Hugely proud of this Young man, outstanding achievement and an example to all, of what dedication, hard work, continual practice and most importantly the "Right Attitude" (putting personal male shooting ego aside), can achieve. Remember there's no short cuts, no magic pill, no special chokes or "thunderchucker cartridges", just skill and great proper technique!!!!!!!! James Hardy (The big Chap on the left of the photo) "Pleased to have come 3rd in AA and overall 11th, at

After two years of hard work and what at sometimes felt like an uphill struggle, I am very pleased to announce that Green Acres Sportsman's Club is rejoining and affiliating to the Illinois Sporting Clay"s Association. At this moment in time we are not going to hold registered tournaments, however I can tell you that we are about to commence on works to expand our existing 10 Station 100 Bird course back up to 12 Stations. Once the new Stations are in place, which we plan to

Just received the most brilliant news a friend who was a past pupil has just shot a superb round at the 2018 English Open Sporting Clay Champs. shooting a 105/120 putting him in 3rd place. He has out shot Champions Mark Winser, Ed Solomans, the great John Bidwell and my own Essex rival Stuart Clarke. James Hardy, who after only shooting for 3 years has made the top 20 Sporting Clay shots in the UK, is in AA Class, is now sponsored and shoots with great technique and style. I

With the Summer Sporting & F.I.T.S.C. Clays season rapidly approaching Now! is the time to consider getting a tune up and work on how you can improve your shooting for the year ahead. One of the first things I do with a client on the first session is to run through what you might call a ‘shooting basics health check'. This isn’t anything especially exciting but I do think it is vital to get the basics right from the start, highlight any problem areas and give a solid platform

It’s been a very busy and successful start to the new year for the shooting school and I am truly pleased to announce that my very good friend, web site manager and coaching protege’, Steve Jaques, has just received his Lantra Shotgun Coaching Skills award, however the best part of this means I can also announce that Steve has achieved his Level 2 Coaching award from the Ahead Of The Game Shooting School. In fact Steve has been at this standard for some time but because of ou

Practice! Practice! Practice! And More Practice! Like it or not we only improve our skills, regardless of what they are, with Practice and this especially applies when we are trying something new or different to what we have been previously using and are used to, what we consider is the “Norm”, what in fact, we are comfortable with. It is common during a lesson when I change the way a pupil mounts their gun or alter their stance that they turn and say “That Feels Very Odd”, a

"You don't miss them because you can't hit them, you miss them because you're not doing it right." LOSS OF FORM. All shooters eventually reach their own peak of performance and for a while success may seem easy to achieve. Sooner or later a slump or loss of form will take place. When this occurs it is a waste of time and money for the majority of shooters to try and shoot themselves back into top form on their own, this is the time to put "EGO" aside and seek the help of a Pr

Ten simple faults that can be found by self-analysis STANCE 1. Miss behind - stance turned too much toward the trap. Run out of swing. 2. Miss underneath - As above resulting in rolled shoulders. GUN MOUNT (eye-rib alignment) 3. Miss over the top - Eye too high over the rib 4. Changing eye dominance - Due to eye being too low on rib or behind action. Cannot see the target with master eye, causing the opposite to take over the as dominant eye, this causes the gun to be either

When is a missed shot, not a wasted shot? In my opinion, it’s the one when you know not just where you missed it but more importantly, why you missed it! Or are you one of those shooters that suffer from “What’s Hit is History and What’s Missed is a Mystery” syndrome, someone who struggles to achieve consistency, who goes out one Sunday, has a good day breaking targets and then the following week has a bad day’s shooting, missing the same or similar birds and doesn’t know why

“Flinching” For those who do not know, a flinch is something that happens when you try to pull the trigger. It can take two distinct forms. The first is a jerk or snatch that pulls the gun off target at the instant of firing. The second is an inability to pull the trigger and can vary between a momentary hesitation and not being able to pull it at all. To the person shooting it feels at first as if there is a problem with the gun and the shooter will complain that the trigger

"That's it!! I've been caught out lying down on the job!" Last Sunday I had one of the most interesting coaching sessions with experienced wing shooter Ed McGee, preparing him for a hunting trip to Canada to hunt Duck and Goose from a flat blind, utilising the Churchill technique I had been taught for shooting dropping duck and waterfowl. Ed broke targets with increasing success and consistency of style, also I added some modifications and found it worked extremely well on

What a way to finish a weekend. This is Luke Hildreth (with his Dad Chris) who after just one half hour lesson some weeks ago and another hours lesson this morning, went off into the field for the very first time and went and bagged his first 3 Birds for 3 Shots!!!!!. Like his Dad, as his Coach I am very proud indeed of what this Young man achieved through applying excellent shooting technique in a skillful and most importantly a safe manner. He is now officially the "Sta

Shooters often buy a new gun expecting that it will transform their shooting overnight and are disappointed when it does not. Shooting a gun is the same as driving a car or anything else we do in our day to day to lives. We rely on muscle memory. Put simply, muscle memory is what we learn when we frequently and repetitively carry out the same action. In the case of a gun it is achieving the mount automatically and without conscious thought. This is possible because the repeti

This technique was just right for Robert Churchill and the 25 inch XXV barrels of the gun he designed; he was short stocky man and was a fast shot on the grouse moors, which is the essence of this style. The Churchill method is about economy of movement and elegant efficient gun mounting. Because the swing is based on our natural ability to point, the mount and the swing, although appearing visually slow, are actually very quick and it seems you are shooting directly at the t