Teaching a beginner to shoot with both eyes open

There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to other halves and shooting. There are those who think of their shooting as “me time”, and would like to keep their significant other at arm’s length from their days in the field, if not further. Then there are those who want to encourage their partners to take up shooting, join them on the peg, and embrace the whole thing. 

I fall squarely into the latter camp. Not only do I have the (dubious) personality trait of wanting everyone around me to love the things that I love, but there’s also a selfish element at play: I have a suspicion that if my wife, Misha, was more into shooting, then I might get to shoot more often.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking. Perhaps it will even backfire, and I’ll get out even less as she hoovers up the invitations. However, Mrs B. has so far resisted my attempts to stoke the fires of enthusiasm, and I’ve only ever successfully persuaded her to hold a gun on one occasion, and she wasn't brave enough to pull the trigger! That was nearly a decade ago.

A look of uncertainty in the pigeon hide in 2013

I’m sure there are others out there like me. Shooting, rightly or wrongly, has traditionally been seen as a bloke’s world; lots of blokey blokes having blokey conversations and comparing the length of their... barrels. In the rain. I can understand how that might not be immediately appealing. 

Both eyes open, always

In a final attempt to get her excited about shooting, I decided I needed professional help. Consequently I booked her in for a lesson with Nick Penn at Pennsport near Newbury. I’ve had some coaching from Nick in the past, and fancied that his style of coaching would resonate with Misha, and that she would feel at ease in his company. I’ve also read that there is a higher prevalence of so-called “cross dominance” in women than in men, so I was interested to see how Nick’s “both eyes open, always” approach would work.

As we made our way down the A34 I quizzed Misha about her reticence. It is important, at this stage, to mention that Misha didn’t grow up around shooting. She was born and grew up in what is now part of Czechia, but was then Czechoslovakia, before her family moved to Slovakia in the mid-90s. 

I asked her about how hunting / shooting are viewed in that part of the world. She explained that in both Czechia and Slovakia hunting is viewed as being whatever the opposite of aspirational is: unsophisticated, backwards even, the preserve of people “from the village”.

Nick Penn's easy manner quickly made Misha feel comfortable

Her family didn’t hunt or shoot, nor did they know anyone else who did. Misha also explained that she felt nervous about handling a gun, having once been winged by her brother, armed with an air rifle, and that she was worried the recoil would hurt her shoulder, having witnessed the bruises with which I once returned from a simulated day. “Nick could have his work cut out,” I thought to myself.

Upon our arrival we were greeted by Nick, who had just finished a two hour session with a long-standing American client. When said client’s wife heard that Misha was to be the pupil for the lesson, not me, she enthused: “You’ll love it. I didn’t think I would at first, but now I adore it - it's so much fun.” I mentally thanked her for having read the script.

Safety first

Having kitted Misha out with a very nice Beretta 20-bore over-and-under, Nick chauffeured us in his golf cart to a stand called “The Stump” - a simple incoming driven target. Given Misha’s nervousness about safety, I was pleased to see that Nick gave her a thorough safety lesson right off the bat, carefully explaining the different parts of the gun, demonstrating the safety catch and even going so far as to describe the barrel-selector and what chokes are. “You don’t need to know this at this point,” he observed, “but at least now if anyone is ever talking about chokes at a dinner party you’ll know what they are talking about.” Some dinner party.

The safety briefing

“Everything that feels natural in shotgun shooting is wrong,” Nick began, somewhat dauntingly, “but don’t worry, because I’m going to teach you the grounding upon which you can build your shotgun shooting.”

Building the foundations and the busting myth of ‘lead’

Nick teaches the “swing through” style, not, I suspect, that he would term it thus. He favours a simplistic, no-nonsense approach that avoids too much jargon, and explains to Misha about the “supercomputer” in her head that allows her to judge the speed and distance of a target, and the “little Irishman” who will let her know when to pull the trigger. “You pull the trigger when it feels right,” says Nick. “People talk about ‘one foot of lead’ or ‘a yard of lead’, but that’s nonsense for a person shooting with both eyes open - just shoot when it feels right.” 

The 'little Irishman' who lives in your head

Nick talks Misha through the first three of the five key points that he says form the basis for consistent shooting, telling her to shoot with both eyes open, how to stand, and exhorting her to focus on the clay/bird, never the barrels. “If you close an eye, or try to measure lead, you’re guessing, and you won’t shoot consistently. Anyone who shoots with an eye closed is guessing.”

After a quick lesson in how to mount the gun, it is crunch time. I can see from her face and hear in her voice that Misha is nervous, but Nick spots it too. “For this first one, I’ll help you,” he says. To begin with, Nick has Misha start ‘gun up’. With a hand on Misha’s shoulder to help with her stance, and another on the forend of the shotgun, Nick sends a clay over. 

Misha pulls the trigger and the clay disintegrates. There’s a look of surprise on my wife’s face. “Did it hurt?” asks Nick. “No…” says Misha. “I was quite shocked when the gun went off though!”

“But you hit it!” 

I’m not sure, but I think until that moment she wasn't certain that she had. Now there’s a huge grin on her face. They repeat the process a few more times, with similar results.

For the next round of shots Nick takes his hand away from the forend, allowing Misha total control over the swing. After each shot he checks in “Did it hurt?”. Although she breaks a couple of them, she then misses three in a row. “Right,” says Nick. “Now it's time for points four and five.” He explains that rather than missing in front or behind, Misha has actually missed to the left of the clay. 

“In an ideal world,” he explains, “we would mount the gun in the centre of our chest, but that would hurt, so we mount it in the shoulder. But what this means is that as we swing the gun, the barrels are pulled off line by our bodies, and we miss to the left.”

The importance of biomechanics in shotgun shooting

To counter this, Nick tells Misha to think ‘right edge’ ie, to aim for the right hand edge of the target. If this were a pheasant, we’d be thinking about the right wing of the bird. If Misha was shooting from the left shoulder, the problem would be reversed, and she would need to think ‘left edge’. Like magic, Misha breaks the next few clays.

Next, Nick wants to progress Misha from starting ‘gun up’ to ‘gun down’. To smooth the transition, he has her adopt a halfway house position, and when she calls pull, asks her to take the safety catch off before sending the clay.

Trying to put each element into practice at once, and with a fair bit to think about, she struggles a bit more, but still manages some good shots. When the wheels do fall off, it is because she has forgotten to think ‘right edge’, which is a trick to make the left arm do the work, or has started to try to overrule the ‘Little Irishman’ and lead the target.

I can sympathise. I’ve not been shooting terribly well so far this season, and listening to the lesson in progress, I thik back to birds I have missed because, I realise, I have been failing to follow Nick’s cardinal rules. I too have been failing to think about shooting the ‘right hand edge’ of taller birds, as well as being guilty of not giving the bird my entire focus, but instead trying to measure lead. When the pressure is on, we all revert to bad habits!

Converting the unconvertible

But you don’t really care about my shooting - what you want to know is if Nick was successful where I had previously failed. Is my wife a shooting convert? Well… knowing Misha as I do, I wasn’t expecting her to be immediately convinced, and in this I was correct. She likes to take her time and make up her mind in her own time.

However, she did say - and I must emphasise that this was entirely unprompted - that she had enjoyed the experience more than she expected to. “That was fun, I really enjoyed it!” were her exact words. And now they’re in print. I asked her if I was going to have to let her have my peg on our family shoot now. 

“I don’t think I’m ready to shoot game yet,” she said, “but I’ll definitely shoot clays again, and I understand why you enjoy it.” 

But in fact, I hadn’t needed to ask the question; I already knew the answer. Misha is a determined sort of a character, and I could see as the lesson progressed that she was taking satisfaction in successfully executing a good shot, just as I knew she would.

Although I had a feeling that she would enjoy it before we started, a huge amount of credit must be given to Nick. His easy manner, the clarity of his instruction, and the way that he explains why the pupil should do something went a long way to heping Misha understand the process, and to progress at what seemed like a very quick rate. And if I do have to give up my peg to her... well, that would be wonderful.

Keen to encourage new people into shoot, and especially women, Nick has kindly offered GunsOnPegs readers a special “Christmas” price - “I’ll do a beginners lesson of up to two hours, for the price of one hour with any of the instructors here at Pennsport.” The school is open between Christmas and New Year, and there are gift vouchers available.
 
Pennsport caters for experienced and novice shots alike, but will not let you shoot with one eye closed! To book your lesson with Nick, Nick Jr or Charlie (Nick’s second son, who has now taken up his role at the school), not to mention the veteran coach Paul Beecher, visit pennsport.co.uk

As well as a new hobby, my wife also has a new nickname