Publications from The Paragon School of Sportinghttp://www.paragonschool.com/publications.html  Book I — Take Your Best Shot (2nd edition)Daniel Schindler’s first book, Take Your Best Shot, helps you get organized before and after you step into the shooter’s box. Regardless of skill level, your shot should be planned carefully before calling for the target. To finish a shot properly, it is vital that you start properly.Using clear, plain language, this book answers your questions about equipment selection; chokes and loads; set-up in the box; strategies; shooting methods and managing your expectations. Written for the novice shooter, each shooting tip is a building block for the more advanced levels of shooting.Good shooting starts in this very simple, easy-to-read book.Readers have responded:After our lesson Saturday I went home & made a page of notes – wondering as I wrote why you had not included these pearls of wisdom in Take Your Best Shot. Later that night I re-read your book & saw every one of them not only listed, but emphasized (maybe except for ‘cheek time’). It’s hard to overstate the added benefit of personal instruction & illustration compared to just reading the book.Jim Bode——————————————————————————————————————–  Book II — To The TargetDedicated to the Intermediate to Advanced ShooterTo The Target is, in a way, a map. Using plain language, it cuts through the mystery of shooting and shows you the shortest route to breaking one target after another — from the first field to the last.Readers have responded:To The Target is simply the finest literary work on the subject of sporting clays shooting available today. A virtual technical manual on the art and science of shooting sporting clays, it is absolutely essential reading for any serious competitor.David Arnold, DO Davenport, IowaTo the Target is full of valuable information directly pertaining to the shotgun sports. An essential part of any shooter’s library, I just wish it had been around when I started.Andy Duffy, Holder of 8 National TitlesThis is going to be the bible for all wingshooters. A stylish, instructional book, To The Target covers all the questions I have been asked by

S YOUR PADDLE. UPSTREAM OR DOWN? September 2009 Shooting TipSeriously now, take about 10 long seconds and do this. Slow down and think about what it feels like to paddle a canoe upstream. Against the current. Go ahead. Please. I’ll wait. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4…………………….OK, it’s nice to be on the water and the view is beautiful but if you’re going to make it back to the cabin before dark, the paddling takes some work. Right?Let’s do the exercise again. This time paddling downstream. No worries, just go with the flow………………………. The cabin is about 5 miles from where you sit, paddle’s at your feet, just gliding, no worries, no falls in sight. Much better,……..yes?Which one best describes how you feel in the box on tournament day? 1 or 2?What goes on in your life outside of the box has a lot to do with what goes on inside the box. Yes, I’ve shot well when I was having a bad day. But I always shot better when I was having a great day.If the match is on Saturday, think about starting to get ready on Tuesday or Wednesday instead of Friday night or Saturday morning. What can you get off your to-do list – today? What finished chore will make Mom or the Missus happy? When they’re happy……………. Same goes for your boss at work.Your frame of mind at 9 AM on Saturday morning will no doubt play a role in how you approach your first field. Feel good about what’s coming? Or are you harried and stressed? Upstream or down? You’ll shoot better if it’s downstream. If it’s possible, don’t leave that frame of mind to chance. See you downstream.

TICAL COMPONENTS TO A SUCCESSFUL TRAINING SESSION October 2009 Shooting TipIt’s not uncommon to load up our gear, head to the range, stand in the first box and ask ourselves, “What do I want to work on today?” Consider a more productive approach.To get us on the same page – 2 definitions: “Practice” is more about reinforcing and strengthening a skill already learned.  “Training” is all about learning and building an undeveloped skill.1. Decide beforehand, specifically what technique, strategy, scoring skill or specific target presentation you want to work on. What presentation, distance and speed? Reading target lines more accurately — then holding those lines during the swing. Key to intercepting every target punctually – devote a session to marking more accurate, more advantageous “hold points.” How does our “gun mount” look? Do we own the best shooting method for the A bird? XXXXXX or X0X00X? The B bird? And the list goes on. No doubt a less formal approach to a training session may lead to some broken birds. But I’m wondering what our shooter would say at the end of the day if asked, “What did you learn today?”2. The whole point of a training session is to take what we don’t do very well and learn to do it better — and more consistently. And that especially includes our form because here we’re working on a specific target presentation, one that is giving us difficulty. Go to that presentation. Now, maybe by one-third or one-fourth, decrease the distance to the target and/or decrease the target speed until we can break 1 out of every 4 or 5. Right there is where we should be standing. Not so far away that we can’t hit any — and not so close that we can break them all. The best spot to TRAIN on is just slightly outside the line where struggling begins. Just outside our comfort zone. I would rank this component in training as the # 1 most important to getting this shot right — and into our inventory. Consistently.In closing, I cannot overstate the importance

I’ve just come home from the outstanding NC State shoot at Hunters Pointe where Chuck Frazier perpetrated on us some of his best, most well thought out target presentations. Standing in the box, I distinctly remember telling myself not to shoot that target right there. Did I remember to follow those instructions? Actually, to tell you the truth, well, I just forgot. It looked so good right there I couldn’t help myself. See, here’s what happened. After stomping the first bird, I moved the gun to intercept the second bird. And there it was, right on schedule. So I mosey up to it with my “never-fail” move and watched myself shoot right over the top of it! Chuck ambushed me. Twice! X0X0. It’s enough to make a person feel daffy. I did adjust the last 2 pairs, XXXX. Couldn’t get those lost birds back though.And that’s what I want to take a look at, minimizing our misses.In my opinion, sporting clays competition has become a precision sport. Never before have so many demands been placed on the competitor’s shoulders to guide the gun properly. Mistakes in the swing are rarely forgiven by today’s more creative and deceptive match presentations. While ours is not a game of perfect, scores are climbing. That’s why knowing where we missed and why is so critical. As scores continue to climb, there is less and less margin for missing, putting the emphasis squarely on better strategies and error free swing execution. Miss management.Top shooters have good form. While their shooting styles may differ, the style each one uses is consistent, making it dependable, at the target and on the score sheet. But there’s more going on there than meets the eye.Let’s start with a target presentation you like, a favorite of yours. Maybe it’s a left to right crossing target, medium speed at about 25 yards. This is a target that you rarely miss. Confidence on this bird is very high as you walk into the shooting box. Why? Because you know this shot. From the set up through the break you know every aspect

earning Curve – Long Or Short?Where do our shooting skills come from? How are they developed and acquired?With each trip to the course, each of us is building an inventory, or database, of muscle movements and sight pictures necessary to successfully complete a particular shot. At Paragon we call that,…..Familiarity. It is a mental inventory or database of sight pictures and swing movements – based on the target presentation in front of us. A presentation we will see again. And again.Building this critically important Familiarity requires training and repetition. Have you considered how you approach building this Familiarity, i.e., target inventory?Some do this by trial and error rather than deliberation and purpose. Through hunting, wing shooting, and trial and error on the Sporting course, this hit and miss process can develop some skill over the years. Yet improvements can be slow in coming, difficult and sporadic. Unguided practice tends to reinforce habits – good or otherwise – and progress on unfamiliar targets doesn’t always come. Sometimes, after a target presentation is attempted many, many times, Familiarity does develop. This is the longer, time consuming, random approach to skill development and Familiarity.In contrast we have the shooter with a more structured approach. Skills are acquired and Familiarity develops as a result of practice sessions dedicated to something very specific in the set up and/or shot. This learning process incorporates shooting more deliberately. With each shot, X or O, this shooter focuses attention on the process of the shot, (gun movement, sight pictures, etc.) not the result (X or O). When a mistake is encountered, corrections are made, moving one step closer to the successful and repeatable shot. Similarly, the successful shot is noted and logged. Every shot has a purpose.Each and every shot we make, X or 0, provides an opportunity to improve and develop Familiarity. Changing our approach can and will reduce the time necessary to develop the skills we desire. Incorporating more, better defined structure into our practice and training will move us away from Random and closer to Deliberate skill development – a much faster process.The