Targetchip, ideally you would start to "teach them to aim" or better said "find out if they know how to aim" at the pattern board at 13 yards. *
Some, of course, already have the idea but some don't. You find out when (say) the first shot is high and left and you begin to wonder about the gun or its fit, but the second is off somewhere else and the third somewhere else again. You ask "Where did you direct that shot?" and the answer is "I don't know.. . ."
Those are the ones that need more time to get the idea of coordinating two things, the relationship between the bead and the bird and what muscle movement is required to get that relationship right. Remember, in contrast to the old days when it was largely boys who started shooting trap and many of them had some at least BB-gun experience, many starting shooters today are female with (probably) less experience with Red Riders and where's a city kid or young man or woman going to find stuff to shoot at anyway?
Past President Kaiser teaches shotgun coaches and has them do some shooting from the "wrong" side. He tells them "Remember, the brand-new shooter is holding something that feels as strange and awkward and unfamiliar to them as your gun does to you when you switch shoulders." The message is - and this is my version which I've not heard from Dave - "Don't assume anything. Don't assume that it any easier to do it right than wrong. Don't assume that some magic - and non-existent! - little man inside is going to switch on his inborn computer and unconsciously put the gun in the right place at the right time. All this has to be learned. It's not inborn. It's not natural. Yes you can point your finger at something so you have the basic mechanical equipment, but you still have to learn to use it."
Then the second stage, straightaways from the ten yard line shooting light, slow reloads or WW Featherlites ® , fades the student from aiming at something moving rather than stationary and demonstrates how small is the permitted margin of error. A somewhat more open choke is an advantage here, for a while at least, but isn't necessary. This the another aspect of aiming that has to be learned, namely that you have to do it accurately. Pointing north and pulling the trigger won't cut it in the long run.
The method is called "Successive Approximations to a Final Performance." You start out with the very basics and stick to them until the student shows he or she can do it. Then you fade in a variant which is more difficult but is based on what is already solidly in place. When that is mastered, go to the next phase and so, stepwise, to "shooting trap."
That's what I mean by aiming, Chip and I look forward to the rest of your comments.
* I have left out the other valuable thing about starting at the pattern board at 13 yards - you can spot bad guns and there are a lot of them. That's the first thing to fix (if it can be done at all.) Shooting below the point of aim is common enough and can be cured with Moleskin ® (not Molefoam ® - it's too soft and won't locate the student's cheek.). Far right or left happens and has to be dealt with. Just shooting way high is unfortunate, but can be helped by telling the student to "shoot under them." What else are you going to do? Keep telling them to shoot at them when that's going to send the shot way too high over and over again? In other words, it's your job, as coach, to _know_ what going on with the student's gun and so make the appropriate correctional remarks when they miss.
Of course, itinerant clinicians should do the same but there's not time which, I think, largely accounts for the generally minimal success they have in improving people's scores at trap. Many of their students have guns which are poorly matched to the task and no one knows it when the coach arrives, (or when he or she leaves.) I'm sure the instructor would like to have it otherwise, but you can spend a lot of time at the pattern board and what are the other students in the class going to do while you are fussing with Bob's virtually worthless new gun he paid so much for?
I think beginning instructional videos should include most of this and since in that case there's no time constraint, I think the ones making them are not doing all they should, not by a long shot.
Neil
Oh yes, one more thing. DON'T try to guide your student by "reading" target breaks for information about where the main part of the shot-cloud was. It doesn't work. It's a myth. Trying to do it just makes things worse. You should know that by now. Ron Baker and I have posted videos about it 'til we are blue in the face. In fact, you should have known it when you first asked yourself "How does the target know where the shot that doesn't hit it is?"
Yes, you can say "You were a bit off on that one" or "Dead-damn center! That's what we are after! Whatever you did that time, do it again!" Just don't say - don't even think, in fact - "That shot was to the left, the big pieces went right" or any of the rest of that total nonsense. You will just screw things up.
If you actually see the shot, as you sometimes can, you can and should say "You missed over that one" or "You were way ahead." But that's reading misses anyway, not breaks, isn't it?
