Fancy footwork
In lesson five Tony Bracci looks at how your competence can progress through movement of feet and shoulders
We are now ready to look at pairs of targets, whether on report (second bird coming as the first bird is shot) or simultaneous pairs (both released at the same time) for the clay shooter, and dealing with randomly presented driven targets to simulate game shooting.
As we have talked about in previous lessons assessing the break point, hold point and visual pick-up point on single targets, we now have to double our planning for two targets. This would start with a gentle on-report pair where the foot position would be the same for both targets. Next, we would shoot an on-report pair where the break points would be very different, for example far left and far right.
We would then discuss whether a compromise could be made with the footwork or whether there is time to adjust it in between shots. Several scenarios would be played out and tried with footwork and making a compromise to find out what works best for the client.
Plan
Each target should have a plan to deal with it, as part of your pre-shot route, depending on your chosen method and the speed and distance of the target. This is all about ‘reading the target’ – being able to identify what type of target it is, what the target is doing, how far away it is and its speed. This should allow you to identify the best
possible break point and adjust your hold point accordingly.
Can you see the trap? How far away is it? Can you see where the target lands? This could help identify if the target is getting closer or further away along its line and could prompt you to take it in different place. A conscious acknowledgement of foot position and making a plan to deal with each pair of targets.
Grid work
A continuation of consistency training is picking a single or pair of targets and, once the targets are being hit consistently, moving back five yards. After mastering hitting the target there, the shooter moves back another five yards. I keep this going until we get out of the client ’s comfort zone. This builds confidence in the shooter.
Grid work is also a great exercise for training and testing visual pick-up points, gun hold points and break points as they change when you move around the grid. Try shooting the same pair of targets from square one of a grid 10m2 (starting top left) and moving 2m along the front row of the grid, then moving 2m back and working back along the grid. Move back and work your way along the grid 2m further back. This is repeated five times, so a grid of 25 squares will give you a score out of a possible 50.
The grid can be adjusted to the amount of space you have, and revisited to see if an improvement can be made on your last score.
Shoulder arms
In this lesson we should also be looking at how the use of our shoulders can help when game shooting. This can be done in two ways. The first is with straight driven targets that are just off the centre line. The client should be happy that on a straight driven bird the barrels (of an over-and-under) will be in line with the target. Targets that are five to 10 degrees off centre can cause the barrels to twist off line, causing misses.
To help with this we can use our shoulders to help keep the barrels in line with the target, by dipping our shoulders. A bird going over our right shoulder, the right shoulder is dipped to keep the barrels in-line as you would on a straight driven target. This can feel awkward at first, but the results usually justify the awkward feeling.
The amount of degrees off centre you can go will depend on how flexible you are and how graceful you want to look. The positive thing about this is you will not need to move your feet. You will have to engage with the target early as if you leave it late you will not hold the correct line. Anything that cannot be taken straight or with a lean should be turned on using your feet to take as a crosser.
This is where we can use our shoulders to help with our consistency. When shooting a driven bird as a crosser, the barrels should be 90 degrees perpendicular to the target. As a lot of driven birds are still climbing the shoulders can be used to keep the barrels moving on the right line. On a driven bird climbing to the left, you can drop your right shoulder to keep the barrels perpendicular to the target as you drive up the line of the bird.
In this lesson the driven targets will be higher than lesson four and targets chosen depending on the location of the client’s shoot. Experience of shooting high birds off a crane can be good but not an area of focus if it ’s not needed. Targets should be varied to simulate the random presentations of the birds, using ABT (automatic ball) traps to vary the height and direction of the target.
“Though the footwork seems like an extra thing to do before you shoot, it actually buys you time to take the shot efficiently”