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 targets I struggled with during competitions. I try to draw out
the target, noting things such as target type, distance, speed etc. I try
to keep it to the 2 or 3 targets that gave me the most trouble or the ones I
dread the most. Next I take my log to my home club, Quail Run in
Colorado. I will go specifically to the type of target presentations
noted in my log and work exclusively on them with my coach, Jon Kruger, or my
father. The more detail you can record in your shot log, the better your
coach can assist you in improving your game. Training requires determining
if my technique is sound, understanding the corrections I need to make, and then
it’s about repetition after repetition.
I won’t lie, shooting your least favorite target over and
over again isn’t what I or most people would call fun, but training isn’t meant
to be fun. It’s designed to help improve your skill, and improving your skill
leads to winning, and winning is always fun. Usually I will focus on 3 or
4 different variations of the target that is giving me trouble. I
remember a time last year where the high incoming floating teal target that
peaks and hangs out there between 40-60 yards, which seems to be on every
FITASC course, was destroying my scores. One look at this type of target
in the show pairs left me saying, “Oh No.” Instantly my thoughts went negative
with images of misses flashing through my mind. The most frustrating
thing was once you have a target you don’t like; each course seems to have this
very target every peg or every other station. Upon arriving home,
my father and I went straight to Quail Run and asked the owner Jerry if he
could set up this presentation for me to practice on. For the next 200
rounds I only shot this target. Starting from 40 yards and moving out to
75 yards. I probably missed 75% of the first 100 targets, leaving me more
than a little frustrated. We tried several different techniques until we
began to find some consistency. Somewhere around my 150th shot
I was finding success.
Over the next 100 rounds, with some breaks thrown in along
the way, I worked on my consistency. Consistency is achieved when you no
longer consciously think about lead or even pulling the trigger. When the
picture in your mind is correct, everything happens automatically. Sort
of like driving a car, all the steps happen automatically. To make my point,
think about your drive to the range. How many times did you touch the
brake? It’s not an answer you can determine because braking was something
you did subconsciously due to repetition of driving. To be the best, this
is how you need to shoot. Repetition drives consistent movements and when the
picture is right, your subconscious does the rest. I’m proud to say
during those “next 100” rounds, I broke 80-90% of them, not bad considering
that just a few hours earlier, I missed 75% of the same target. Along the
way my attitude towards these targets changed from the “Oh No” thought I had
when seeing the show pair to an “I got this” and my scores were the major
benefactor.
In summary, if improvement in your skill and results is
what you truly desire, ask yourself how much do you practice versus
train? Get a shot log to record the targets that challenge you while they
are fresh in your mind. Don’t just shoot them until you can hit them but
keep pushing until you are hitting them with great consistency. Along the way
you may find a new favorite target develops from one you used to dread.
Dalton Kirchhoefer
Thanks Dalton...Great food for thought.
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