TargetTalk

Ok I bet this subject has been beat to death but I wasn't around to see it so I will ask again. What kinds of drills and targets do you use at practice to build better shooters. I use one shot drills, reduced center targets,and no bull(blank paper) targets. The next one that I want to try is a large black "O" with the thickness of the "O" around 20 mm. The idea will be to hit only on the letter "O" as you are watching your sights and going around in a circle. THe whole idea being "watch your front sight" THe caveat being that the "O" may be bigger than the arc of motion for some of the kids. This will be a work in progress. What say you all.
Fred

Fred T wrote:Ok I bet this subject has been beat to death but I wasn't around to see it so I will ask again. What kinds of drills and targets do you use at practice to build better shooters. I use one shot drills, reduced center targets,and no bull(blank paper) targets. The next one that I want to try is a large black "O" with the thickness of the "O" around 20 mm. The idea will be to hit only on the letter "O" as you are watching your sights and going around in a circle. THe whole idea being "watch your front sight" THe caveat being that the "O" may be bigger than the arc of motion for some of the kids. This will be a work in progress. What say you all.
Fred

It is whatever your imagine can comeup with to keep the kids interested. I have tried just using a very large black circle. The circle can be of any diameter, but I have used the same diameter as a regular B40 target. Since there are no bull rings to keep score the only idea is to focus on hitting the center. You can also make a black circle to cover a regular B40 and do the same thing, whichever method use don't let them see the target until they have expended the precribed amount of rounds in the time and manner that you have instructed. This method is good at teaching the kids to use a center sight hold, but it can work for those wanting to use a 6 or sub 6 hold.

Fred this is in no means meant stop you from asking questions, its for informational purposes only. If you look on the top of the page and click on the search function and type juniors or training or junior training in the keyword box you will get pages of past post that contain those subjects. Didn't know if you were aware of that function.

the questions, I have been away from the puter for a couple days and my brain is just getting back to running. Here is something that I do that ususlly blows the kids away, adults too. Have them find their natural point of aim with an airpistol at 10 m. Close their eyes and open them again, still on the paper good, shoot with your eyes closed. IF the NPA is true the shot will be on the paper, do it a couple times and you have a group. Usually a good one too all things considered. SOMETIMES it is smaller than what they can do with their eyes open. WHY? THE answer I give is to much feed back from your brain. Turn it off and shoot, front sight trigger pressure.
Fred

Hi Fred.

Right now, USA Shooting (and the NRA) are holding the first joint Junior Olympic Development Camp for Rifle and Pistol at the OTC in Colorado Springs. Essentially, it is a pairs camp for the top 12 US juniors and their coaches. An instructor teaches the coaches and the athletes, so they can return home and continue to build on the progress they made during the camp.

In both the rifle and pistol sessions, the focus is on the fundamentals, whether it is trigger or position. Further to the point, the coach and athlete are directed to understand what makes good good technique and why they should perform certain activities.

I'm more familiar with the pistol material, and the goal of that material is to teach the athlete a basic stance whichwill take them to the national level. additionally, the athlete and coach are taught what are the pros and cons of different choices. With this info, the coach/athlete can tune the athlete's performance.

At this stage, there is less emphasis on how we train the athletes as opposed to focussing on what to train the athlete. We focus on building the coaches and athletes respective knowledge while improving the athletes' general technique. From there, we briefly discuss the "how" questions. This way, instead of the coach asking what drills can he/she run in a training session, the coach is analysing the shooters' performances, identifying a need and then developing a drill specific to that need.

So, instead of asking how do we train the athletes in a general sense, we're trying to identify issues and address them directly.

For instance, we saw that the juniors weren't checking their natural point of aim. As such, I had them deliver 20 shots; but, they had to first find their NPA and deliver the shot. Once delivered, they had to break position then find their NPA again and with every one of the 20 shots. When we ran our final benchmark match, every athlete did their NPA checks without prompting.

What are some of the issues that your team is having?

Patrick