My name is Mike Rouleau. A few years back, I embarked on a new hobby – shooting sporting clays (often referred to as “golf with a shotgun”! As I had absolutely no experience with shotgunning at all, I secured the services of a coach to guide me through the process of learning how to shoot moving targets. Under his guidance, I made quick progress from not knowing which end of the gun to point at the target to actually breaking targets! Eventually, I got to the point where I was breaking about half of the targets I engaged during a normal round of “Clays” – about 25 out of 50.
That is when I hit a wall! I imagine most amateur athletes have had this experience. You are making great progress, and then plateau! The improvement seemingly grinds to a halt! What was the holy grail that would return my progress to an upward trajectory? I embarked on a process of discovery by reading any and everything I could find on the mental aspects of sport performance. Some materials I found seemed to make sense, while others seemed like snake oil. About the time my bookcases and brain both became full, I decided I needed some professional guidance to sort through the good, the bad, and the ugly! I decided to enroll in a master’s degree program in sport psychology – and at the tender young age of 54!
Sixteen months later, I was awarded a Masters of Science in Psychology with a concentration in Sport Psychology! During my studies, I focused my work on how to provide mental skills to the amateur athlete. Most professional athletes and teams have ready access to Sport Psychology professionals – but the amateur athlete – not so much! That is the purpose of this Blog – to bring some of what I learned to other recreational / amateur athletes in the hopes that we can all enjoy our chosen sports a little more. While I will be discussing my own experiences using sporting clays as an example, these same concepts can readily be applied to other sporting endeavors as well. I look forward to sharing my knowledge and experiences with you in these posts and pages, and welcome your feedback and questions along the way. Let’s get started – or as we say in sporting clays – “PULL” !!!