I know that seems like a weird title but today I found out how shooting really is an act of Zen. I went for another shotgun lesson at Seattle Trap & Skeet Club today with ClayBrakn shooting instructor Frank Neumayer since I knew I needed to become a better shot before fall rolls around and I’m back out in the field after birds. On our last outing in March I sucked at clays but ended up doing OK on birds because my instincts took over.
I arrived at 9:00 and Frank spent some time going over basic safety instruction followed by a discussion of Trap and Skeet and the basic rules of each shooting game and what they were designed for. Most of this was a refresher to me but going over how the Trap field is setup and how to position for each of the five stations was new to me. I never shot Trap or Skeet growing up, we just hand a hand thrower and tossed clays up and shot them, pretty low tech compared to the shooting games going on now.
We then reviewed my gun which I had tweaked to try and get set up as well as I could given the shims and adjustment plate that Benelli includes with their shotguns. I had the drop and cast set right but I’m still just a bit short on my stock so I’ll need to get that remedied. I also was set up with a pretty flat 50/50 pattern which we found out later so a tweak in that by adding a 1/8″ foam pad giving me more a 60/40 or 70/30 pattern really made a difference since I was tending to shoot a bit low which he said is really common.
Frank emphasized that you had to stop thinking. Once the gun is set up and you have your stance and gun mount down then stop thinking, look at the target and shoot. We started on a dead away shot in the middle of the field. First pull, boom, blew it apart. I repeated this five times in a row. Wow, last time I could hit maybe 1/5 of a straight going away trap shot. We moved over to the next station to the left, again no problem hitting clays. We moved over to the right of center, trouble started and I started thinking too much. We adjusted my position and I was still hesitating and overthinking it. Finally Frank would yell “Now” in my ear and I’d pull the trigger and bust a clay. I was taking so much time to try and aim and think about the lead that I was just missing, once I stopped that and just shot I was hitting. The edges of the field at station 1 and 5 still gave me a bit of trouble though I was hitting at 1 on the left but the far right still was really hard for me. When I’d get frustrated we’d go towards center and I’d start hitting again.
Shut off the mind, just see the target and shoot. How much more Zen can you get? It reminded me of Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel which I read years ago. You can’t think about the shot, you just have to let the shot go.
“Don’t think of what you have to do, don’t consider how to carry it out!” he exclaimed. “The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.”
How true, each time I broke a clay I almost did take myself by surprise, it just all happened in about 1-2 seconds, no thought, nothing but look and shoot and a broken clay.
I watched some guys shooting Skeet on the field next to me, they were good. They would mount the gun, call and quickly and smoothly move and hit almost every time. It all happened so fast. I, on the other hand, would mount, sit there and think for a minute, call pull and miss. When I went up and just mounted, looked out and called it I’d hit the thing almost every time. Hesitation is the enemy, thinking gets in the way. I believe this is why I was able to hit pheasants better than clays, I didn’t have time to think about it, the bird is squawking and in the air, you just shoot at it.
The Japanese had bows or swords, we now have shotguns. It is the same art really, just a different choice of weapon but the mind game is the same – getting rid of mind so that one can just hit the target naturally. I have been reading Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall and he brings up the same point in relation to guns. Evidently Wild Bill Hickok had a packet of paper’s left in Deadwood after his death and one was a response to someone who asked him “How did you kill these men? What is your method or technique?” Wild Bill responded:
“I raised my hand to eye level, like pointing a finger, and fired.”
That is all there was to it, no thought, just point and pull the trigger. McDougall calls it natural shooting, and
“The trick is making your pistol and extension of your fascia. And for that, you only need to point your finger.”
Similarly, once the shotgun is set up right it is an extension of your eye so all you have to do is see the target and squeeze the trigger, you’ll hit that target.
I need more practice for sure but I think today I learned a big lesson and was shooting so much better than I did in March. I think I need to just get to the range early and bring a cushion to meditate for 15-20 minutes first to get my mind in the right place. I plan on getting my gut fitted a bit better fixing the known small issues and then going back for more Trap practice and hopefully some Sporting Clays before bird season opens up in only a few months.