Tom Fiumarello on Confidence, Coaching & Sporting Clays Performance– Clay Mastermind with Dawn Grant: Mental Excellence and Industry Insight

Tom Fiumarello joins Dawn Grant on Clay Mastermind: Mental Excellence and Industry Insights for a detailed conversation on Sporting Clays instruction, teaching, coaching, mental performance, and the difference between being a great shooter and being a great instructor. Tom is the founder of Excel Shooting Sports and brings a lifetime of teaching and coaching experience to the shooting industry. Before becoming a Sporting Clays instructor, he spent 35 years as a physical education teacher, coached high school and collegiate athletics at a high level, played professional baseball, and earned a master’s degree in human performance and sports psychology.

In this episode, Tom shares how his journey into Sporting Clays began after a difficult period in his personal life, when a friend invited him to shoot and he broke only 11 out of 100 targets. Instead of walking away, that experience lit a fire in him. He pursued certifications, studied the game, trained through the Guild of Sporting Clay Instructors in the United Kingdom, and began transferring decades of teaching knowledge into the clay target world.

A major focus of the conversation is the difference between shooting ability and teaching ability. Tom and Dawn discuss why not every top shooter is automatically a strong instructor, and why a true teacher must be able to assess each student’s experience, age, confidence, physical ability, learning style, and mental state. They compare Sporting Clays instruction to coaching in other sports, emphasizing that elite performers often rely on specialized coaches, trainers, and mental experts rather than assuming performance alone creates teaching skill.

Dawn and Tom also explore the mental game in Sporting Clays, including confidence, failure, frustration, scorecard interpretation, pressure, focus, and the importance of recognizing progress. Tom explains how he helps students view missed targets as information rather than defeat, and Dawn expands on the value of a neutral post-shot or post-station routine that allows shooters to acknowledge what went well while identifying what still needs improvement.

The episode also addresses the role of target setters, competition pressure, and the tendency many shooters have to focus on what went wrong rather than celebrating meaningful progress. Tom shares how he reviews scorecards with students to highlight bright spots, helping them build confidence instead of mentally defeating themselves after a round.

Dawn and Tom also discuss the connection between clothing, identity, confidence, and performance; how outside distractions affect focus; and why the conscious mind must be trained to stay present during competition. This episode offers valuable insight for Sporting Clays shooters, instructors, coaches, and competitors who want to better understand how teaching, mechanics, confidence, mindset, and mental discipline all work together to improve performance.Top of Form

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Tom Fiumarello Links

Website:
 https://excelshooting.com/

Facebook:
 https://www.facebook.com/excelsporting/

Instagram:
 https://www.instagram.com/excelsporting/

YouTube:
 https://www.youtube.com/@excelsporting

Phone:
 (315) 447-2557

Email:
 tom@excelshooting.com

Dawn Grant Links  

https://dawngrant.com/ 

https://mindmastered.com/  

https://ameliashotgunsports.com/ 

Free webinar here: https://dawngrant.com/pages/clay-shooters-mind-game-mastery