CLAYTARGET NATION

TRAP & FIELD – December 2020 Ian Darroch gives a small primer on teaching a new shooter this month. He gets some things correct. A tutorial on safety is a must. Check eye-dominance is also spot on and teaching correct mount and stance, etcetera is also appropriate with one caveat. When you teach a student you have to be diligent about the stance and mount. Stand next to them and do not allow them to take a shot if the stance and mount are not correct. When he talks about teaching lead he seems to forget he’s teaching trap. There is no lead in trap. It is swing-thru, intercept, or swing-to. No lead. Gun speed takes care of lead. There’s some other minutiae he discusses, probably because he’s used to teaching adults. Yeah, his ideas work for adult men, but not for women and youth shooters. The other thing I don’t like is how he gives feedback on why they missed. I ask the student, “Where did you miss?”, on every missed target. If their response is wrong, then I explain why they missed. Encourage them to figure out what went wrong first. Not a good article.

Jim Blevins gives his ideas on one versus two eyes and cross-dominance. Again, not much to see here. He does match my thinking, cross-dominant shooters should shoot from their dominant eye shoulder if possible. This comes with a caveat, as long as they are beginning shooters. If they’ve been shooting for some time, switching them has to be a real commitment from them. His eye dominance test is the wrong one, but it was the one used for years. Jim is over 70. Test for eye dominance by having the student keep both eyes open and have them point at your right eye. Their dominance becomes obvious. Don’t use Jim’s method. As to taping the glasses lens of the dominant eye instead of closing it, I tried this once and tried to shoot from my left shoulder. All I saw was tape. Close the dominant eye. If they can’t then switch shoulders. Don’t take advice from a magazine column on this. Go to someone qualified to help.