Why practice is important

Could not agree more..... We see the one most unused technique in this game is quality practice with a purpose and goal. Our research shows that the reason is because people do not understand what practice is for which is why they don't understand how to practice. Your ability to hit a moving target successfully and consistently without thinking is tied directly to how many times you have done it without thinking about the mechanics of the shot. Hitting a moving target is about developing the skill of anticipation where it will be in the future and the greater your skip the farther in front you can anticipate in front and the easier it becomes for you to be consistent and the more consistent you become the more confident you become. This skill of anticipation is developed in two places, first on the practice field and then in the game and in that order. Martina Navratilova said, "Every great shot you hit in a match must have been hit in practice hundreds of times." Tiger woods said," My opponents may out score me but they will never out work me." Wayne Gretzky said, "We are will creatures of habit and the better your habits are the better they hold up under pressure."  

It's not about whether or not you know the lead or the right choke or cartridges or even if you study how it all works and really have a deep understanding of everything about shooting moving! It is about one thing and one thing only...... How many times have you done it in practice and then how many times have you done it in the game!!! It is not about how much you want it, or how many times you have visualized yourself doing it, or whether or not you think you deserve it!  

Regardless of arena the one thing you must overcome is fear and the only way you overcome fear is to become competent and when you become competent you become confident and when you are confident you know you can do it not because you know the lead but because you know how the shot must come together to be successful. Most shooters are looking for the snap shot of lead and this in and of itself is self defeating. It is not a snapshot it is however a movie and it is more important how the shot comes together than what the lead is. If the shot comes together correctly the correct lead is a RESULT and shooting well becomes easy. Easy because you don't have to think about all the junk but few are willing to give up trying to control the lead which is why there are so many shooters that are stuck in the 70's chasing the target and trying to get the lead right! 

The reason practice is so important is that it enables the shooter to anticipate farther and farther out in front of the targets and the farther in front you can anticipate the less you have to think about what you are doing because of competence you are not afraid of missing because you immediately know how to hit the target. Again it is about controlling fear through confidence and competence. Most shooters never achieve competence because they do not approach practice from a skill building stand point. They are trying to shoot a score or break the target instead of building better and better skills that they can depend on to break the targets! I remember watching shooters shooting a 5 stand that my son Brian had set with on our Laporte chandelier machines with all the spring it had. It was a rising edgy outgoing curling bird at distance. Nadeem Nasser pulled up in his clays car and got out and said, "What a great bird I can wait to see how these guys approach it." And then he added, " I already know how I am going to break it but it will be interesting to see what others do with it!" This is the attitude I am talking about and is developed through hundreds and hundreds of repetitions in practice and honing and honing skills in practice so you can depend on them on game day. This attitude is not developed by telling yourself you can break that target because if you have broken a target similar to that 1,000 times YOU DONT HAVE TO TELL YOURSELF YOU CAN HIT IT!  

You can't think your way to the right action.... You must act your way to the right way of thinking!  

The great Bear Briant said, "The will to prepare to win is infanetly greater than the will to win!" 

To be great at anything is a lonely road and it evolves a lot of time honing and re-honing your fundamentals until you have honed them to a point that you can depend on them. You are really building a circuit in the brain and the more you do it the better it becomes because you are actually building insulation around that circuit so it fires more and more consistently with out you consciously guiding it. It is only then that you can begin to concentrate on building the competition circuit in the brain because our research indicates you must become proficient in the consistent application of basic fundamentals BEFORE YOU CAN BEGIN TO LEARN HOW TO COMPETE! That is what it is a long kinky road to be the best at anything and begins on the practice field and ends in the winners circle and it doesn't happen over night and it ain't got nothing to do with the lead but has everything to do with how the lead is applied. It is not a snap shot and you will never get there until it becomes a movie that immediately pops in your head the first time you see the target. It is at that point in time that you can concentrate on winning and not before. GA