Hi selmer, that's good to hear! We say, "But you have to point to where the bird will be when the shot gets there." Not a full understanding by any means but it seems to work.
Three biggest problems with beginners: 1) Lifting head to see the shot (yep
) 2) Swinging gun with head still and loosing eye alignment. 3) Focus on pulling the trigger at just the right time which causes the swing to stop and encourages flinching. You'll typically see the swing stop, a slight pause, then BOOM. ("Focus on the target, the gun will go off almost by itself at the right time." - Relegates that to the subconscious which is much better at it than the conscious mind.)
Oh yeah, lack of follow through. Not in our top three because we instruct to follow a missed bird all the way to the ground from the beginning.
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Should say that we don't worry about #3 until a little later down the line. I like to focus on mechanics first. Stance for instance, a lot of kids want to stand like they're hitting a baseball which limits swing and puts the butt on the arm instead of the shoulder.