Remember these words:
“Natural Point of Aim”; “Bone on bone support” and “I CAN DO THIS!”
These were some of the “take aways” that Dave Schnelle shared with our Junior Shooters at a training session on Saturday, March 26th. The session was an advanced training session, and while he did work with the Juniors on position and mechanics of shooting, his primary emphasis was that High Power Shooting is as much a mind exercise as a physical or equipment exercise. He cautioned the Juniors not to get caught up in the “better bullet, different powder, better case preparation” trap that beginning shooters often get caught into. He stressed; “Learn your equipment, improve your technique, and if you doubt your equipment, have a really good shooter use it and verify that the problem is not in the rifle or ammunition, it is the shooter.” He reminded us of Lynn Richter’s advice; “You can’t buy a better score, you have to practice.”
Dave also stressed the importance setting goals; short term, medium term and long term. For a Junior shooter a short term goal might be to shoot an Expert score by the end of May. A medium term goal would be to achieve Expert classification by the end of the 2022 season and a long term goal would be to achieve Distinguished status. Then, once you have set these goals – write them down and put them in a place that you can see them and remind yourself of them. (His suggestion to make a duct tape frame and write them in marker on the painted wall probably would not be well received by most parents.)
But shooting is more that motivational speaking and Dave brought along a tool to help with training. Dave had applied for and received an NRA Grant for Indiana Junior Shooting that allowed him to purchase two SCATT Training systems. This is a dry firing system that visually shows the trace a shooter makes as he or she settles in on a shot, commits to taking the shot, breaks the shot and the after shot follow through. All of the Juniors were able to use the system to evaluate their offhand positions and Emma, Kileen and Marshall used it in looking at their prone positions. Even in the short session we were able to have on Saturday, several issues were noted and corrections suggested (such as eye position on the scope, eye relief on the scope, hand position on the fore end) to improve scores. Dave left one of the systems with us at FWRR and we will be using it with the Juniors at Thursday practices prior to our first match in April.
The remainder of the NRA Grant is available to buy shooting coats for the Juniors. There are enough funds to buy four or five Creedmor coats to be distributed across the state and we spent a good amount of time trying on coats and figuring out just what sizes we needed for which shooter. What we did discover is that girl shooters are shaped differently that guy shooters (well, duhhh …) and we have to take that into consideration as we figure out coat sizes! Now that we know more about our shooters, we can work with Creedmor to get the coats we need. (We definitely need a coat for a left handed shooter.) Dave also had an assortment of shooting gloves and he gave a couple to the Juniors who were there. The gloves and coats are long term loans like all of the items we are supplying to the Juniors and they will come back to us if they decide to quit shooting.
Thanks to Dave Schnelle for coming up to Fort Wayne to hold the session, thanks to Marty Didion for a heroic effort to get us heat for the session (it would have been a miserable day without it) and thanks to Becky Beardsley for bringing us lunch and making cookies as a treat.
As a closing note:
There is an upcoming training opportunity for New Shooters and Junior shooters at Camp Atterbury on June 11-12. This is an ISRPA sponsored event and it is unusual to be able to dedicate time at a facility like Atterbury to a New Shooter/Junior focused event. This is a rare opportunity to have new shooters and Juniors get an opportunity to shoot on an electronic target, 600-yard range. Affordable housing is available on base. Look at your schedules closely and try to take advantage of this chance.