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Do I Really Need a Women Shooting Instructor?Here’s the way NOT to get into shooting shotguns…
Your significant other has been urging you to give shotguns a try for the longest time, and finally you decide to go for it. You bring your favorite sunglasses, foam earplugs and you’re wearing a tank-top. He marches you out to the trap field and gives you some old 12-gauge that’s been sitting around for a while. Since you don’t have a shell pouch, you carry the box from station to station, bending down for each one.
He hasn’t told you a lick about gun safety, so there’s a pretty good chance you’ll shoot off your foot before the day is up -- or you may endanger the shooters around you by swinging around with a loaded shotgun when someone calls your name.
Every time you miss (and you’ll miss a lot), he’s sort of in your face telling what you’ve done wrong. After all, he’s been hunting all his life. No one is going to tell him he can’t shoot. Of course he doesn’t realize that men and women actually stand differently -- no matter what he tells you is ultimately going to be wrong.
Twenty minutes into it, you have bruises on your shoulder and cheek. Your arms are absolutely aching from holding up that old shotgun of his. Your sunglasses are fogging up because there’s not enough air getting behind the lenses. The foam plugs aren’t very much help and you feel a headache coming on. And you’re feeling slightly dizzy from bending for the shells all the time.
Most professional instructors -- male or female -- would not put you through that terrible ordeal. Instead, they would take you step-by-step through the proper procedures in learning how to effectively and safely shoot a shotgun.
Of course there are plenty of excellent male shotgun instructors ready, willing and able to teach women. But is there something else?
“Women learn differently,” observes Vicki Ash of the OSP/Optimum Shotgun Performance Shooting School in Houston, Texas. “Women like to learn how it all works. Men want to hit targets immediately; women will get around to it.”
In addition, Vicki noticed another important difference. “Women see lead differently than men. They see it as inches at the barrel, not feet at the target. I try never to talk about lead, as that makes them look at the barrel, not at the target.”
Perhaps the most important aspect to becoming a great shotgun shooter is patience. Wait until you find that first good-fitting shotgun. Don’t immediately be put off by friendly men ready to offer conflicting advice to that damsel in distress (you). And find the best instructor for you.
In theory, women have the ability to become better shooters than men. Women have better hand-eye coordination, they’re better communicators and they don’t suffer from the kind of testosterone poisoning that turns shooting lessons into a macho battle of the wills.
Your chances of succeeding as a shotgun shooter will also improve if you can fall into a local group of other women shooters. Then you find the dynamics absolutely wonderful.
