We live in a Golden Age of shortcuts. Want to lose weight? Take Ozempic. Want to gain muscle mass? Just take steroids. For almost anything we want to do, there’s someone offering a quicker and easier way to do it than the old-fashioned way of putting in the work.
That includes shooting, apparently. The New York Post reports that a woman named Zoë Lescaze went from never holding a gun to becoming an expert marksman in just three days, with the help of neuro-linguistic programming, which the Post describes as “a radical form of hypnotherapy that claims to alter behavioral patterns and thought processes.
Her journey from mild-mannered science and culture writer to real-life Jason Bourne hunter was swift — all it took was a few hours each day on a Washington D.C. shooting range under the guidance of NLP expert Wyatt Woodsmall. In no time at all, Lescaze was hitting bullseyes at 75 feet — a difficult feat that some military recruits even struggle to accomplish.
The fast-track experience was all in a day’s work for the 36-year-old, who finds NLP and its legacy fascinating enough to co-host a podcast on the subject.
“A big part of NLP is closely observing other people and diagnosing how they think and view the world. Wyatt barely knew me, yet he was able to figure out what would motivate me throughout the shooting experiment,” Lescaze told The Post of the master trainer, who’s in his 80s and has been working in the field for over fifty years.
I can’t link directly the image here, and despite the Post’s credit that the image was taken from her Instagram page I can’t find it there, but you really should check out the target that the Post showed to prove Lescaze’s shooting prowess.
I count 11 holes in the target, and only two of them are within the ten ring. None are “bullseyes”, though. The grouping of 11 shots looks to be about 6 to 8 inches, which isn’t bad for a novice shooting from 25 yards but not exactly what I’d call the work of a sharpshooter, especially one using an optic on her handgun instead of open sights.
This is also likely after “a few hours” of range time three days in a row. The Post story doesn’t detail how many rounds Lescaze sent downrange every day, but one would expect to see some improvement in shooting after spending 6 to 8 hours practicing.
“He said he noticed I was what he called an achievement person, someone who likes to excel or tries to excel for the sake of excelling… so he chose very specific ways to encourage me throughout the shooting experience that match what he saw as my personality type,” she said.
While at the shooting range, with guns constantly going off around her, Lescaze admitted it was difficult to dial in to Woodsmall’s advice, which consisted of picturing herself taking a perfectly aimed shot while repeating the mantra: sight alignment, trigger, squeeze, bang, recover before actually shooting the handgun.
But on the third day, Lescaze was shooting like a pro. Still skeptical — maybe I’m just a quick learner, she thought, or maybe Woodsmall was just an exceptional teacher — she had to admit that watching the master in action helped sell her on the concept.
Now, it’s worth noting that Lescaze is a true believer in NLP, and even co-hosts a podcast touting its benefits. She has a vested interest in portraying Woodsmall and NLP in the best light possible, but the fact of the matter is that almost anyone who spends hours at the range under the watchful eye of an instructor is bound to see some improvement in their shooting.
I would argue it wasn’t NLP that made Lescaze a better (but far from expert) shooter over the course of her three days at the range. It was repetition. Again, it would be nice to know how many hours a day she spent on the firing line, as well as how many rounds she fired each day, but keeping those details as vague as possible benefits the narrative that all it took to turn her into a sharpshooter was Woodsmall’s work on her brain.
It would be amazing if it only took a few hours of mental exercise to become an expert marksman, but I’m not convinced that Lescaze is selling anything other than psychological snake oil… at least when it comes to improving your shooting. I have no idea if NLP is as powerful a tool as Lescaze and other supporters claim, but I do know that if you want to improve your shooting skills there’s no substitute for practice… and it sounds like whatever Woodsmall said to her during those three days at the range, Lescaze also got in plenty of practice while she was there.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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