Nov 7 practice

Practice went very well despite only having 4 coaches. All the parents jumped in to help which made the day go smooth. We have a lot of really talented young shooters they are really starting to excel and have fun. Shooting a shotgun is a sport that takes hand-eye coordination and believe it or not a ton of strength to be successful. For a lot of these young athletes we have switched them to shoot from their strong side. By strong side I mean we are lining their dominate (Strong) eye over the barrel and they are holding the gun up with their strong hand. By doing this at first it seems a little awkward but once we start to develop muscle memory it will become natural and the scores will start to soar. For others it just takes practice to develop sight pictures, muscle development and the hand-eye coordination. Many times the athlete that starts slow develop into the best shooters. I had a chance to work with the new shooters as well as the ones that have been in the program for 4 and 5 years. I enjoyed working with both because I can remember what the older athletes looked like on their first day and have a vision of what the younger ones will be like in 4 or 5 years. It is going to be a great year. I can already see improvement in both the old and young athletes.

Nice Practice

We held a coaches training with the first year athletes on October 10th. We had 12 new athletes show up ready to have some fun, learn about gun safety and crush some targets. For many of them it was their first time to ever pull the trigger of a shotgun and it go boom. We had a very successful day as all 12 athletes broke at least one target and many of them went home with bragging rights of how many they hit in a row out of the sky. Some targets were chipped, some broke and others absolutely crushed. By crushed I mean they just vaporized into a orange talcum powder looking residue. You should of seen their expression as they hit their first target! All the athletes had fun and so did all the coaches. We will do it again at the end of the month.

Having Some Fun

Here are some photos set to INXS "Guns in the Sky" off of the Kick album. ENJOY!

This is my first attempt at a video.

This video shows various coaches and athletes shooting as well as gives you a feel of the surrounding atmosphere. We sure have lots of fun at the range! This program would not be available without the support of Arizona Game and Fish Department and the NRA. Thanks again.

October Practice with Dust Devils

With the closing of Red Mountain Trap and Skeet the Dust Devils a SCTP team from the valley came down and practiced with CATS. This joint practice went as expected. Everyone that came out hit a target and learned about gun safety. A good time was had by all. The Dust Devils treated everyone to some Johnsonville Brats and I must say they were excellent! We also had potato salad and brownies. Yum! The Dust Devils would like to continue to practice at CATS about once a month. Our practices are now split up among the individual coaches so they will be smaller more one on one practices that should yeild some really good results. As I get the schedules from our coaches I will post them here so everyone knows what is going on.

October Practice

Our first two practices of the year went well. Everyone who has showed up has hit a target and has learned how to safely carry and handle a shotgun. The split practices have helped move things along. We have shot incoming targets with all the new athletes and are recording scores once a athlete hits 70% we move on to harder targets. Next practice we have some athletes ready to move to the 8 yard skills game. The second and third year athletes are shooting oscillating trap with the high score so far being a 21 turned in by Taran, Cody, Sawyer and Steven.