Lead is Forgiving

What we have learned, especially on the birds that intimidate you, is that the lead is the most forgiving part of the equation. If you will just get the gun too far out in the front and match speed, your brain will correct it. It doesn't have to be perfect.

It seems that the more that you shoot, the more you realize how forgiving everything is if you'll just go slow and let your brain correct it. Having a plan and sticking to the basics of running the plan and staying in routine makes everything really forgiving.

Everything we do is sequenced. You brush your teeth the same, you get dressed the same. You've done that thousands of times, so it becomes automatic.

When you first start out, you're aware of, say, 15 things before you call “pull.” And then you start shooting and start getting better, that list of 15 things now goes down to 12 things. And then you keep shooting and keep shooting. It’s a process of chunking. Then those 12 things go into nine different things. The more reps you get, the less aware of everything that you need to be.

When you have your inventory, you have a Rolodex of shots that you've trained to where when the bird comes out, you say, “Okay, I know exactly what to do here. I've seen this shot. It's in my wheelhouse. I'm gonna break the bird there.”

I don’t start saying, “Okay, if it's a crossing shot, I gotta break the bird there. I gotta start the gun at the 70-yard line. I gotta look back over here.” I'm not involved with any of that. I have trust in my process and trust in what I’ve train.

“Okay, the beginning of the shot's there, the end of the shot's there. Okay, we can do that.” Then it’s just, “Close, set it, pull, and call ‘pull’ at the right time.”

Did the target break? Great. Replay what just happened. If it doesn't break, okay, what will we do to correct it? That way, on the next pair or on the next shot, you're either going to double it or cut in half. We're not going do the exact same thing.

This is an adapted excerpt from the April 2025 Coaching Hour podcast. You can hear it in full - along with more than 20 years of archives in audio and written form - with your Knowledge Vault membership.