TRAP & FIELD

TRAP & FIELD – 2021 September Practicing under the lights was always a mandate before going to Vandalia every August. If you aren’t familiar with night shooting, it can make for a quick exit off the shoot-off field. Ian Darroch is correct in recommending getting experience shooting at night before heading to the Grand in Sparta. The same is true when heading to San Antonio for the World’s in skeet or Nationals in sporting clays. If you want to be successful in these venues, practicing night targets at Markham Park is my recommendation. Morris Stinebring had a way of taking you out of your rhythm in shoot-offs. As soon as you would fire off a shot, he would call for his target and leave you still loading your shotgun and effectively shooting by yourself. This can be very disconcerting, convincing his opponent to speed up to match him. Ian talks about being in shoot-off situations with opponents who threw shells in front of him or they would shake his hand aggressively at their introduction. Others would wave their gun around on their post or would show up late for the shoot-off. Develop your own shooting rhythm and stay in your zone when dealing with these situations. One target at a time and concentrate on the process of shooting. If you always start on Post 4 or 5 when shooting trap, Ian suggests practicing shooting lead-off in anticipation of this possibility for shoot-offs. Same is true in skeet or sporting clays. If you always lead-off or shoot at the end of the rotation, practice shooting a squad position out of your norm. Finally, night targets look different, practice shootoff situations and night targets before you head off to a big shoot. —————————————— After a disappointing loss, don’t beat yourself up when you review the event in your mind. More importantly, let some time go by before reflecting on it. Bob Palmer believes you will be harder on yourself if your reflection on the event occurs immediately after it. Review it a few days later to put it in perspective. This allows viewing it in a more positive light and will no doubt be a more realistic reflection.

Bob believes you should be “self-reflecting” all the time whether you are practicing, shooting in an event, during your best and worst competitions, and in your social interactions at the shoot. Your review shouldn’t be only target related. You need to assess your social interactions and mental state as part of your whole game. If a missed target causes a mental breakdown during an event, review the circumstances around this to prevent it in the future. Bob is big on pre-shoot visualization of success and suggests visualizing a future of successful outcomes as if this is the expected result. Try to visualize the good feeling winning brings with it. During a competition, immediately replay missed targets, turning them into broken ones. Correct the technical mistake you made and erase the memory of the miss. Finally, replay the shoot in detail after the event. Make corrections in your mind for every misstep and turn it into a positive memory.