The Clay Shooting Success – Mental Skills for Sporting DVD is available with free postage from the ShootClay Shop
In the crowded world of Clay Shooting DVD’s, the Mental Skills area is pretty poorly represented – many of the instructional videos talk about mental skills as a part of their instruction, but very few focus 100% on improving the psychological part of your game.
Phil Coley has been developing his Clay Shooting Success brand for some time, with a number of masterclass sessions where he combines technique coaching from a top shooter with a session focusing on Mental Skills. ShootClay reviewed one of these days last year, and found it to be a great starting point for developing a tool kit of skills to improve focus and concentration whilst shooting clays.
Now with the Mental Skills for Sporting DVD – Phil has developed a programme that can start you on that journey from the comfort of your armchair – with some excellent techniques and training to get you in the right place.
Filmed at Ian Coley Shooting School – the DVD starts with a good overview of a basic visualisation technique which will help develop your sight pictures both WITH and WITHOUT the gun. The chapter finishes with an excellent narrated exercise – which makes your visualisation quite powerful.
Next up – Phil introduces his RED, AMBER, GREEN system which he uses to coach concentration & focus levels whilst on a sporting shoot. Starting with GREEN, Phil works backwards through the sections – talking you through the techniques he coaches.
The GREEN section to give you the pre-shot routine that Phil recommends, along with a clear explanation of why this works and what you should be doing at each step of the pre-shot routine. When each shot is taken – an inset shows the gun movement and kill using a Barrelcam. There are clear on screen graphics to show the path of the clay – as well as clear indicators of where Phil’s hold points and kill points are during the demonstration.
Phil also talks through an excellent centering exercise which revolves around modifying your breathing to improve concentration and focus before moving into the pre-shot routine. I know from personal experience, that breathing is a crucial part of success when shooting well.
The AMBER section looks at the state you need to be in just prior to entering the cage – what things should you be looking at, and what techniques you can use to make yourself ready to shoot.
The RED section gives you some techniques to keep your mind in tip-top condition whilst waiting to shoot .
Then the DVD talks through the techniques in relation to SportTrap, COMPAK and FITASC sporting – without the traditional rhythm of shooting English Sporting, these techniques need to be applied slightly differently to ensure that you are in the right frame of mind prior to calling pull.
The next section introduces some techniques you can use to improve your pre-shot management – how you approach the shots you are going to take can hugely influence the success you have. For instance moving your foot position in a stand can change your hold, look and kill positions and create a different sight picture to rely on, and make yourself feel more comfortable about the shots. This section has some excellent examples, again with clear on screen graphics to explain the paths of the clays and the key points you need to consider.
The final section talks about Dry Training – explaining how you can build a strong image library which will strengthen your visualisation techniques even more
Clearly – it is not practical to be watching a DVD whilst out on the ground, but a combination of the excellent visualisation techniques and the dry training will give you a LOT of training that you can implement at home, or in your lunch break at work that can make a huge difference to your shooting.
Phil Coleys training style is clear, concise and very easy to listen to – the DVD is well paced, and a menu system will help you choose the sections you want to watch. I’ve watched the DVD twice for review now, and picked up different things each time.
Definitely one I would recommend – especially if you have watched other technique based DVD’s but found the mental aspects have been lacking, this disc will give you a solid base for building your mental skills for Clay Shooting.
The Clay Shooting Success – Mental Skills for Sporting DVD is available with free postage from the ShootClay Shop
