Sporting Clays Tips, Clay Target Techniques, Wing Shooting Preparation. The Paragon School of Sporting provides time proven tips to make you a better Sporting Clays, Clay Target, Wingshooting, Skeet, Trap, or recreational shotgun shooter.

Announcing the October 2009 Sporting Clays Tip, released by The Paragon School of Sporting. This months tip discusses how to get more from your training and practice sessions.

2 CRITICAL COMPONENTS TO A SUCCESSFUL TRAINING SESSION

It's not uncommon to load up our gear, head to the range, stand in the first box and ask ourselves, "What do I want to work on today?" Consider a more productive approach.

To get us on the same page - 2 definitions: "Practice" is more about reinforcing and strengthening a skill already learned. "Training" is all about learning and building an undeveloped skill.

1. Decide beforehand, specifically what technique, strategy, scoring skill or specific target presentation you want to work on. What presentation, distance and speed? Reading target lines more accurately -- then holding those lines during the swing. Key to intercepting every target punctually - devote a session to marking more accurate, more advantageous "hold points." How does our "gun mount" look? Do we own the best shooting method for the A bird? XXXXXX or X0X00X? The B bird? And the list goes on. No doubt a less formal approach to a training session may lead to some broken birds. But I'm wondering what our shooter would say at the end of the day if asked, "What did you learn today?"

2. The whole point of a training session is to take what we don't do very well and learn to do it better -- and more consistently. And that especially includes our form because here we're working on a specific target presentation, one that is giving us difficulty. Go to that presentation. Now, maybe by one-third or one-fourth, decrease the distance to the target and/or decrease the target speed until we can break 1 out of every 4 or 5. Right there is where we should be standing. Not so far away that we can't hit any -- and not so close that we can break them all. The best spot to TRAIN on is just slightly outside the line where struggling begins. Just outside our comfort zone. I would rank this component in training as the # 1 most important to getting this shot right -- and into our inventory. Consistently.

In closing, I cannot overstate the importance of # 2. Make sure you can hit the target some of the time. Standing on that spot, shell after shell, 0 after 0, might be torturous. No fun at all. To that I say -- you're right. But -- do we really want this shot? These are the push-ups and sit-ups. Look hard. Find the gun mount, swing or strategy error. I guarantee you this. Patience and tenacity here will be rewarded. Your X% will begin to climb -- if you keep working. TRAINING on that spot with serious repetition to find and correct the error is the absolute shortest and fastest path to the skill advancement you seek here. These are the building blocks to a complete game -- and the consistency that everyone wants.

To review the monthly Tips index, please visit:
http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tips.html

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