Ask The Instructor: The Secret To Consistency

Question: I have seen many references to pre-shot planning. Can you explain what that is?

Answer: Pre-shop planning is the practice of developing a target engagement plan for each discrete pair you engage on a given round of sporting clays. The “pre-shot planning phase” begins when you first roll up to a shooting station, at which time you will OBSERVE, PLAN and TEST your plan. You will observe the trap locations, targets, target trajectories, and target speeds. You will construct an engagement plan for the target pair starting with selecting your breakpoints and engagement technique for each target. You will then test your plan with your “pointing hand”, the hand that normally holds the fore-end of your shotgun. Whether you are in the stand as the first shooter, or observing the targets as your squad-mate takes his turn, you will move your pointing hand in the same way and along the same path as you plan to move your shotgun when it’s your turn to shoot.

Here is why the TESTING step is so important. With each iteration of “shooting” your simulated pair, you are rehearsing, refining, and adjusting your plan. “Automaticity” is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required. By testing and rehearsing your plan, you cause your shot plan to become an automatic response pattern. By planning, learning, and rehearsing your plan, you develop short-term muscle memory for the target pair you are about to engage. I always tell my students that consistency has nothing to do with score. Consistency doesn’t involve just breaking lots of targets. If you shoot every station of a 12-station, 100-bird course without a refined and practiced plan, you are shooting 50 different pairs because you are engaging each pair in a slightly different manner. Consistency is breaking every pair at a given station the same way and at the same break-point every time. By following a refined and practiced engagement plan, you will turn your 50-target-pair round into 12-target-pairs.