Sporting Clays

I would guess that, like me, most people would rather eat the cake than learn the recipe. Now that I have covered the “dance steps” of footwork (see “Best Foot Forward,” Sept/Oct), the next step is to learn the proper head position and stance. It is the combination of footwork and body position that achieves the essential head stability required to consistently hit a moving target.
Your head position and its stability throughout the shooting sequence have a tremendous impact on the successful outcome of a shot. As Robert Churchill wrote, “Head movement is the cause of half the misses in shooting.”
During the act of shooting, unwanted or uncontrolled head movement can negate the benefit of a proper gunfit and gun mount, making even the best-honed skills go awry. Great emphasis must be placed on the correct head position and its rigid maintenance throughout a shot. It is amazing that more has not been written on this subject, given its pivotal role in achieving better scores and cleaner kills.
To illustrate the importance of a solid head position, try these two short experiments that vividly demonstrate the effect of unnecessary head movement.
With your arms hanging comfortably at your sides, look across the room and pick out an object or mark. Using your leading arm (the one that grips the forend), swing your arm up—forefinger extended and pointing at the object—in the manner of a quick-draw.
No doubt you are right on the button. Try it again... and again... Always the same result, right? Through the gift of hand-eye coordination, without conscious reference to your finger, you can always accurately point to the mark.
Now repeat the exercise but, as your finger comes to the mark, lower your head. You will find that you are pointing over the object. Repeat your point, now moving your head left and right as you come onto the mark. You will never be right on the spot.
To further emphasize the result of head movement, pick out the same mark and simply point at it. Rotate your head in a slow, circular motion. You will see that your finger will match your head’s movement and begin to rotate around the mark. The result always will be the same: finger off of the mark, moving in the opposite direction of the circular head movement.
From these experiments, you can see how head movement impacts shooting. To put it bluntly, you never will shoot consistently if you move your head when taking a shot. Dropping, lifting or rolling your head, whether to fit yourself to the gun or because of incorrect footwork and posture, will prevent you from shooting consistently in the field or on the shooting grounds.
Picture your head as the body of a camera, with your eyes being the camera lens. As any professional photographer will tell you, the best shots are taken with the camera on a tripod. The tripod’s stability will always positively benefit the quality of the photograph. In shooting it is the same concept. Adopt the correct foot and body position when addressing a target and you create a skeletal and muscular “tripod” that ensures the stability and position of the head and eyes throughout the shooting action.
All sports are similarly dependent on the control of the head. Take gymnasts on the high beam as an example: They will look straight forward, head steady, as they walk the beam. To look down at their feet would cause them to lose their balance and possibly fall.
There will be subtle differences in each individual’s head position due to differences in physique, shooting style and the specific demands of the discipline being shot. For example, I often observe greater head movement from shooters with longer necks than those with shorter necks and more compact frames.
That said, head position must complement the build and physique of the individual. The head should be comfortably poised, the neck gently extended, with the chin pointing down and turned slightly to the right (left for left-handed shooters). During the shot, the neck muscles need to be firm. Mr. Churchill went so far as to recommend that his clients place a rubber band between their teeth to firm the neck muscles, to better control unwanted movement and help absorb recoil.
The old trap shooter’s adage “Eye on the rock—head on the stock” is as true now as it has ever been. Once the eyes are locked on the target, the head position must not be moved except by the body’s rotation. Any golfer can tell you that if the head is not held rigid throughout the swing, then a hook or slice is the result. Shooting is no different.
So how do we go about creating our “tripod?” We begin with our feet; we then assume the correct body posture, completing the “tripod” with the proper head position.
Foot Position: Stand facing the anticipated break point of the target, heels armpit wide, and take a quarter-turn to your right (left for the left-hander). Your heels should be no more than six to eight inches apart. Imagine yourself standing on the hands of an imaginary clock: Your left foot (for a right-hander) should be pointing on or just past 12 o’clock (the break point) and your right foot pointing between 2 and 3 o’clock. Picture a line drawn from the heel of your right foot, passing through the big toe of your left foot, and it should go straight to the break point of the target.
Posture: In the well-balanced stance, the upper torso should be inclined slightly forward of the perpendicular. Your weight should be well-balanced and distributed with 60 percent of the weight on the ball of your front (left) foot and 40 percent on your back foot. There should be a slight inclination of your back from the waist toward the target.
Head Position: Your head should be slightly forward and to the right and your chin parallel to the ground. This body position resembles the defensive stance of a boxer preparing to throw a left jab while protecting his chin. This stance and head position places the gun at a 45-degree angle to the body and opens up the shoulder pocket nicely to receive an unimpeded gun mount. With your head in the correct position, the comb of the stock comes into the cheek without any head movement and the head stays forward and “in the gun” throughout the shot. On those shots where head lifting is most prevalent—e.g., rabbits, targets beneath the feet, or low quartering targets—forward weight can be increased by slightly bending the knee of the front leg to keep your weight forward and your head in the gun.
Balance: The combination of correct footwork, posture and head position creates balance, which is essential to compete well in most sports. If you start and finish a shot in balance, you will break more clay targets and take more birds. Balance is created in the skeletal and muscular systems. Picture the human skeletal structure as a wheel, with your spine and legs the center axle, and your arms and muscles the spokes and rim of the wheel. When positioned correctly, the skeleton provides the strong, balanced core, and only a small amount of muscular effort is required to rotate smoothly around this central axis. With minimal muscular effort, your gun swing will become smoother and more coordinated, and you will be able to make balanced movements efficiently in any direction.
The Gun Swing: Your feet should be squarely underneath your body and your heels close together, allowing uninhibited rotation—a relaxed pivot around your central axis. The swing should be created from the ankles, legs and knees, with the hips and shoulders moving and rotating together on a level line. If the hips and shoulders do not work as a unit, they create a resistance between the lower and upper body, with the bottom half of the body blocking the rotation of the top half, causing jerky, erratic movements in your swing. The hips and shoulders always should rotate in alignment around the central axis of your body, maintaining the position of your head and eyes and controlling unwanted movement.
If the gun swing is made using only the muscles of your shoulders and arms, you restrict the range and amount of movement available. As your “range of swing” is used up, your mind subconsciously realizes that you are running out of movement and you begin to transfer your weight off of your left leg in an attempt to keep the gun moving. You lose your balance, making the classic “rainbow,” or “windshield wiper,” sweep of the muzzles above and beneath the target line. Your head moves, coming out of the gun and snapping that essential eye, hand and body connection to the target.
Correct footwork and posture are the foundations of a good gun mount and smooth swing. By using your whole body to swing the gun, you keep your shoulders level with the target line and maintain your head position as well as the all-important eye-target relationship and a full range of rotation.
Watch the top competitors in action. Observe their setup to the target, their footwork and the posture and minimal head movement created by the use of their whole body throughout the swing.
Concentrate on using your arms and hands to mount and move the gun to the target. Swing or rotate the gun with your whole body—you will be surprised and delighted by the improvement in your consistency, scores and number of birds bagged.
Good footwork and posture ensure that you maintain a solid head position and correct eye-target alignment and that you create the body shape that allows an unimpeded and consistent gun mount—the last ingredient for consistent shooting. A consistent gun mount allows for the gun to be brought to the cheek without unnecessary head or body movement—and that will be put into our “cake” recipe in the next column.

Chris Batha’s book, Breaking Clays, and his DVD, “Mastering the Double Gun,” can be ordered by visiting www.chrisbatha.com.