Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of meeting Grace at the East Coast Championship held at Hunter’s Pointe in Washington NC. More on that meeting in just a minute, but first some bio information on Ms. Callahan:
Grace’s fascination with shooting began at the tender age of 10 years old while hunting upland game birds with her father. Shortly thereafter, she discovered the wonders of sporting clays and there was no turning back. She became involved in the Scholastic Clay Target Program in middle school continuing with the same team until graduating high school, where she maintained Varsity status and achieved 1st Place Lady all 4 years at the SCTP Nationals.
She has worked with her coach Joe Scull at Cedar Creek Sporting Clays in Millville, NJ since attending college at Rowan University. Prior to college graduation, she garnered many individual National awards, including achieving Pro Level status on the PSCA Tour in 2016. She is supported by a strong team of sponsors including:
- Caesar Guerini USA
- Syren USA
- Gamebore USA
- White Flyer Targets
- Greenwood Custom Stocks
- Cedar Creek Sporting Clay
- PMS Firearms
- Barrel Mitt
- Sky Ranch Texas Longhorns
- Barepelt
She has a long list of achievements in sporting clays including:
- 2010 – 2013 SCTP Nationals and SCTP New Jersey State Lady Champion
- 2012 NJ Junior All-State Team
- 2013 New Jersey and Connecticut State Championships Lady Champion
- 2014 NJ Lady All-State Team, Connecticut State Championships Lady Champion
- 2015 NJ Lady All-State Team, Pennsylvania State Championships Lady Champion
- 2016 All-American 2nd Lady Team, East Coast Championships Lady Champion, PSCA Pro Tour Stop #3 Lady Champion
- 2017 All-American 2nd Lady Team, Big Seafood Blast Lady Champion, New Jersey State Championships Lady Champion
- 2018 All-American 1st Lady Team, Caribbean Classic Lady Champion, East Coast Championships Lady Champion, New Jersey State Championships Lady Champion, Pennsylvania State Championships Lady Champion, North Central Regional Championships Lady Champion
- 2019 All-American 1st Lady Team, Caribbean Classic Lady Champion, US Open Lady Runner Up, New Jersey State Championships Lady Champion
- 2020 All-American 2nd Lady Team, FITASC 3rd Lady Team, Caribbean Classic Lady Champion, New Jersey State Championships Lady Champion, Maryland State Championships Lady Champion, World Championships 5 Stand Lady Champion, National Championships 5 Stand Lady Champion
- 2021 All-American 1st Lady Team, FITASC 1st Lady Team, Caribbean Classic Lady Champion, East Coast Championships Lady Champion
She actively helps other shooters by providing lessons at all levels She has her NSCA Level 1, NSSA Level 1, Range Safety Officer and NRA Basics Certifications
Let’s return to Hunter’s Pointe, Friday March 12 at 3:50 pm. My friend Dave Coffman and I arrived to the five-stand for our scheduled time of 4:00. We had just watched the previous group finish up and were still staring a little puzzled at the scissor lift some 60 yards out on the right side of the five-stand field with two traps perched on top – one throwing a standard target and the other a midi – across the field in a high arc where they disappeared into the trees. Neither of us had shot anything like that before. In fact, this was only Dave’s second, and my third time participating in a registered five-stand competition.
We probably looked pretty lost! About that time, Grace confidently walked towards us, extended her hand, and with a warm handshake, introduced herself to us both. We mentioned we were a little perplexed over the scissor lift targets. She proceeded to offer advice on how to break those targets simply by matching the speed and line and then missing way out front! Well, the advice worked! On Dave’s first pair, he was presented with one of the targets off of the scissor lift and smashed it solidly. While I missed my first attempt, I later hit the true pair off the scissor lift! In the end, we both finished better than we had expected!
If you have shot 5-stand in competition, you know how quickly it goes – and there were only 4 in our squad so it went even faster. There is not much time to watch others in the squad shoot, but I did note that Grace was crushing every target I saw with authority. Impressive shooting!
That was our last event out of five we participated in, so we packed up and headed home. On my way home, I was thinking back over the previous two days, and started to admonish myself for not having given Grace a card and asking her if she would be interested in providing her views on the mental game for the blog! So, a few days later, I reached out to Grace via email asking if she would be interested – she agreed, and we had a delightful phone conversation while she was enroute to the Meadows Gun Club in Forsyth GA to shoot the AFS Gamebore Classic – EVO Cup.
During our conversation, Grace touched on a number of topics related to her use of mental skills. Let’s jump right in!
Calming the Brain! Grace mentioned that more than anything else, this group of mental skills techniques have had a positive effect on her shooting. She acknowledged that even though she has been competing for more than a decade, she still gets the shakes at the beginning of a competition. The techniques she has employed has helped her to harness that excitement and make it work for her rather than against her.
When she arrives at the course, she follows the same routine. She approaches her squad mates and introduces herself and engages in light conversation (My Friend Dave and I got to witness this first hand – it was a pleasant experience. We were left with the feeling of shooting with a good friend even though we had just met Grace). After a few minutes, she excuses herself and takes a few minutes of “alone time” to prepare herself.
She starts with meditation / mindfulness breathing techniques in which she uses her inhalations to breath in excitement, confidence, trust and smoothness and uses her exhalations to breath out fear, hesitation, doubt and any negativism. Off the course, she also uses a guided meditation app before sleep (insight timer). For those interested, here is the link:
With her brain calmed, she is ready to start the shoot on a positive footing. She mentioned that she approaches the course with a mindset of building from 0 to 100, rather than decreasing from 100. So, if she drops a couple of birds, she in not thinking that the max she can do is now 98. Rather, she builds on the targets she does hit. This is a great strategy in that humans by nature are very loss averse. We tend to put more emotional weight on losses than gains. Her strategy makes a great deal of sense to avoid getting rattled by a dropped target or two!
She also views the competition as “me vs. the targets” or “me vs. me” rather than competing against other shooters. This helps prevent her from going into defensive mode and reinforces her idea of building 100 straight starting from 0. She actually goes out of her way to avoid learning scores of other competitors
In the box:
Grace utilizes a very concise pre-shot routine in order to prevent the opportunity for fear to creep in. As she enters the box, she sets her feet. Then, even though she has a perfectly fitting gun, she brings the gun into her shoulder pocket to make sure everything is level. She drops the gun back down, and draws the line of the 2nd target in her head mapping her hold and break points. Then, she does the same with the first target. While doing this, she repeats her mantra “Soft hands, relax, breathe”. Just before calling “Pull”, she reminds herself to “look at a piece at 4 0-clock” (or whatever visual cue she has selected). During execution of the shot, she tells herself to “finish the move”. All of this takes place in mere seconds.
On the Course: As she progresses from station to station, Grace utilizes a number of techniques to keep her focused. Before each competition, she selects a song from a variety of genres (may be country one day and rap the next). She does not listen to music through earbuds, but rather she sings the song silently to herself during the match to prevent negative thoughts from intruding. She tends not to listen to chatter from other competitors or spectators regarding how a particular pair is being approached. To this end, she prefers “dumb” ear plugs to drowned out as much external input as possible so she can focus on her approach without external distractions.
If she starts sensing frustration (say dropping the last target on station 3), she will do a reset using her breathing techniques. Grace also practices rewording negative thoughts (say after a missed shot) into a positive utilizing a technique in which she refers to herself in the third person (more on the research regarding this in a future post!). So,the self-talk after a missed shot becomes a constructive problem solving discussion like “Grace needs to finish the move on the next pair” rather than a form of self-beratement that typically happens in the first person!
She also emphasized the importance of being able to switch on and off her focus during a round. In the box, it is “pedal to the metal”, but after she finishes a station, she takes a few moments to have some fun. She emphasized that we all invest a lot into this sport and it should be fun. The brain also appreciates a break as well!
Goals and Objectives: Earlier in her career, Grace used to use outcome goals such as listing out several events she intended to win as her main objectives. Outcome goals have their place in a well-structured set of goals and objectives, as they can help to keep the athlete keep focused on the big picture. However, by themselves, outcome goals generally are not within the complete control of the athlete. Grace started to get more impact by expanding her goals to include performance goals. For example, she set a goal for herself to improve her overall average of targets hit from 83% to 84% (she actually improved to 87%!). Using performance goals rather than outcome goals reinforced her view that her efforts should be “me vs. me” rather than “me vs the competition”. She emphasized that she still has the goal of achieving HOA (not lady high HOA – but over-all HOA) for every event she enters. She also uses process and performance goals to structure her practice sessions – our next topic!
Practice: Grace started this discussion by saying that any day you are not at the course, you had better still have a gun in your hands! In fact, she has recorded a video for Syren on some of the exercises she uses when away from the course:
For each practice, Grace sets a goal to achieve. It might be a process-oriented goal like trying a new technique during which some trial and error may be required, or it might be a performance-oriented goal like working on breaking singles until 10 are hit in a row. She likes to divide her practices into two types – skills and competition. For skills practice, she generally works by herself to make process and performance improvements. For competition practice, she will go out with others and try to replicate the competition environment including keeping score. A little pressure in introduced into the session by putting a wager on the competition such as loser buys lunch!
During her practice sessions, Grace will often use music, but in a different way than she does during competition. During practice, she uses it to create a distraction that she has to ignore in order to perform at her best.
Conclusion: That is where we wrapped up the conversation. It was truly enjoyable to speak with Grace. Many thanks to Grace for her agreeing to help with this post. It is always helpful to understand how someone has successfully approached their chosen sport. For more information about Grace including how you can sign up for lessons with her, here is her website:
https://www.gracecallahanllc.com/
as well as her page on the Syren prostaff site:
And finally, here are the links to Hunters-Pointe. The Olivers always put on a first class shoot!
http://www.hunterspointenc.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Hunters-Pointe-Sporting-Clays-383532208397077/?ref=page_internal