Mike Westjohn

I was introduced to Mike Westjohn by a friend at the Weikum shoot. He talked to us in the parking lot, after the shooting, for 30 minutes. He couldn't have been nicer. To paraphrase from Trap & Field magazine, Mike had always been an excellent shooter but has recently spent a lot of time on the mental aspects of the game. He shot 9 200 straights last year, won all three Illinois zone singles championships and then the state championship, ran 100 straight from 27 yards at the Autumn Grand and made the All-American team for the first time.

He is a student of Lanny Bassham who wrote With Winning in Mind. I read that book over the winter and have been using some of the techniques but not nearly as rigorously as Mike. He had his shooting diary with him and his daily affirmation written on a 3X5 card which he was more than willing to show us.

Really nice guy and it was good to see proof that mental training pays off.

Back on Track

First night of Spring Trap League was last Thursday. I shot a 45, a target below my goal but a good start from where I have been lately.

Saturday, I attended the Eric Weikum Memorial Shoot at Downer's Grove in Morris. I shot a 30 bird race of 15 16-yard targets and 15 25-yard targets. I ran all my 16-yard targets and 13 of the 15 25-yard targets. That was good enough for a third place.

The main event was 50 handicap targets at your ATA average. I shot 24/25 and then 21/25. I know what I did wrong on three of the four misses in the last set of 25 so they weren't as much of mystery as some of the other recent lost targets. That was good enough for a fourth place and the Calcutta paid back my entry fees twice over.

There were excellent shooters there (at least four members of the Illinois state team), it was a great event.

I shot some practice rounds today and ran a round of singles and shot two 24s from 22 yards.

Complete Failure of Plan

I shot my first registered targets of the year Sunday at McHenry Sportsmans Club. It was a disaster, I shot a 92 at singles, 24, 22, 21, 25. At least I rallied for the final 25. I've been shooting 95% at singles and ran the practice trap before the tournament started.

The wheels came off in the handicap. I shot a 79, I was disappointed last year when I shot an 88 and I was shooting 94s and 95s then. Worse, I don't know what I was doing wrong but I do know that I couldn't "see" the targets clearly. Somewhere, something has gone seriously wrong in my preparation.

I was so annoyed I stopped at St. Charles on the way home and shot another 125 targets, sowing further confusion as I used different hold points and shot better than I did earlier in the day.

So, to the drawing board. I'm taking a clinic from Phil Kiner May 1 and hoping that he will be able to diagnose what I am doing wrong.

Practice

Almost 65 degress today, great for mid-March. Shot 3 rounds of handicap, a round of singles, a low hold corner drill, a 16-yd/25-yd slider and a box of shells shooting hard rights and lefts standing to the left of post 1 and to the right of post 5 (i.e. harder angles). Shot ok, nice to be outside, getting more consistent handicap scores.

Nicer weather = better practice scores

Getting >40 degree, sunny, less windy days. Shot at 400 targets since last Thursday and am finally getting some decent handicap scores. First ATA shoot is 5-weeks away.

Getting some practice in

Shot Saturday and Sunday, it was around 28 to 30 degrees and a litte windy but the sun was out. I shot 2 yard sliders where you start at 16 and go back to 25 yards on each post. Shot post 1 and post 5 sliders, shot some handicap and singles. Shot corner drills.

Within all that, some good shooting and some bad shooting. Hoping that the bad shooting will work out as the weather warms up.

You can't hit what you can't see

The clay target shooting books that I read at the end of last year talked a lot about eye exercises, both to improve the ability to focus and refocus over the course of shooting at a tournament (endurance) and to be able to quickly focus on and track a moving target.

I've been watching a 20 minute DVD everyday for a month which exercises the two ways primates track objects of interest. The first is saccades which allows the eye to quickly pick up a moving object. The second is smooth pursuit which allows the eyes to track a moving object. Both obviously important for clay target shooting.

On the DVD, you follow a dot with your eyes which moves at different speeds and in different patterns. It also flashes dots and series of letters on the screen to teach you to focus quickly.

I found this iPhone app which breaks the eye exercises into four categoires: analysis, reactivity, memory, and attention.

Our Wii has a target shooting game that I think also develops eye-hand coordination, focus, concentration, timing, etc...