It is all about the great connections in this world that keep me motivated on a daily basis and it is through these connections that my life grows fuller each and every day. In January, I had the pleasure to meet Gil and Vicki Ash at the Annual SCI Hunters Convention. I sat in on two whole days of thier seminar and learned why I had been missing goose after goose out at the old farm. We had a chance to sit down in the press room and discuss what they were doing to bring better shotgun techniques to the masses and they offered to send out a copy of a couple books and DVD’s for me to review on the site.
I have read through all of the books and today I want to quickly review one that is having a profound impact on me and the work I am doing for HuntingLife as well as in my shooting. Traveling the Intersate, Sports Perfomance Techniques for a Successful Life by Gil & Vicki Ash with Ty Adams is one of those books that inspires readers to truly take time and consider that sports performance is mostly mental and a little technique. I started out shotgunning for dove in a California orange grove at the age of 12 with a hand me down 410 and moved up to a 20 gauge that I still shoot with today. At about the age of 15, we moved to Virginia and I did not shoot again for almost 20 years with a shotgun. I had a couple of opportunities to shoot pheasant and I did pretty well, a couple of opportunities to shoot skeet and trap and a lesson to get better.
This last year, I started back dove hunting and I shot some Skeet, Trap and Sporting Clays and each time I had the opportunity to go out, I took the attitude(kind of like my golf game) that I was going to have fun no matter what the score was. I was out shooting with some folks that had 20 years of experience on me and literally 10s of thousands more shells shot then I have even begun to think about and I held my own with my trusty Pump Action Montgomery Ward 20 gauge Shotgun from the 80’s. It was for me just about having fun. I think on some of these stations, some of these guys were a little upset this novice was blowing up targets and all I had was this 200.00 shotgun.
One such Saturday, we headed out to Pintail Point and we were headed out for Pheasant but the clouds were in the air, the grass was wet and it was drizzling in intermittent spurts. We had driven over 80 miles and I figured there was no way, we were not going to shoot something so we hit the Wobble Trap. It was covered and would provide a couple of hours of fun before lunch time. There were four of us and none of us had ever shot Wobble Trap before. We all kind of held our own and blew through 3 rounds of 25 each and the group I was with was done. I asked for one more round as I wanted to shoot up the last box I had. I walked down for a quick break, stepped into the box and broke 25 straight…I was in the ZONE…I am pretty sure, If I had more shells, I could of gone with a 100. It all felt good.
Traveling the Interstate is all about creating mental power to shoot better and finding ways to remain positive and get yourself into the ZONE where you absolutely believe that you can accomplish whatever your goals are. The book relates and comes from the world of shotgunning but I am finding myself using the techniques to live a YEEHAW Philosophy in everything I am doing.
The book is great and I cannot recommend it enough…It is funny, well written and the messages are just down right engaging and make you think and you learn something. For $39.95 you just cannot beat the lessons and the great read. I would share my book but it is going on a special shelf with several other great books that inspire me…Your going to have to go get your own.
Traveling the Interstate by Gil and Vicki Ash with Ty Adams
