TargetTalk

This is a question, not just for coaches, but for shooters that have a certain way they like a practice run.

I'm a 4-H coach.
I hold practices 3 times per week (Sun, Tues, Thurs) ... shooters come when they can.
I have 6 lanes to shoot in.

I've finally hit the point where I'm having between 8 and 14 shooters show up to practices. Very exciting, but I'm now having trouble deciding on how many targets to let them shoot.

I'm and engineer, so I keep stats on the shooters on a spreadsheet that keeps track of personal bests, and even the scores on each bull.

I've been using a system that has them (most of the time) shoot a prone target and then work (two targets) on the position they are weak in or have set a goal in.

Every once in a while (every two weeks or so) we either have a final, GUTS match, or shoot silhouettes at half distance.

My question is how many targets is adequate ... I'm currently trying for three targets per session that they show, but with so many shooters I think I need to go down to two (am I ripping these kids off by shooting fewer, or have I been shooting too many up till now?)

I'm fortunate that on my Tues and Thurs days I can get into work early, and thus get to our range about 4PM to start ... but it's now taking until about 9PM to get everybody run thru. Not that I mind the time it takes, but I don't want them to feel as if they are standing around waiting forever to shoot.

(I'm also trying to find a person to run a progressive position pistol session for the younger shooters)

Hi,
Good question, difficult answer.
I am a smallbore shooter from the Netherlands starting a trainingprogram for my club, so I am extremely interested in the subject. How many shots are fired on one of your training session? Here in Holland we have local matches of 20 shots for starting shooters. I plan to train my novice shooters with that number. It takes about 30 minutes Including testshots and does not tire them to much I hope.
D you use stretching exercises and dry firing a part of your training? If you are afraid your pupils do not have the opportunity to shoot enough shots, why not have them 'warmup'with 10 or 20 dryfiring shots? or something like that. Perhaps they can observe the ones shooting and write a 'report' to discuss afterwards?

Good luck,
Albert
(The Netherlands)

Good questions Albert.

#1 to keep in mind... we at the 4-H level shoot sporters ... no precision guns

My shooters range in age from 8 years to 15 years old ... max age is 19

We do perform stretching before they shoot.

When I say target I mean an AR5/10 with 2 sighters and 10 record bulls, so basically I'd guess they fire about 10-15 sighting shots and 30 record shots per 3 target session. I do have them use timers and give them about 20 minutes per target.

The coach (me) requires that they keep a shooting journal. I do probably need to be a bit more strict on that.

Great teaching; sorry I am not quite familiar with 4H rules. Here in Holland teaching methods for training juniors do not exist. We do by trial and error. It looks to me your pupils practice enough shots. I will think of an answer to your question though.
Can you give me an example of how your training diaries look like and what/how is recorded? That is something that is not practised here. (Yes, I feel very ashamed. I keep a logbook myself but hardly anyone does)

Albert
(The Netherlands)

I currently have the shooters use the Civilian Marksmanship Program "Shooters Journal".

CMP provides them free here.

They record Date/Time, Location, Rifle/Ammo, A training/competition check box, room for prone, standing and kneeling scores.

Sight changes, a "What I Learned", and "Problems to solve" boxes complete the entry.

One side of the page has room for three entries, and then the back of the page is for other comments.

A journal will hold almost 6 months of practices.

CMP has these and some nice Air Rifle Range Safety posters at no charge ( at least to those of us in the US)

Is it possible for you to show/attach a picture of a page of the journal?
I can make my own version in Dutch from there - just need to know what it looks like.
Sitting in the bus going home from work I did some thinking about your original question. Your 14 kids need aprox. 3 hours to do their shooting while you are 5 hours on the range (tuesday and thursday). Is the remaining 2 hours used for setting up/breaking down the range? or for other activities? Perhaps activities can be combined or done in other ways to take up less time.

Albert
(The Netherlands)

Well it probably takes about a half hour to setup and then another half to tear down. We are able to use our county fairgrounds building, so we have to leave it in a condition that others can use it. I do however, leave all my tape on the floor that mark the target line, the firing line and shooter boxes.

I really don't press the kids on time. I'd rather be able to stop a shooter and work with them on their position. The main thing that does hold up the faster shooters is waiting for the slower ones, but I figure maybe they'll take a hint and shoot slower.

Key thing ... I don't mind the time ... This is my de-stressing time.

tough position to be in.

My practices are sometimes full.

I generally have them shoot first come first served. But the younger shooters may only shoot 2 targets, then move off the line. Older and more serious shooters may shoot 4 or 5 targets.

Not always that way, sometimes an older shooter will have homework or something else competing for their time and they will only shoot 2 targets, then leave. Then another shooter gets their slot.

We shoot both sporter and precision air rifle.

One thing we've done is have the begining shooters, mostly sporter shoot on Thrusday and Friday nights and the intermeadiate precision shooters shoot on Tuesday nights.

TWP ... how many coaches do you have?

I know it's probably a common issue ... i.e. how many parents are as "committed" as yourself?

I'm torn as I've seen real progress in some of the kids who practice 3 times per week, and I don't want to cut them short. I go into work at about 5AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can leave at 2 and then get to the practice at about 4. Not that I'm complaining at all ... I really am enjoying working with all the kids.

After our District contests next week I may think about having the younger kids shoot early and the older ones later.

I really envy the "hard-core" JROTC instructors that have the kids come in before school ... during lunch ... and after school to shoot ... just split them up into intermediates, then beginners, and finally the precision kids. (and have 10 lanes to shoot in) I'm south of Albuquerque, and that town has 4 very strong JROTC teams

JHMartin,

We're real lucky, we have a very high parental involvement. I run the Tuesday night practices and help out on the other nights as needed. We have at least 11 parents that have taken the NRA coaching class in our air rifle club, and 13 or 14 in our small bore club (many of them coach both).

I think as a coach you hae to make some tough decisions and give the serious kids more range time. If you got a kid that shows up once a week and doesn't want to shoot matches I see no reason to give them the range time of a kid that practices 3 times a seek and shoots in every available match.

Boy, you bring up another sore point with me.

Here in New Mexico we are still a part of the "Old West". Come to think of it our State 4-H folks are mostly from down near Lincoln County ... the "real" old west.

Most state 4-H coaches (and county agents I'm sad to say) have the attitude (Wull ... muh daddy never tuk a coaching class & I cun shoot pert near good.....) and (We ain't never had an accident yet...)

Very few of us have any coaching certs. I'm brand new and I've got a CMP JROTC Marksmanship Instructor Training cert. (New after the "accidents" last year). I'm also signed up for the USAS Coaching school in C. Springs this October. You would think that here in NM that there would be plenty of coaching classes with Whittington up north and all, but there are not.

Then don't get me going about how NM 4-H uses it's own rules for our contests and then sends the kids to nationals where they have to compete under a different set of rules. (My county Air Rifle team took 1st in the state, but cannot go to nationals because they are too young)

So it's a kind of sweet and sour here, but still more than enough sweet to make up for the sour frustrations.

jhmartin wrote:B
......
Most state 4-H coaches (and county agents I'm sad to say) have the attitude (Wull ... muh daddy never tuk a coaching class & I cun shoot pert near good.....) and (We ain't never had an accident yet...)
......
Then don't get me going about how NM 4-H uses it's own rules for our contests and then sends the kids to nationals where they have to compete under a different set of rules. (My county Air Rifle team took 1st in the state, but cannot go to nationals because they are too young)......

Hi

We had a CMP / NRA Coaching class and all of the students were 4-H Rifle Instructors, more than half were from our club / project. On the second paragraph I quoted, I won't get you started, but I can REALLY chime in.

For the state Smallbore match last October at Central KS Gun Club, I arrived to help, I asked (who turned out to be the Chairman of the State 4-H Shooting Sports PAC) the guy at the gate which range we were using for Smallbore, he didn't know. The people in charge didn't know whether we were shooting the 3-P part at 50 feet or 50 yards, and 4-H didn't provide targets (I had 50 yard, Leavenworth county had 50 ft). The also didn't provide any type of target backers (my county coordinator and I dumpster dived for cardboard). 4-H National match in smallbore shoots smallbore silhouette per the NRA Rules. It requires a 100 meter course, but CAN be shot at 100 yards. We shot on a 50 yard course at IMSHA targets (much bigger), great preparation for nationals.

For shotgun last fall, we had the Kansas Trap Association run the 4-H shoot and I think several 4-H Leaders nearly died when we started shooting within 3 minutes of the scheduled time. This is a change from 2003 when they were still shooting at 10:00 PM using headlights from two trucks to shoot.....

Later

Mike

See.... now I don't feel so bad! We're not the only ones.

I'm the mean SOB now as we had our county shoots for Juniors and Novices last week.

Checkin for Juniors was at 8:30 and Firing to commence at 9:30. Imagine the looks on some of the faces when some juniors showed up at 9:25, the prep period had already started, and their slots had been taken by some earlybird Novices. Boo-Hoo, they had to wait over an hour to shoot. START was on the dot at 9:30

Joel

It must be nice where 4H in your state supports competitive shooting. Although, my county agent supports my efforts to provide competitive shooting opportunties his support is not shared by most 4H extension agents or 4H leaders in my state of Idaho. As a matter of fact my grant request was cut because and two members (4H leaders) of the state NRA grant committee said and I quote " (my club) has gone beyond what 4H warrents". We have trainers who come to teach others 4H leaders for the 4H shooting program saying that there is no place for competition in 4H. I hear the same stories from people in USA Shooting and the NRA.

My biggest conflict with these people is that one of the basic things they are supposed to be teaching is safety. Safety is something that has to be reinforced on a continous basis not two or three times a year, especially when you are dealing with very young kids. The 4H Shooting programs in most areas of the state are nothing more then plicking clubs. They have no real goals for kids who want to go beyond the plicking stage.

There are people in the 4H Organization that are taking on the politically correct attitude, whether they realize it or not, that if you have competition there will be losers and that would be bad for their self esteem. Well that is directly in conflict with the 4H teaching life skills. Life is about competition and to ignore that fact is not doing the kids any favor. Yes, I know that 4H has competition for their other programs in the state at the state fair where they handout ribbons and money, but not many of them complain about that type of competition. There is a hardcore element in the 4H that doesn't believe those type of competions should exist, but they don't say much about these events because they are so popular. The shooting programs in this state are so weak that it is a much easier program for these groups to limit. The attitude would be border line anti-gun except for the fact that they at least let the kids handle guns, but we don't want you to learn how to shot well.

Competition is what used to the one thing that made the shooting sports the most popular sport in the country. We turned out shooting athletes that were second to none in all the shooting sports. I only hope that things will turn around, but it must come from the National level to at least put out a policy that competitive shooting is to be promoted and not discouraged.

Randy ... I'm going to start your last post into a new topic called "4-H".

I let this get a bit off what I was asking about, but I'd like to get the opinions of others throught the country....

Joel Martin