TRAP & FIELD

TRAP & FIELD – 2021 June Bob Palmer brings up a good point this month. He discusses how Olympic Shooters are sometimes more concerned with quota spots than they are about competitions where quota spots aren’t at stake. What he probably misses is the fact they don’t get to go to those other competitions if they don’t get a quota spot, but the concept is cor rect, all competitions are important and we shouldn’t put a priority on some over others. They all matter. By giving less at a smaller shoot or one without All-American points you’re cheating yourself by not preparing for the larger shoots. Use the small shoots as your mental training ground for the big competitions. Bob likes to ramp up your adrenaline so you are ready for the big competitions. Pretend you are shooting at the Grand ever y time you step to the line, so you are prepared for the real thing. Get advice from a coach who has some “Big Show” experience and discuss issues with them. Ask for qualified help to shorten your learning cur ve and get solutions and sug gestions outside of your experience. As always, Bob recommends the 30-minute pre-competition isolation before ever y event. Take 30 minutes before the event to prepare yourself mentally. Get away from ever yone and prep yourself mentally. Bob thinks you should spend some time after ever y competitive event thinking about how your friends are impacted by your results and how it would impact the top shooters. I don’t get this, mainly because you need to reflect on how you are impacted by their results. Think backwards from this and ask, how do I feel about my competitors results. If their results have no impact on you, why would your shooting impact them? Read the article for yourself for more insight. Finally, celebrate your successes and don’t be frightened from setting bold and unrealistic goals for the Grand. You just might surprise yourself.

Foot position is not all that important in trapshooting. It is vitally important in skeet and in sporting. Ian Darroch has some ideas as to correct technique for trapshooting foot positioning and most of it is good. Set your feet for neutrality on a post without favoring one target over another is his strongest sug gestion. Not too much shift for either the angle or the straight-away. Nora Ross believes in the Modern Stance and its neutral positioning for all posts as do the Olympic coaches. I agree with them and so does Ian. He brings up the point, not all traphouses are square to the machine or the posts. Some are biased. Silver Dollar has several as does South Florida Shooting club. You can see this by stepping to the center of post 3 and comparing the center of the house to the center of the walkway. Some houses are not square to walkways. If they aren’t adjust your position to square up with the trap. The most important r ule is comfort. Just because the books or Youtube videos say something, if it isn’t comfortable doing it then don’t. Ian agrees. Cor rectly, Ian believes you should lean into the target as you swing with more than half of your weight on your front or lead foot. Never lean back to move the gun (a golden r ule of all clay target shooting). Don’t stand too upright as this can contribute to leaning back as you reach the limits of your swing radius. Personally, I tell my students to stand athletically with a slight lean into the target. On a side note, check out page 53 and page 80 of this issue. Two write-ups on Florida shooters. Page 80 is a nice coverage of my friends Bruce and Alex For mhals. Br uce is our AIM Director for Florida and has been doing a great job recr uiting Youth Shooters into trapshooting. Alex is a promising Sub-Junior shooter who is on the cusp of being our newest All-American. I wish them well!