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Practicing vs. Training

Whether preparing for a tournament or just working to improve your scores, it’s important to understand the difference between practicing versus training.  For most people practice means going out to their local sporting clay course and shooting a round.  While any practice is helpful, if you want to improve your game, it’s important to supplement practicing with training.  Practicing is just what it sounds like - you shoot a practice round. Training is where you work on a specific technique or target with sufficient repetition that creates habits.  Think of it this way, where does a PGA tour professional spend the most time, playing practice rounds or hitting balls on the driving range? Practice has served me well early on in my shooting career, though it wasn’t until I understood how to train that my game began to make serious improvements.  Training begins with observation during either a practice round or competition.  Personally, I keep a shot log in which I record targe

You Can Only Find What You Are Looking For

This month Blog post is written by sponsored shooter, Dalton Kirchhoefer. Dalton and his dad, Tony practicing at his home club, Quail Run Sports.   You Can Only Find What You Are Looking For My father has always told me, “You can only find what you are looking for in life, as well as competition”. I’m not sure I grasp the entire meaning but the light is beginning to shine a little brighter at the beginning of the shooting season. Regardless of the shooter’s skill, overcoming the feeling you have after missing a target you know you can hit or one you have hit 25 out of 25 in practice, is probably the greatest challenge a competitor faces during competition. The most important target in a tournament is the one following a miss. Will you be able to wipe the image of the miss from your mind, replacing it with a good picture of you smashing the next target? Or will you choose to play backwards rather than forward and carry the miss with you to the next station? Personally,

The Cycles of Shooting

Shooting is about cycles and there are a variety of cycles; the cycle of practice, the cycle of competition, the cycle of the score and the cycle of trust. All of these cycles are interconnected, but there’s no doubt the cycle we’re all interested in is the cycle to raise the score. What does it take to raise your score? Most would say practice, practice and more practice, but there’s more to it than just practice alone. Competition shooting is all-encompassing. It’s an encompassment of your physical ability, mental mastery, emotional control and trust in your equipment.   When you step up to the line, trust is the key and that trust is two-fold. The first is trust in yourself, in your ability to make the shot and execute it exactly the same way every time. Practice builds that self-trust. The second part is trusting your equipment; trust in your gun and your ammunition. Trusting your gun to move the way you want it to, to complete the entire cycle of executing the shot from w