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On Target: New Developments in CMP Clinics and Camps The 2002 National Youth Shooting Sports Leadership Conference placed considerable emphasis on providing coaches with new ideas, techniques and opportunities for effectively coaching youth marksmanship. In one conference presentation, CMP Training Director Bob Foth discussed how this emphasis would be applied to the CMP Junior Rifle Clinic and CMP Junior Rifle Camp Programs. During a Sunday conference session, CMP Director of Training and Olympic medalist Bob Foth introduced new program changes that he has developed for the CMP clinic and summer camp programs to enhance the "practical coaching experience that adults get from these programs." These changes are based on, in part, requests he has received over the past two summers from coaches--"They are telling me what they want, what they need help with, what they feel they could do better and where they need support." First, Foth introduced a new variation of the CMP rifle clinic program that is called the pairs clinic. These clinics require a "coach-shooter pair." As he described these clinics, "Instead of running a clinic for 20 shooters with one coach sitting there watching, we are going to run clinics where a coach and a shooter enter the clinic as a pair and both will receive instruction together." On the firing line, the coach will do the on-the-line coaching. Foth and other clinic leaders will be there "to model good coaching behaviors and guide the interaction between the coach and shooter." This is designed to give the coaches "confidence that they really do know the technical information." As Foth described most of the coaches he has worked with, "most know the technical information, but they're not confident that they know it or can teach it." For the 2002-2003 school year, Foth will be available to teach several of these pairs clinics on available weekends. Registration will be limited to 8 to 12 pairs. Any school team or club that wants to sponsor a clinic should contact Bob Foth at bobfoth@juno.com to request a clinic. The CMP will partially subsidize the clinics to keep registration fees low. The second change that enhances coach and adult training is in the CMP junior rifle summer camps. Foth has already begun instituting class sessions for the coaches, "They now hear everything that the students hear, so they can fully understand what's going on and reinforceit when they return home." Each junior or group of juniors who register for the CMP summer camps must come with an adult coach or parent who is also expected to attend all camp sessions. Another significant development is occuring in the CMP summer camp program. Starting with the 2003 camp season, an even greater emphasis will be placed on instruction in "life skills." "I love the shooting sports. I've been involved in them my whole life, and they have been a tremendous blessing to me, giving me many great opportunities," said Foth. "If I were just teaching kids how to shoot, I probably wouldn't be doing it....we have the chance to teach kids incredible life skills through marksmanship instruction and experiences they have in our summer camp program. Shooting is one of the best vehicles in the world to do this." Life skills topics reflect the same skills needed for shooting--concentration and focus, discipline and emotional control, dealing with winning and losing, goal setting, time management and others. These new points of emphasis in the CMP summer junior rifle camp program have, in fact, led to a name change. Instead of just being called CMP Junior Rifle Camps, they will now be called "CMP Champions Camps." "We're going to focus even more on champions' thinking, champions' lifestyles and champions' attitudes." |
