Salopian,
your method undoubtely is good and it works but you need to:
- have a good memory
- shoot a bunch of shells before you understand the correct sight pictures
- do the same process at 10,20,30,40,50,60 yds for every common presentation at the various angles,i.e. for : - crossers
- deep quartering
- medium quartering
- shallow quartering
and for all the variations in altitude for the clays, i.e. for:- low targets
- medium height
- teal type medium height
- vertical teal type
and you must repeat it for :
- incoming clays
- outgoing clays.
As you can see the combinations for all the presentations are very very high :|
Anyway this is the common method that coaches use to teach, because the more time a student need to learn, the more money they put into their wallet, the more cartridges are sold, the more clays are thrown (I can understand them and the range owners, they make it for living...
but we are not a bunch of chickens waiting to be plucked 8) ).
Substantially this method is the same that the ancient cathedral constructors used in the Middle Ages: "try and pray". If the sections of the columns and the thickness of the domes were correct then the cathedral was erected, otherwise at a a certain point there was a big crash and they started again from the foundations, until they found the correct proportions.
From 1700-1800 with the introduction of the "scientific method" and with the aid of calculus the engineers began to rationally "calculate" the sections needed, and the collapsed structures were a little minorance in respect to the past.
To make a long story short, when you are learning to shoot you can choose an
empirical "try and see" method or a
rational method to determine what you need to break a clay at a certain distance, angle and speed.
The "U.L." method of P.Blakeley (and the "hand lead" method for an easier visualization
) are very effective in solving this kind of problem: you don't need to have an elephantiac memory to remember all the possible sight pictures, you must simply evaluate the angle of the clay (and the distance for crossers) and choose the correct one between
only 6 possible sight pictures.
Every method can work, each one operates his choices as he prefers.