Placement & Connection
By Bob Mastroianni
What does the words placement and connection mean to you as a shotgun shooter? These words are used over and over again by some of the leading shotgun instructors in the world. When it comes down to it your consistency has a lot to do with placement & connection. So let's define Placement & Connection. Placement is the act of putting something in a certain place. Connection is a relationship between things.
Placement to the target. When shooting a shotgun you should have a plan on what you would like to do when the target appears. Part of that plan should be what method am I going to apply on this target. Pass Thru, Pull Away, or Maintained Lead. On pass thru your going to place the muzzle of your shotgun just behind the target. On pull away your going to place the muzzle on the front edge of the target. And on maintained lead you're going to place the muzzle right to what you feel the lead is. The more times you can place your muzzle exactly where you want it has a lot to do with the way you feel behind the shotgun. If your plan is to shoot a quartering target pass thru and you come in right on the back edge of that target you are well on your way to building confidence and consistency.
Connection to the target. Remember connection is a relationship between things. The two things we are going to build a relationship with is the end of your muzzle and the clay target by looking at the target only. When two things are traveling at the same rate of speed it gives us the feeling that everything is either not moving or has slowed down. Example #1; two cars driving down the road traveling at 70 mph right next to each other. If you could block out everything else and only see the other driver in the other car you would not even know you were going 70 mph. Example #2; Drive a car at a very high rate of speed say 120 mph. Much faster than your comfortable with. Now slow down to a speed of 30 mph. Can you see where I am going with this? How did you feel driving almost out of control at 120 vs. 30 mph. The shooter that is not connected to the target feels like every target is going 120 mph and he is out of control. The shooter that is connected to the target feels the targets are not that fast and he feels in control. That's the difference between being connected to a target and not. Everything slows down.
If you're a shooter that has not seen or felt this you will most likely disagree with what I'm saying. Try this simple exercise. The next time you see a live bird flying look only at the bird. Point your finger at it and keep it just behind or just in front of the bird. How fast does the bird seem to be flying? Pretty slow huh.
Now that you understand placement & connection you can see why some shooters look like they are in slow motion and other look out of control.
Note: If you have an eye dominance issues and do not address it you may find it difficult to apply placement & connection. Most shooters with eye dominance issues that either refuse to address it or do not know they even have an eye dominance problem will lean more towards a move, mount, an shoot method. Does this sound like you? You shoot a pretty good score or maybe a few good scores and then it happens. You find yourself shooting a score well below what you have in the past. Especially if you have shot those targets before at the same club. There's a good chance you may have something going On with eye dominance. If you really want to do something to improve your shooting get your eye dominance checked. See our next issue on Eye Dominance!
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