BASC Coaching session report

A few days ago I had a coaching session with my BASC Mentor Dave Brown at his shooting school DBC Leisure. It was a group of 7 girls out on a hen party. Also along was another coach in training Davie, and it was our job to get the hens hitting targets.

They were a little late getting to the venue and some of them were a little worse for wear. Some of the fall out from hen parties can rival stags any day.

We decided to split them in to 2 groups, it turned out we had 3 left handers and 4 right handers, and as they were about a similar stature it worked a treat. After they all signed the section 21 declaration I was charged with the 4 right handers and I took them to one side and began with the safety brief and through gun fitting. Dave Brown mentioned it might be a good idea to use semi-autos as they are lighter and have less recoil and it would be good to practice with them as a lesson gun as most lessons for us tend to be with under and overs. However after fitting the first two it was apparent that it wasn’t suitable for all of them even with adjusting. So I opted for a nice browning 20 gauge with a little comb raiser seems to be the best for all of them. 

One girls master eye was a little high for my liking over the comb so I explained that as it was a group it would be easier to use the same gun but she would need to see the target just a little above the end of the barrel.

The shooting was very successful and there was a clear winner. She had a great stance and a great positive game face and applied all that I said and was smashing them out the sky. Some people have a good natural ability to get in to the groove fast and not give it too much thought. 

The others were great and were very willing to listen but I found myself having to show them how to swing the gun and they asked me to hold the gun and tell them when to move. One of my favourite comments from the day was as I was explaining the method she said “I don’t need to know how, I just need to win!”
You will find that not every one in a group will be willing to learn as much as just wanting to fire a gun at something in the air. But when they start getting frustrated at why they missed they loose faith in what they are doing and stop trying. So you have to pick them up and find another way of making it happen for them. One girl was struggling to hit a going away target and after about 5 go’s she was ready to give up. I said close your eyes for a moment take a breath and imagine it in your mind and think if it was a ball and you were going to catch it where would you reach? See it break and now put the gun in your shoulder and take the same breath. Boom! She hit 2 straight. Sometimes over loading a fresh mind with lots of instruction and words can hinder the shooting tempo and when a target has been missed a few times, the mind begins to try harder and puts up more things to think about. Break that cycle and just relax and take it back to instinct.

My session report from Dave was very positive with a few pointers.

Make sure clients always wear their safety glasses.
Good point as one of the girls had forgotten to put hers back on after hanging around for her next go and I only noticed after 2 shots were fired.

Make sure your hand is 10-15 inches from the gun while firing and not on it.
Again fair point and something to watch out for, no matter how much you are asked to move the gun for them they must do it themselves.

A successful day in all and a good practice. Dave has now put both Davie and I forward to our pre-assessment day and the second part of my CRB check has arrived in the post for me to fill out.

I hope to get to assessments before the end of this year but that might be a squeeze. Fingers crossed.