Bourjaily: Close Your Eyes & Use The Force

Like Luke Skywalker in this clip, you, too, can use the Force to hit targets with your eyes closed. I stole this trick from Gil and Vicki Ash of the OSP School, and I used it to blow the minds of a couple of high school trapshooters just the other night. It’s a fun drill to try and a great way to learn rhythm and feel for the target. It’s also an excellent method for breaking yourself of the habit of looking back at the barrel to be sure (and by “to be sure” I mean “to guarantee a miss”) before you shoot. Shooting with your eyes closed, you have to let go.

It’s very simple: call for the target with your eyes open. Focus on it, read its angle, and start moving the gun in time with the bird. Then, close both eyes as you start to pull the trigger. You’ll crush the target. Once that becomes too easy, call for the bird and close both eyes a full second before you shoot. Stretch out, use your feelings – all that Jedi stuff – and you will be amazed at what you can do if you read the target’s line and move the gun in sync with the clay.

After I showed this to two of our high school shooters who had bead-checking problems I challenged one of them to shoot a whole round closing his eyes before pulling the trigger. He shot 22×25 and afterwards admitted to opening his eyes twice during the round. He missed those two shots.

“Try not. Do. Do or do not, there is no try.”

Everything I know about shooting shotguns I learned from Star Wars.