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People with Parkinson’s Disease talk about what they are doing to get relief from their symptoms and feel better. Health care practitioners talk about their recent discoveries. Interviews by Robert Rodgers from Parkinsons Recovery. Stories of Pioneers who are Recovering from Parkinson’s Disease

What you need to know to help your child improve social skills and win friends for life. From Awkward Solitude to Blessed Friendship

Andrea Dunbar: A genius from the slums They’ll forget all about us by tomorrow,” predicted the British playwright Andrea Dunbar when she enjoyed a precocious burst of success in the 1980s. She was nearly right: certainly, her fame subsided after her death at the age of 29, only 10 years after the Royal Court’s production of her first play, The Arbor, written in her mid-teens. Nevertheless, Dunbar’s reputation endures: partly because … Read more on Independent

Contract would protect teachers from ‘arbitrary’ decisions Officials say contract was designed to improve principal and teacher relations The tentative contract agreement between the Baltimore Teachers Union and the city school district strives to protect educators from what they believe are subjective actions by principals, who have been given greater leeway in decisions about their schools during the tenure of schools CEO Andrés Alonso. Read more on Baltimore Sun

Coal From South Africa Seen Rebounding on India: Energy Markets Coal prices from South Africa are poised to reverse a four-month decline and may rise to a near a two-year high as sales surge to India and China, the world’s fastest-growing major economies. Read more on BusinessWeek

 Last month we discussed the first of the 4 primary shooting methods: Maintained Lead. This month I thought we could talk about Swing Through. While more than a few good shooters favor swing-through as a base method, I personally see it as a specialized shooting method.

 Let’s look at its primary weakness. And it’s strength. Ample gun speed. When gun speed picks up, it’s exponentially harder to control. The higher the rate of speed, the higher the risk of compromising precision in the swing. Many who employ swing-through simply cannot control the gun, their sight picture or the shot. It’s a dicey affair, with success hinging mightily on timing of the trigger pull. Get the timing right,…X. Get it wrong,…0. And the higher gun speed makes it increasingly difficult to time that trigger pull correctly, and consistently.

 However, a controlled swing through can be very effective. Here the gun speed creates lead effortlessly. Follow through? No problem. I see 2 very good applications for swing-through. First, for those who have follow through problems, visually coming in slightly behind the bird encourages a pull through, past the bird. Second, provided you are controlling the gun, swing-through can move your break points back—aggressively. This is a huge advantage when you need to take that first bird down right now! By doing so, you just created the much needed advantage of an earlier (closer) breakpoint, or better hold point on the second bird.

 Increased gun speed can be an asset or a liability, depending on how it is managed. Managed properly, swing-through is a must-have method to handle some of the more difficult report and true pair presentations. Generally speaking, swing-through favors the speedier targets out there. Executed properly it is a joy to have in your repertoire and delivers the X’s when you really need it to………   

To review the full article please visit:http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tip-01-2009.html 

“Shooting Methods – Wise Choices – 2 of 4″ is Part 3 of an ongoing series of tips on shooting methods.  Over the next few months, each month we will focus on one method, why and where you might want to use it, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method.

 View The Sporting Clays Tips Index

We’re here again, talking about shooting methods. We’ve previously covered Maintained Lead and Swing-Through. This month we’ll cover Churchill, an old and controversial shooting method.

Few have been able to accurately describe this method and how it works. But it does work and it has its advantages.

Churchill, like swing-through, relies on increased gun speed. Some proponents and teachers of this method will tell you to shoot right at the target. Which, of course, we know won’t work. But, strangely, it does! Because of the gun speed in the swing. While others may disagree, experience has shown me that Churchill is a reliable close range method, often ideally suited to flushing game like grouse, quail, woodcock and some pheasant situations. There is a sense of touching the target or shooting right at it when you pull the trigger. That very real sense of touch, however, begins to leaves us as the target distance crosses the 30 yard line. Inside 30 yards, fine. Over 30 yards and the instinctive, more intuitive strength of this method begins to break down—quickly—with shotstrings disappearing behind the target.

I recommend Churchill when the distances are closer, and when you have minimal time to shoot, like a short-window shot. Want to take a rabbit right off the trap? Consider this method. Facing an incoming that you can’t see until it clears the branches and quickly disappears over your head behind you? Churchill works!

It is better suited to be a specialized method considering we have many targets beyond the 30 yard mark requiring a bit more precision than instinct. But Churchill is a highly enjoyable shooting method and it does have its applications. You won’t be disappointed if you use it sparingly and on the right presentations. Knowing how to use it just might save that long run as you walk onto the last field. You never know……….   

To review the full article please visit:  http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tip-02-2009.html 

”Shooting Methods – Wise Choices – 3 of 4” is Part 4 of an ongoing series of tips on shooting methods.  Over the next few months, each month we will focus on one method, why and where you might want to use it, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method.

 View The Sporting Clays Tips Index

2 CRITICAL COMPONENTS TO A SUCCESSFUL TRAINING SESSION October 2009 Shooting Tip

It’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 of # 2. Make sure you can hit the target some of the time. Standing on that spot, shell after shell, 0 after 0, might be torturous. No fun at all. To that I say — you’re right. But — do we really want this shot? These are the push-ups and sit-ups. Look hard. Find the gun mount, swing or strategy error. I guarantee you this. Patience and tenacity here will be rewarded. Your X% will begin to climb — if you keep working. TRAINING on that spot with serious repetition to find and correct the error is the absolute shortest and fastest path to the skill advancement you seek here. These are the building blocks to a complete game — and the consistency that everyone wants.

The full, unabridged article is locate at http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tip-10-2009.html

An Index of all The Paragon School of Sporting Sporting Tips is located at: http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tips.html

The Learning 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 full, unabridged article is locate at http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tip-11-2009.html

An Index of all The Paragon School of Sporting Sporting Tips is located at: http://www.paragonschool.com/sporting-clays-tips.html 

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 of this shot cold. Swing feel and sight pictures are very familiar to you. I’m not inferring you can take the target for granted. I am saying you feel very secure, putting a lot of trust in your move on this bird. You know how to break it and it will break. So it’s safe to say you have this shot, any time, anywhere.

Now stand beside me at Hunters Pointe on Sunday at the state shoot, 15 yards to the left and under the 60 foot tower. Both traps are on the top. True pairs, the birds leave from behind us, on our right, overhead and away. The first thing we notice is the line on each bird is somewhat awkward, so putting the gun on the line will be touchy. To compound matters, the targets are fast, meaning time is limited and we’ll have to make good use of the time we have. The margin for swing errors is small indeed and swing mistakes, careless or otherwise, won’t be forgiven here. Like so many of Chuck’s well thought out presentations, precision will be at a premium……

***
This Sporting Clays Article was previously published in Sporting Clays Magazine by Dan Schindler in January 2006.

The Paragon School of Sporting is now making available the remainder of this article as well as numerous others, available for download on The Paragon School of Sporting Website.

Sporting clays continues to be an elegant sport born of long tradition, fulfilling our wingshooting passion to experience the wing and shot. Feather and clay, inescapably tied, grants us so many learning opportunities to hone our skills, a path of personal growth that affords us a refreshing, unbiased look at ourselves. Time and again, my students have learned how entirely more capable they are than once thought. The American sporting clays shooter can honestly and proudly say, in a very short period, he has indeed advanced to take his rightful place among the best in the world. And, let’s not forget, no one is having more fun out here than you and I are.

The events, times, places and persons in my articles are all true. While I changed a name here and there, 100% of the information came from my experiences with you. Each tournament, each lesson, each experience with you generated the material for my work. I am grateful.

We hope you enjoyed the first part of the article and will visit us online to browse the numerous collection that is available. Until then, happy Sporting!

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