quite a few students, both private les...

February 15, 2015

The Knowledge Vault Craze

What fun we had in Vegas talking to our readers of Safari Magazine. We had two great sessions of standing-room-only seminars with lots of interaction. The kill shot reviews were amazing and people jus...

February 9, 2015

Thinking is Seeing

“It is a trait of an educated and seasoned shooter that he can entertain a thought and not succumb to it.” – Steve Brown This is in essence what has to be done to achieve higher and ...

February 2, 2015

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 dis...

February 1, 2015

More Observations from Phoenix

On Friday in Phoenix, I could not hit anything when shooting other shooters’ guns. I was just having one of those days. I took this as a signal that I needed to train and shoot about 1000 target...

January 26, 2015

Looking Back on Phoenix Clinic

We’re leaving Phoenix after two days of coaching, and man, has Dan Twitchell done some amazing things with that complex. What a relief to see a real businessman in the shooting business. A Uniqu...

January 24, 2015

Working with 4-H This Year

Using the Knowledge Vault as a Training Tool We will be at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo Junior Shoot-Out at the national headquarters this year showing the Knowledge Vault. They have agreed to...

January 19, 2015

Back to the Blog

Well, it’s been a while since I have communicated with you, but I am not sorry. Vicki’s mom passed away on December 31st after a long battle with dementia and cancer. I learned a few thing...

January 18, 2015

Until Next Year

Happy New Year to all. We will be back in the saddle next year!...

December 30, 2014

A Hunting Visit to The 74 Ranch

Doves and Quail at the 74 Ranch We found ourselves at the 74 Ranch for quail hunting this past weekend with sponsors. It was exciting and fun, and man, is it a pleasure to watch the dogs work. We deci...

December 21, 2014

Synopsis of a Gun Fit

Just another satisfied customer who had the courage to let me cut on his stock. Storm, along with Dan Paxon in Carolina have both recently begun to shoot guns with the OSP stock dimension on them. Bot...

December 10, 2014

Beginner to Advanced Criteria

Are coaches effective when they tell athletes to be more like superstars such as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, or Wayne Gretzky? On one hand, the stories of these superstars are not very useful because...

December 1, 2014

Learn to Mount the Gun

A Shooter’s Transformation Just returned from a quail hunt at the 74 Ranch and discussed with other hunters what they saw and what went through their heads when they were shooting. As you might ...

November 24, 2014

The Kill Shot Review Really Works

I talked to Doss yesterday, who had called to let me know just how lethal he’s been on game birds from looking at the kill shot review on ducks. He also shared with me that he had shot the Brist...

November 23, 2014

Comments Overheard at Tournaments

Thanks to Jeff Wolfe for these two comments he has overheard at tournaments. “You’ve got the correct lead, now try putting it on the other side of the target.” “If that target ...

November 16, 2014

Sporting Clays Journey

It’s About How You Handle Failure The road to success is not a freeway. It’s always under construction, full of setbacks and holes to fall into. And the paradox is you never really get the...

November 11, 2014

Back from Quail Hunting

Headed back to Fulshear after the morning hunt with Rachel and Gary. Man, were the birds on these past few hunts strong flyers. They were perhaps the strongest flyers I have ever seen on pen-raised bi...

November 1, 2014

ShotKam: What a Difference!

Vicki and I had invited Gary and Rachel down to the 74 Ranch to celebrate their fifth anniversary. With all experienced hunters in the group, we decided that we would hunt no more than three per hunt...

October 30, 2014

Nuisance Decisions!

Well, I got trapped in the nuisance decision vortex today. I’m doing a lot of planning and just totally forgot that we were supposed to hunt quail with Dr. Charlie Rockwood and Dr. Larry Trick ...

October 29, 2014

74 Ranch Quail Hunt

Hunting Quail at the 74 Ranch I got a call from Milo at the 74 Ranch, who wanted to know if I was going to make it for lunch. I told him we would be there tomorrow for lunch, no problem. He said I w...

October 29, 2014

More from Nationals

Learning from Long Targets Well, it’s been an interesting few days for me. I’ve been missing a lot of targets in front and finding it hard to let the target close. Perplexed, I’ve b...

October 26, 2014

Shooting at Nationals

Lots of people and a lot going on. I’m still mystified at the number of people who are looking down the gun when they mount the gun! We shot the orange course, which was set by Neil Chadwick....

October 23, 2014

Before You Call “Pull”

I published this on Shotgun World and thought you should read it: We find the biggest single factor in missing targets and perceived eye problems is the shooter mounting the gun too close to the targ...

October 23, 2014

More on Moving and Mounting the Gun

If you are going to ever shoot a shotgun at any level of consistency, you are going to have to learn to move and mount the gun. I’m still amazed at the number of shooters who think they will be ...

October 20, 2014

Smash, Smash: Shooting with Both Eyes Open

I shot with a father and son who both had been closing an eye and aiming the shotgun. The son was getting into SCTP and his father asked our advice about guns and what to do to give him an edge. I su...

October 19, 2014

Good Time Shooting at Our Home Base

Last weekend we had a clinic in Houston. And man, what a time everyone had. Again, the concept of moving the same speed as the target was huge. Once accepted, it proved to be lethal for all concer...

October 13, 2014

A Shooter’s Story

Just had to share this email from Doug Mellen. This stuff is really amazing. *** Gil, Just thought I would drop you a line to relate a story that is too true to pass up.  You spent a couple of days h...

October 12, 2014

Teaching in South Carolina

We’re on our way back from Live Oaks Sportsman’s Club in South Carolina. During our last visit, we shot with the manager Steve Bolt, who listened to the introduction of the sight pictures...

October 8, 2014

Teaching Preload in Oregon

Knowledge Vault Updates Well, it’s about time for us to be able to add more material to the Knowledge Vault. We do apologize for not adding video material, but the web designer we recently fired...

October 7, 2014

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 lon...

September 28, 2014

Teaching in Beaumont: How Quickly the Brain Can Respond

Last week I shot in both Beaumont and Houston with several different shooters, and most of them were confused and trying not to see the barrel. It’s becoming more and more evident to me that...

September 22, 2014

Establishing the Rhythm

“You won’t win a golf tournament on Thursdays. But you can lose it on Thursdays. Therefore, the first three holes are not about score. They are about establishing the rhythm of your routine with a...

September 15, 2014

Iowa Training Session

Well, we are leaving the Iowa training session. And what a great session it was. We had 12 shooters and 12 observers. The first afternoon was in the classroom. We went over the basic toolbox animat...

September 1, 2014

Lehigh Valley

Lessons from Lehigh Valley Over the four days in Lehigh Valley, I never stopped being amazed at how many shooters, despite how many times we write about not looking down the barrel, are still doing ...

August 28, 2014

Fixing the Slash at the End of the Shot

I had a shooter with a new Krieghoff that was fit by the factory. It was 1 and 5/8″ too short with cast on for a right-handed shooter. He had a violent slash at the end of his shots and did not ...

August 25, 2014

Time is Relative

Although time moves slowly, when you’re in flow it moves fast at the same time. So time is relative. Bored and slow involved, and it’s over almost just after it began. When you are in ...

August 24, 2014

Move and Mount in Sporting Clays

Just how important is the move and mount in sporting clays? Well, in the beginning, it is everything. But unfortunately, that’s where many shooters get stuck in a rut and never get out. They are...

August 11, 2014

Struggle is Necessary for Improvement

Thanks to Jeff Wolfe for sending this to me after we talked about writers and other instructors blatantly stealing our words and phrases: “It’s like any other knowledge you don’t work to obtain....

August 3, 2014

Teaching Swing-Through Pheasant Hunters in South Dakota

We’re returning from South Dakota from teaching at Hunters Pointe near Sioux Falls, and renewing our friendship with Tony Bour and his family. What a relief to have cooler weather: highs of 85 i...

July 27, 2014

Being in Flow: the Mental and Physical Process

Just finished reading “Golf Flow,” and I recommend all 608 pages. After reviewing my highlighted passages and all past performances, I realized that when I really performed well, I was in...

July 23, 2014

Thought for the Day: Confidence

Thanks, Jeff, for passing this along to me… Saw this on a message board today: “Confidence isn’t walking into a room with your nose in the air and thinking you are better than everyone else. It...

July 13, 2014

Learning to Shoot and Learning to Perform

Learning to shoot is about learning to control the target from in front and break it ten times in a row. Learning to perform is about learning how to think, learn from failure, and control fear. Fear...

June 29, 2014

Zone Experience and Preload

Every phone call I receive from shooters all over the world now deeply embeds the idea that accessing the right brain is the key to the zone experience. And the preload being vivid and clear is the ke...

June 24, 2014

Comments from a Shooter

“I got your card today. Thanks for the follow-up. I have nearly finished reading ‘The Talent Code.’ I am doing my three-bullet drill until my shoulders tire, rest, and then repeat. A...

June 16, 2014

Being Calm Under Pressure

Being calm under pressure comes from being under pressure. Skill is the ability to anticipate farther and farther ahead of what is going on in a pressure situation. Take into account what is going on ...

June 15, 2014

Muzzle Awareness

“The amount of muzzle awareness in the shot will always be equal to or greater than the amount of muzzle awareness in the setup!”...

June 8, 2014

Dispatch from the OSP Trail

Greetings from the OSP trail across the country. I’m looking forward to sharing some things I have learned from biting deep in my zone while teaching. I had a lesson with Robert McClenagan and...

May 26, 2014