What is the best way to practice some shooting skills at home? I am sure many of you have been told or have heard that practicing your mounting at home is a great thing to do. GUN mounting that is……I know, sorry, I promise not to digress……. Anyhow, with an unloaded gun. Practice mounting your gun to your own eye in the mirror. There are many tips about how to do this on the web, no need to go over it again here. Just remember though, it really does help and builds consistency in your gun mount and muscle memory as well.
Sounds crazy, but I have been known to keep an unloaded shotgun in the corner of my bathroom to just pick up and practice my gun mounts in the morning before my day gets started and again in the evening, especially right before a shooting event or wing shooting trip. Believe me, it helps a lot!
on our monthly Coaching Hour conference call for the past 2 months we have been talking about what beginners must learn to advance their skill levels and have more fun….the main thread that comes from all shooters male and female of all ages and objectives is the learn to move and mount the gun…..in face that is the one thing the frustrates Vicki and I about beginners….they think they can become proficient with a shotgun and get better fast and have fun by shooting with a mounted gun….well we have been professional coaches for over 22 years and each have 50,000 hours of coaching experience and “at the end of the day” and John Higgins would say…..learning to move and mount the gun is the most basic fundamental that will allow for quick acceleration to the competency level desired by the shooter….
The second topic of discussion was don’t tie you self esteem or self worth to the misses which we feel GRITS exemplifies to a “T”…..we see sooooo many shooters trying to learn to get better by trying to not miss… .. heck just go ahead and shoot and correct the miss…..the most recent brain based research proves that the brain learns more quickly from firing the circuit and missing the target and correcting it than it does from firing the circuit and hitting the target! so remember every missed target is an opportunity to learn…….. one of the life lessons that our customers come back to us over and over and over with is, that they learned from this silly game of shooting a $.30 cartridge at a $.40 target to try to break it before it breaks when it hits the ground, how to learn from failure and that failure is the first step to learning anything and when you realize that failing is the most necessary part of learning anything then the fear leaves and things become so much easier and soooo much more fun……..and Vicki and I still go out and shoot when we find ourselves with time to do so and yes we don’t keep score…..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gil, thanks for this wonderful feedback! You andVicki certainly have the knowledge and experience and we love having your comments! Shoot for the sheer fun of it! Whoop Whoop!