Mastering a Trajectory

New shooters don’t have the shot inventory to properly visualize how and where they want the shot to come together, or they have been chasing all the targets down and trying to fix the shot at the end.

Either way, if the shooter is successful, it will be short-lived. We find that the target presentation has as much or more to do with the shooter’s outcome than the shooter, regardless of how much or how often they practice.

There are six basic target trajectories: left-to-right and right-to-left crossing and quartering, and targets going up and falling. And until you master at least two, you will not experience much consistency or confidence in your practice or tournaments.

So, what do we mean when we say master a trajectory? Here is where the work begins. Not only is it lonely, but time-consuming. Some would say expensive, but then no one takes this game up to save money!

Pick a crossing trajectory (left-to-right or right-to-left) and shoot the same crossing trajectory from 25 to 40 yards, moving the breakpoint until you can predict where and how you will break the target and the target is broken without getting involved with the shot.

Learn to predict in detail where the target will break but also in detail a movie of exactly how the shot will come together. Then commit to the prediction to see if the prediction was correct.