Shotgun Sports USA
Join us as we bring you insights from some of the most skilled clay-target shooters worldwide. Our podcast is dedicated to Sporting Clays, FITASC, Trap Shooting, and Skeet Shooting, offering extensive coverage of all facets of Clay Target Sports. Immerse yourself in valuable knowledge through interviews with renowned coaches, dive into the dynamic environment of gun clubs, connect with top-notch vendors, and explore the innovations propelling the sport forward. Tune in for a captivating journey through the realm of elite shotgun sports!
Shotgun Sports USA
Jereme Tayamen: The Clay Lab Network
On today's show, we talk with the founder of the Clay Lab Network, Jereme Tayamen, a guy whose goal is to create a community around the sport. From balancing a full-time job to shooting shotguns and pistols competitively to creating and growing a clay shooting content hub, Jereme's story is a testament to following your passion and shooting for success.
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Welcome to Shotgun Sports USA. Powered by Winchester Ammunition, the American Legend. Listen to the best shotgun shooters from all over the world in every discipline Championship winning coaches, gun clubs, target setters, vendors, as well as companies that make it all happen, brought to you by Briley Rick Hemingway's Promatic Trap Sales, cole Gunsmithing, clay, target Vision, castellani USA and Falcon Strike. Thanks for listening and remember to visit us online at ShotgunSportsUSAcom, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram on the show today I have the guy that's behind the clay lab and the clay lab network.
Speaker 2:He's a pretty interesting guy that focuses a lot of his time on making the sport better, whether it be by podcast or his YouTube channel. Please welcome to the show, jeremy Tyeman jareem. What's up, man? What's going on, dad? Yeah, so, uh, I call him jareem and that's not his name. His name's jeremy, but if you look at the way he spells it, I'm sure that a lot of people get it confused with a bunch of different names, am I right?
Speaker 3:They do. Yeah, I get dream. I get Jerome sometimes, uh, but it's definitely Jeremy, but I'm good with either. Or because the score is good. Scorecard is going to say the same any way, right?
Speaker 2:Do you correct them when they say it no?
Speaker 3:I just roll with it. So it is what it is.
Speaker 2:So then your last name is tyeman correct. Yeah, jeremy tyeman, that's right all right, so jeremy is is. I guess you're now. I know the clay lab. Jeremy's is the clay lab now, right yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2:So it started back a couple years ago with a few other guys and and now you're, I guess, the voice behind it, you're the videographer, the photographer, the commentator, or whatever you want to call it. You do it all, and you don't just do that. You have a full-time job and you shoot. I mean, life's busy, right? You got into pistol shooting too yeah, I really did.
Speaker 3:Life has been pretty busy, but I think it's kind of a self-induced way, but you're absolutely right, uh, when uh kind of getting into it like the clay lab, like how it started, was four guys, like four guys that just like kind of fell in love with the sport itself, and it was me, scott, jeremy and, uh, our buddy named cj. And then we had, you know, we just had a really good time. We'd gone through the internet looking for content. One of the big things was we found you. That's how we found you was digging for content, because all of us kind of have like a research background, you know kind of oriented type job, so all of us like dug through what was out there on the internet and of course, naturally, you found shotgun sports usa. I literally can tell you I've listened to every single podcast you have ever published, right, probably multiple times. So well, if that's good or bad, but you know, no, it's good, it's good uh. And then so we, we eventually got serious and at that point my buddy cj, you know who introduced me to this sport, he takes credit for all of that stuff. So anything I ever do in this sport he wants to take credit for, which is awesome because he's a good friend.
Speaker 3:Um, but it really just turned into when we got serious about the clay lab is, it was scott, jeremy and me and I do get a lot of questions, so I'm glad you brought that up about where those guys kind of went. Um, yeah, so if you're good with it, I'll kind of go into that question right now. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, essentially, uh, we had gone through, we did our thing, absolutely loved doing what we did, but life happened right. So scott scott's an ent doctor, like he had an awesome opportunity to to go off and fulfill a fellowship. So, you know, it made absolute sense and, of course, like in doing this kind of thing, like running a youtube channel and kind of like building the brand and helping out, build this sport, like it's very time intensive and he was really, you know, doing the brunt of a lot of the work.
Speaker 3:And then Jeremy really just wanted to spend a lot more time with his family, which was awesome. Can't fault him for that, because he was. He's a great family man, he's just a good dude in general. So, at basically at the end of the day, you know, near the end of last year we kind of like settled on. You know, we don't want this thing to die and I am more than happy to take this thing on because I kind of had ideas for what the clay lab I thought should probably grow into, because I know there's a lot of things that we wanted to do and then people had asked us to do. Even so, I was kind of able to just take it on at that point and grow it into what I saw fit, and naturally, as a planner cause that's what I do my background is I'm a I'm a United States Marine Corps officer. I do planning for a living is I was like wait, I can turn this thing, I think, into something that people would absolutely love. The sport deserves Right and run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, You've done a good job with it. You know when? Uh, I think I hit y'all up back when you started the clay lab I don't know how many. I mean it was, it was new and someone called me. You remember that oh.
Speaker 3:I do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. Someone called me and said have you seen this? And I said no, so as soon as I watched it, I I don't know who I messaged. Uh message probably scott, and uh got in touch with y'all.
Speaker 2:That's how I met you guys and and y'all did a great job with it as a team. But I think you're doing a good job, an excellent job with it. Now, solo, considering that you don't have, you know, time, that if you take time that three or four people have and put it together, it's a whole lot more time than one person. You know what I mean. So I think you're doing a really good job with it, man.
Speaker 3:So no, I appreciate it and really right back at you and that's not me being, you know, facetious or anything like that I like dead serious, because I know what kind of commitment it takes to do this.
Speaker 2:Just like shooting the sport itself Like I don't think anybody's doing anything in this sport for the money, like you truly have to have a passion to do anything in this sport, whether that's shooting it or trying to help grow the thing, like. But that's why we all love this thing, yeah. So, yeah, I really do appreciate. Yeah, it's definitely uh, you have to want to see it grow, to continue to do something like this or like what you're doing, uh, and you have to constantly stay on top of it.
Speaker 3:You know know what's going on, where and when and how and why and uh, yeah, there's so many things changing at once when it comes to the sport, like at some point, like somebody's the champion, then literally somebody out of nowhere could be the new guy on top right, or there's a new gun coming out that everybody's just gotta have. There's just so many things that change. You know, in this game and information is king, I think- oh yeah, and you're traveling around.
Speaker 3:It seems like more now than you were when y'all were together, you know yeah, absolutely yeah, and it's kind of a bittersweet right like so when it's now that it's just me, I really kind of get to do my own thing. I create my own plans to execute, and it allows me I don't have to ask permission or anything like that. I can just kind of, you know, see what I think people want and try to deliver it the best I can. So, yeah, it's kind of nice. Yeah, it's really busy. You know a lot. There's a lot that goes into either creating videos and those types of things, but like it's enjoyable, that's for sure. I spend a lot of time behind my computer, but every moment I spend behind a camera I'm actually out there really enjoying it. I'm not going to say I enjoy spending time behind a camera more than I do shooting Uh, cause shooting is definitely my passion. But uh, you know, doing this has definitely provided me with a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's for sure oh well, now that you're doing what you're doing and shooting, you have to make time for both. You know what I'm saying. Like man, I sure do want to go shoot, make a break, but I really have to be down here on station one to get so and so shooting. You know you got to kind of sometimes. You have to make that choice. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean oh, I know exactly what you mean. I remember spending time at uh because last year that would be 2023 was my first national championships like the first time I ever visited there, literally back to back, it was shooting an event, go film, shooting event, go film, like just all day, every day, just trying to gather content, because even if it didn't turn into a video, then the important part about just gathering uh footage, uh it's a big deal because it might be b-roll later in something else that people want to see. So, yeah, it was just back to back filming, but it's worth it okay.
Speaker 2:So before we get into talking about you, uh, I've noticed that you've actually started a couple podcasts through the clay lab and I'm guessing that's kind of like the clay lab network or or whatever you want to call it. Uh, will funnel and kade feitchy right, or the two you started yeah, okay, so by you doing the videos and you have these extra podcasts or these other podcasts under the clay lab, I guess, guess you would say where do you want to see the clay lab moving towards?
Speaker 3:solving a big problem that we initially had Right. So, um, the main part about why I reached out to do that was because we constantly got a lot of we want more. That was really what we got. Um, but we really would refuse to sacrifice on quality, and beforehand, trying to get all three of us together to do something to create a quality product was just a lot. So we really couldn't come together more often while we try to all work our professional jobs that we all have.
Speaker 3:So me, being a planner, I was just like these sounds like, sound like lines of effort to me. Okay. So if I could divide and conquer, with my main goal being providing the community with more high quality content on a more frequent basis, then that just makes sense to me. So I'm like okay, that clearly means I can't do this myself, so I'm gonna have to build a team and that's what I'm used to doing. Like, that's my background means I can't do this myself, so I'm going to have to build a team and that's what I'm used to doing. Like that's my background is I build teams to literally solve problems.
Speaker 3:So I literally went searching for the right people and already knew Will Fennell was going to be on the team because the dude's my mentor and coach. You know he's phenomenal at this type of stuff. So we did. I decided I really wanted to launch the podcast, to get more content out there on a frequent basis. So I took care of Will Fennell. The man has so much knowledge in his head that I could literally spend an entire decade just trying to capture the information, to try to spread it. Everything that he has learned from Dan Carlisle, which, of course, has been spread through people like Anthony Matariz and I'm not going to lie, I do give Will crap sometimes because I do say Anthony is actually my first coach, since I watched all his DVDs first. Right, I consider Anthony Matariz technically my first coach.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised you didn't say Gil Ash. I know that you I know, I know for a fact that you went on YouTube when you first started and watch.
Speaker 3:Gil.
Speaker 2:Ash.
Speaker 3:Oh, I did, I did, but I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 2:It's just give me props. Come on, Jeremy.
Speaker 3:He did a great job. Again, I'm going to give actually anybody props, anybody that's willing to put themselves out online and put themselves out on YouTube or in any sort of audio perspective. I'm going to give them props because it takes a lot to get out there. You're really vulnerable when you're out there in front of either a camera or behind a microphone.
Speaker 2:You really are.
Speaker 3:Because you have no idea where it's gonna go. Like you, what about you? Right, Like, how many different countries are you in? Like a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a bunch. I don't know exactly what the number is A hundred and something.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I didn't know a hundred and something countries could understand.
Speaker 2:Understand what I was saying.
Speaker 3:I think they accidentally clicked. They accidentally clicked on it. No, it's because they heard your buttery, smooth voice and they're like I've got to listen to this guy yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised that Will Fennell is even able to record a podcast, because he has zero knowledge when it comes to technology.
Speaker 3:Being technically inclined. Well, that's okay, though, because that's what I'm here for. So that's my part, that's my job, but his job he's too good at the information. He's got in his head, like I said, everything from how to shoot this game, which is super important he's just full of knowledge of, and especially because when we started this and we did a couple of videos out there with him and he's had so many different students, like I've had people coming back to me talking about you know what a great personality he is and he's actually genuine, and things like that because that's the last thing I want to do right is promote any sort of brand or person that is not gonna, that isn't genuine, and that's the best part about this sport is we get to work with a lot of different, really good brands, uh, and as well as companies and people, mostly because we know that this sport is probably more about the people than it is the sport itself. Would you agree or no?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think the people, I think it's both really. I mean you got you have the sport, which is where the people go to you know to be a part of that sport and then that's where we meet them. So I think it's you know what I'm saying? It's it's good people in a good sport, you know? And, um, talking about Will, I went to Will's place. I don't know two, three, four whenever Jim Greenwood was there. And I'd never been there. It's a super place That'd be awesome to have in my backyard you know, unbelievable.
Speaker 2:So if you haven't been up to, where's he at South Carolina? Yep, he's in south carolina, oh yeah go check it out.
Speaker 3:I went, yeah really, yeah, really close to rocky creek. Yeah, he's really close to rocky creek. Um, I think he's only like about an hour south of charlotte, but it's worth the drive and it takes me five hours to get there, but I make the haul because it's worth going out there. Besides, to make sure people I can spread his content, right, but, but, but. For me to personally get out there and shoot, because it's one of my favorite places to shoot, because he could throw anything out there. Yes, he's got all of the machines to actually teach me how to shoot this game, but then, on top of that, he's also willing to make me a big steak because I'm a meat person.
Speaker 2:He's never made me a steak. What's up with that?
Speaker 3:Well, you better ask him to make you a steak, because he's good at it. He can reverse, sear it and everything. He's got a guy that tells him exactly how to do it Goes to the butcher. I think I literally ate a three pound ribeye that he made me in one sitting with him on the carnivore diet. But yeah, no, it's legit.
Speaker 2:So he's a good cook, great coach, great mentor, for sure yeah, okay, so let's let's get into to you a little bit. I know that, uh, you and your wife I see a lot of content about both of you shooting but before she started shooting, you started shooting and and tell me that kind of go through the road of of how you got to where you are now as far as shooting is concerned, how long ago was it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, right on, yeah. So I can tell you right off the bat, I love my sponsors. My number one sponsor, though, is my wife. I think most people can probably say that, right, they're the ones that put up with us throughout this entire shooting journey, as we go through the highs and lows that this sport brings with it. But, really, I'll tie that back to CJ.
Speaker 3:Cj was my boss that I worked with, and he took me out skeet shooting for the first time back in like October of 2021. I think it was Yep, and he took me skeet shooting. It was the first time I'd really shot clay targets out of the air. Besides, when I had thrown them back in college, just like throw them up in the air and kind of just shot them because I thought it was cool, um, but we went to the skeet field and I got humbled really quickly.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what as a marine, we like challenges and we don't like failing, right. Right, that game humbled me really quickly, so a passion kind of got sparked really quickly for just shooting clays in general, right, well, then I shot, you know, skeet at the skeet field for like two months, and then I shot a 25 straight and I was like, well, this is kind of boring. No offense love skeet shooters appreciate the discipline and I understand it that that's what it takes, because when you shoot a 400 straight, holy crap, that is discipline like that's impressive. Yes, not for me, though not for me though right.
Speaker 3:So I shot like my first register. Then he was like hey, you want to see something cool. Then we went up to hunter's point and we shot uh, sporting clays for the first time. I was instantly hooked. I was done. After that I was was ready to fall head over heels, buy the Can-Am, buy the expensive shotgun. When I fall I fall hard for things, so yeah.
Speaker 2:You did do that, didn't you?
Speaker 3:I was ready at that point. I did yeah. Yeah, that's part of the shooting journey, I think. Yeah, I think a lot of folks get into this and they learn a couple of different things. So kind of they learn a couple of different things. So kind of taking you through my journey with this is you know, I started shooting sporting class 2021, you know, very end of 2021. So 2022 is really my first season getting into this and you know, just like everybody else, I wanted to make master class as fast as I could. I ended up making it in like a year and a half, but that's irrelevant now that I look back at this, because I look back and I wanted to be masterclass so bad that I think I skipped a few steps along the journey and it took me probably till year two to learn some of the things that would have helped me, um, earlier on?
Speaker 2:What are those? You know one of the, give me an example.
Speaker 3:So so one of the examples was, uh, I shot every tournament every single weekend, every event that was ever available, right, I went just full bore, uh, with everything when it came to shooting. Shooting that means sub gauge and all right, and I know it might be an unpopular, uh, opinion, honestly, but one of the things that I had learned was, when you go to a big event because I shot the majors too, um, you know, but I did shoot a lot of locals as well but when I went to the majors, I shot everything like every type of sub gauge that was ever made. You know, uh, from 28, 410, 28, 20 gauge, 12 gauge, sub gauge, right, super sporty five stand like it's all there. They are all awesome games, but you know, on my schedule, when you only got three days to shoot, you know, maybe don't shoot 12, 1400, you know targets, you know, in three days, yeah, it's kind of a lot you know.
Speaker 3:So that was one of those things that I learned really quickly was like okay, at some point, your energy itself, the muscles you have inside of your body, particularly your eyes as, thankfully, clay lab has enabled me to actually learn is get to meet people like Dr Polo, work with some of the folks when it just comes to learning about this game, it's not really like your shoulder and your body that's going to give out. First, it's probably your eyes. And in this sport, when you're losing by one or two targets at each one of the levels whether you're in C class, class, you know, you're even master class for sure you're losing by like one or two targets at times that's probably your eyes giving out to me. In my opinion and again I'm going to preface all of this with not a champion, just my opinion as an average guy coming through right right I mean it be it could be several different things, but eyes could definitely be one of them, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, and um I'll also preface this with this is exactly why we actually never did Um, and we purposefully never did instructional type of things, cause we got a lot of requests actually, uh, for instructional type of videos. Yeah, that's's, that's not going to be us. I'm not going to teach you how to shoot a rabbit, right like there are actual professionals that you try to do that so you're not trying to be a coach no, no, not yet.
Speaker 3:Actually. I know I have a lot to learn in this game. I think eventually one day I would like to be right and I'll take that up with fennel at some point because I like his school yeah, well, there you go, so you learned a lot sorry yeah, yes, that's all right.
Speaker 2:So you learned a lot coming up, and I did too, and I'll tell you something that I learned, or I thought about as I started shooting and going through the classes, was I've got a lot of questions that a lot of people answer. Now that I look back on it, they answer the questions correctly, but they're not answering them Like I need to hear them, like I've talked about this a hundred times, but you need to watch the bird. Well, I, you know I am, but correctly telling you how to watch the bird. You know what I'm saying? That's kind of what I thought about, like nobody's really told me correctly how to watch the bird, like I do look at it.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of what I learned coming up through and I thought you know I'm always remember these kinds of questions because I had them. You know, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I do. I definitely know what you mean because I think you know this thing at the bird, it'll catch on eventually, I think right, but yeah, the millions of different people have told you that that's the solution. Well, I mean, I think it's easier said than done and I think people will just go through and hit a point in their game where they truly understand what that means. And the only way to expedite the process to understanding what that means is actually getting a good coach, like somebody and when I say good coach, I mean somebody that's truly a coach and is actually going to explain to you and be able to communicate with you, because there are plenty of people that are good at what they do, you know, just like any other type of profession. But if, if you're just not a good match, or if it just doesn't make sense, there's no chemistry there, then you're not going to understand them. You can literally have two different people telling you the same thing, but it just makes sense when this guy says it Right, like, yeah, that that's. That's finding a coach to help you expedite and accelerate your process through this game, and that's one of the biggest things you know I learned going through this game. Um, there's a couple of random pieces of advices that I give to folks. You know, throughout my journey that I've learned, you know, over I think at this point it's just it's just three years of learning how to try to shoot this game is.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of things. Is coaches are there to help you expedite the process? There's a reason why these guys have, these guys are doing what they do. It's because they've missed way more targets than you have. They've already been where you've been. They've thought about buying the high rib gun that you're thinking about buying. You know that you shouldn't not saying you shouldn't, I'm just saying they've thought about all of the different scenarios that you've gone through already and they've helped other people through this. Help navigate that. That course.
Speaker 3:That's what a coach is there to do, not just help you figure out how to shoot a crossing target. You know what I mean. Oh, yeah, it's not just about how do you hit quartering verge, how do you hit 50 yard crossers. You know, yeah, they're, they're gonna do that too, but you know you find a good coach and you're gonna be able to, you know, text them or they're even gonna text you because they've been tracking you because they can see score chaser as well. Right Like you can just pull up score chaser and see what their students are doing and be like hey, you know nice work, bud Like or hey, you know what's going on. You know if they know that you can shoot, you know better than how you're doing. Uh, compared to the competition, yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All of that. Now, who was when you started? Did you have a coach? Or just kind of figure it out on your own for the first little bit.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm stubborn, of course. I tried to figure this stuff out on my own. I was like how hard could it be? We're just shooting things out of the sky, yeah it's funny to take somebody shooting like you.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm talking about. You take somebody shooting and they're like, oh, how hard can this be? Then they get out there and it's a little different than you think it is.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. There's not supposed to be anything inherently obvious about to shoot something moving through the sky that you're supposed to shoot in front of it. Well, the question is, by how much? But the weird part is the answer is just look at it, right. Just look at it, yeah, right yeah, yeah, just look at it yeah, so yeah, I actually had a few coaches.
Speaker 3:Actually, my shooting journey was me trying to figure this out by myself. That wasn't working out so hot. I was able to, of course, get through. You know, some of the lower classes, you know, win some stuff here and there and it was awesome, it was cool. But I'm all about efficiency and when it comes to efficiency, somebody else that knows how to do this better you got to be humble. People can teach you some stuff. So, like I said, anthony Matariz he's technically probably my first coach Watched all of his DVDs, have all of them still.
Speaker 3:They're awesome to pick back up on every now and then, uh. So I watched all of those, got a little bit better. I felt like um, and then I actually uh, met cameron hicks. At that point he's a hell of a trap. Taught me how to shoot trap like crazy. Uh. From there, uh, I started working with will fennel, really when this clay lab started coming online, right, and then from there it was really just he was my coach and mentor. You know, just going forward at that point yeah, yeah, um, what about your wife?
Speaker 2:so you're you talk about your wife. Is your your biggest, I guess your biggest supporter? Or your number one sponsor. However, whatever you want to say, how, how does she take to you doing this as much as you have been doing it?
Speaker 3:and and, uh, how supportive has she been so my wife abby, she's super supportive when it comes to this sport and I couldn't be more thankful for it, because this is a sport that definitely has me away from home a lot, um, just trying to attain some of my shooting goals and, of course, you know, trying to get a lot of the filming done as well, so that way we can produce content. But really it's not a cheap sport, like you know. I don't think anybody shooting this sport right now or listening to this podcast thinks it is uh so. So she, she's absolutely supportive of it because she knows that the passion is there for it. And I'm that kind of person that when I, like I said, when I find the thing that I'm passionate about like I'm just going to go full bore at it, yeah, and she started shooting.
Speaker 2:How'd you get? Her into it Just because she goes with you.
Speaker 3:Is that how she got into it? She did, and I want to say it was the Can-Am that got her into it at first because it was really cool to be in and I'm not going to lie during the winter times. I think I even posted a video about it, but she would be in there. That's how supportive she is. Right, she's in the Can-Am with the window rolled up and the heat on, with the actual controller to actually listen to me call, pull and then she would hit the buttons from inside the warm can-am for me. But yeah, she got.
Speaker 3:She's pretty smart herself. She actually no, she's very smart. Yeah, that's why I married her. Like that's the goal in marriage, I think, is actually always marry somebody smarter than you. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but uh, but she's also decently talented. She has never gotten it really into the competition side of shooting. I signed her up anyways just because she was going to be there and she enjoys kind of just spending time out on the range. But she actually has a habit of stealing my like either backup guns or like my primary guns, whether that's a pistol like my old glock 19 that I built out and she was like I like this, it's mine. Well, that's what happened. Like my old glock 19 that I built out and she was like I, like this, it's mine. Well, that's what happened to my beretta a400, right like that was my backup gun and all of a sudden now I've got to cut the stock on it to fit her. And then guess what? Now I don't have a backup gun that's all right.
Speaker 2:So you've been shooting a krigoff since you started, right, is that right?
Speaker 3:uh, actually so started. No, I kind of had like a whole gun journey. I think people go through this too. It's a whole nother thing as well as it has. Like I started with a brownie 725 okay, all right, and kind of tying it back into what we talked about with one of the lessons learned.
Speaker 3:I will always tell people, if you already have a good gun that kind of fits you, that fits you decently and it points well with you Awesome, before you make that giant leap, awesome, go get a coach. Spend a bunch of money on lessons and a bunch of money on shells, because that's going to pay you dividends in the long run. You'll eventually end up with a really nice gun. You will because your heart's going to keep you in this game for a long time. You'll eventually end up with that gun, but in the beginning, yeah. If in the beginning you got a beautiful semi-auto like a 400, there a reason why that gun's, like, won championships, it's good enough. I promise you know I mean so. Before you go in a leap, take that leap and, you know, jump into that 10, 15 000 dream gun that you've always had like. Put it towards lessons, buy a pallet of ammo, you know, do what you can there before you spend the money doing that type of thing yeah, you're talking about classes a minute ago.
Speaker 2:Uh, I guess I know, you're familiar with the, the class changes this year. What do you think about those?
Speaker 3:I'm interested to see how they work out. Um again. So I I got sorry I didn't talk about it before but, like, one of the things that really got me hooked into this sport was the PSCA. Like it filmed awesomely, it was great to see it. I've seen every single episode over and over again.
Speaker 3:So, for there to be a professional class, which I think what in 2025, they were talking about starting that. So, yeah, I think in two I think it was in like 2025, they were planning on starting a professional class. When it came to either just the majors. So we're talking about the regionals, nationals and I think the U S open, that there was a, that there was a pro class essentially, and they're working out how that's going to work out from a numbers perspective of it dipping into the master class. But I've I've never really had a problem with it because, at the end of the day, I don't think it really matters what class you're in, right, and I actually remember speaking with uh camera at this point and he actually preferred a lot of his students to declare into double a, and I think that that's perfectly fair if your goals are not to win money throughout the journey and you're okay with that and you truly want to be good at this sport. To be good at it not for the notoriety or to be able to post on Instagram that you won C1, which is awesome. But if that's not what you care about and you truly just want to be really good at this sport, cool, declare into double a and then get after it, because at that point you know your scores are going to be what they are and you know where you finish out in double a to then eventually punch into masterclass. It is what it is. I think that you know it's perfectly fine way. But if you want to, you want a metric. I think it helps a metric to help gauge yourself as you grow throughout your shooting journey, then that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:So you know I'm I'm neither here nor there about the actual classification system, but I think it took me a while to eventually get there. Like I mentioned before, like I just I just wanted to be a master class when I started this and then I figured out that I'm like, how old was I? I'm like 32 or something like that 33 master class, in no concurrence. So I have like the absolute, absolute lowest chances of winning anything at a shoot, right? So like, basically, anytime I go shoot as a master class shooter, I have to beat Brandon Powell powell, right. Like okay, cool, how about we just make this really good practice? Then, yeah, I mean, no, I'm, I'm there to compete, but god, you know, that's, that's what I have to deal with that boy's been wearing it out this year my god, yeah, he has.
Speaker 3:I just watched him at the gator cup. I got to watch him in the shootout man. He cleaned the first section of the make a break, really just cleaned it in the final shoot. Oh, yeah, yeah, for uh, first and second between him and connor daniels. Connor daniels is a wicked shot, right, but yeah, brandon gets up there and just cleans the first section of it, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:He like was a lot of people watching because that's what he likes oh yeah, there's a lot of people I'd be dropping shells on the ground, putting you know safety beyond. Something would happen. I mean he gets up there and loves it, so I don't know yeah, I think I'm actually going to publish the video of it.
Speaker 3:You know whenever this thing comes out, but you know there'll be a video of it, a capture it on video. I think it was also a good excuse for me to really get up there and be like two feet away from the shooters yeah, oh yeah yeah, I just enjoy watching the sport, yeah so you were.
Speaker 2:How do you know where you're gonna video something, do you? Are you always carrying your stuff around with you?
Speaker 3:I am most of the time, um, yeah, so uh, you know I mentioned I'm a planner, so that's kind of what I do.
Speaker 3:So I kind of take a look at what my schedule is, which I'm very thankful for. Folks like score chaser, you know that they can literally print me out a schedule, or that I can build my own schedule, and then I can print that thing out and kind of take a look at some of the folks that I know are going to be in the area and then take a look at scheduling things around my shooting, their shooting, and then kind of just make it happen from there. Sometimes some events are better than others. You know, sometimes I'm really just there to focus kind of on my shooting game and then other times like I'm just like, hey, you know, I just I really do want to capture some content for some folks and it's a good opportunity. So, yeah, I'm generally going to run around with my backpack full of equipment. At that point I travel with everything. Now, right, that's like even studio lights and everything, because I want to make sure I provide a good product for everybody you carry studio lights with you yeah, they're two, they're pop-up studio lights.
Speaker 3:you know that I use for, like either video, podcasts, uh, like you know some of the stuff I know we're going to work with together, you know, in the future. But like, yeah, there's studio lights. You know I'll carry those around with me. They're pop-ups, they're perfect, like exactly what we need because lighting's important, it is.
Speaker 2:And if it was up to me, I'd have an iPhone and a flashlight and that would be just fine. We're supposed to be doing something. We're supposed to be doing something down at the regional in Savannah together and, uh, jeremy Jeremy was talking about hey, you know where are we going to do this at. And I said, well, I got a trailer we can do it inside of. He's like no man, that's not going to look good look good.
Speaker 3:I mean, it would look fine to me. I know you would have the audio covered and you'd be sound amazing, but I can't work with a trailer like I'm not that good, okay it would have air in it air doesn't show up on video that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's uh, I'm kind of excited to see what, what you've got planned and what you're going to do with, uh, with the clay lab. I know that I've had a lot of good ideas in the past about what to do with video, but I've known nothing about video so I never try it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So do you think? You think, johnny?
Speaker 2:carter and all those guys. Are they kind of a? You kind of watch what they do so you can kind of get some good ideas, or I know y'all know each other oh, I always do.
Speaker 3:And johnny, oh, he's the man. Yeah, johnny carter is great. I definitely linked up with him when we were at nationals together and yeah, none of it was on video because it we have a genuine, just good friendship, which is awesome, so great man. And yeah, of course, I watch their content. Everything that comes out. You know, past and present, like like I'm going to be watching, but that's just cause I'm also a consumer of YouTube. Like I don't have I don't have cable TV or anything like that. I literally spend all my time my free time, if you will on YouTube, just watching stuff. So, yeah, johnny's definitely at the top of the list for anything that comes out that he does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, youtube's man it's. My son says he's getting smarter because of youtube. I think he's getting dumber because of youtube, but I mean he may be right.
Speaker 3:I don't know, you know there's so much. No, he's, he's got to be right. I actually learned how to ride a motorcycle on youtube. I'm not even kidding you like before I got my motorcycle license, I was watching youtube about how to ride a motorcycle and I studied it and again. But that's why we do this is because certain people absorb information differently, and visually is a huge visual learning. It's a huge portion for a lot of people. So I learned how to ride a motorcycle boom. Never had an issue riding a bike, besides when I was maybe stuck riding but yeah, so talk about your pistol shooting you're doing now terrible new habit, just because I think that that's the the marine inside of me that just I like shooting.
Speaker 3:It's just the way it is, yeah, uh. So I went shooting for the first time, uh, at a uspsa event and uh also really, really enjoyed that. I had the opportunity to shoot a couple qualifiers and, just like their class system, I was able to qualify as a b-class, limited optic shooter, which means I shoot like a 2011 platform and, of course, I was shooting a staccato when I first started. And then I went head over heels and bought this beautiful, like masterpiece arms, like black and gold pistol and nine millimeter, you know, double stack 1911 and but it's been something else to keep me busy on the weekend, you know.
Speaker 2:But sporting clay, thankfully, is my passion when you go to a pistol tournament, never doing that, I'm assuming. How did how? Was that going to one of those tournaments like, were you kind of lost?
Speaker 3:so I I'm, uh, I'm a humble person and I literally like put my hands up and I'm just like I'm nick the new guy. Like you know, as long as you show up, knowing the safety rules, you're all good. That's been just bred into me from what I do, uh. But yeah, as long as you're safe, you're good. I watch people just kind of walk through the courses super slow, you know, to get their shots and they're perfectly placed, you know. But they end up, you know, at the bottom of the list because it's also about speed in this game, you know. And then, every now and then, I'll push the little limits myself and pretend like I'm john wick. You know it's, it's fun, yeah, yeah so I just enjoy shooting it's, it's fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so I just enjoy shooting.
Speaker 2:It looks like it's intimidating Like my. I couldn't see me getting around that course too fast. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:It doesn't, really, it doesn't matter, you take it as fast as you can. It's kind of like this sport right, like shooting a 50 yard cross or is intimidating, you know, at first.
Speaker 2:And then that's the only target you want to practice when you go to the range, right, yeah, for some people, so do you? I guess you see yourself shooting some of that as well as sporting clays in.
Speaker 3:You got the right now then. Yeah, but sporting clays is my passion, it really is. Um, it's just every now and then I kind of just need a break from what I do. So yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I enjoy it. So what's next? What's next for you? What's next for the clay lab? What's what you got going on next? Where are you going next? Just what's what's up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really big news is that. Uh, I got orders down to Florida. So the clay labs going tropical, as my wife wanted to say, um, that was the big thing, like clay labs going tropical is that what you told me?
Speaker 2:the big news was no, no, no, that was something else, oh wait on that.
Speaker 3:But but no, so I am definitely going to florida. Okay, I'm gonna be in the era and you know, hunter's point has always been my home club because I've only been shooting this, you know, for three years and the Oliver's have been amazing. They've been amazing people and I'm glad that they've put up with me this entire time. But yes, we are moving down to Tampa Florida area, so I am looking for a new home down there in Tampa and you know, what's been awesome about this community is the moment I put up that clay lab was going tropical. I had so many different people like making recommendations for places in florida and I even had one of our subscribers send me a map overlay for google maps that had every single sporting clays range already on it and I was just like, oh my god, there's a bunch of my kind of place. Yeah, there's a bunch. It's year-round shooting like I'm gonna tell you what, as a hawaiian, that's perfect, because I am a fair weather shooter, you're hawaiian is that what you are?
Speaker 2:yeah, hawaiian and filipino oh, somebody told me you're mexican no hawaiian and filipino.
Speaker 3:To be fair, though, the last name time, and I think is actually, uh like, a spanish like, has spanish origins or something like that yeah, maybe that's why they said that.
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 3:You might be related to Zach or something as well as no, no, but I am planning on linking up with those folks down at southeast, uh, so I'm looking forward to seeing those guys down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so have you been to? Have you been to uh four city?
Speaker 3:oh, yes, yeah, we shot, uh, georgia state championship. Okay, first of all, let me back up here. That is the best uh gift I've ever gotten from a shoot. It was like a 1300 bucket for me, but we shot the georgia state championship. I think it was maybe like 2022 or something like that, and they gave us this like heavy duty bucket with like a rope yep, actual uh, you know thing like that's the best bucket I've ever gotten. It definitely is. I remember that. That was that. Yeah, it was that four city, four city gun club. That club, like even Jeremy Smock won't stop talking about that club because it is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I'm looking forward to it. Is your wife going with you? She is not, and again, that's why she's the best sponsor, because she's got to take care of my two dobermans and black lab.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my babies, those are my babies well, we'll, uh, I'll catch up with you down there for sure. The podcast that you you're now producing for these guys, uh, tell me what the names of them are, or tell the listeners what the names are and how they can find them, so they can go check them out yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3:People can uh, whether it's either on youtube itself, on spotify, um apple podcasts and even amazon music. They can go and look up the clay lab network and you'll be able to find all of our podcasts. So any of the video podcasts that I do, I convert them into audio only and then we'll post those as podcasts, and then any of, uh well, fennels podcast, the fennel shotgun shooting podcast, and then as well as Kate Fetchy's podcast. Those will all be able to uh be heard on any of those platforms, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you want to look at the clay lab? Just go to YouTube, type it in and you can watch some of those videos.
Speaker 3:Really good, you cover what you're covering, you do a good job at it and uh, go check them out for sure we try to, and that's really about, like that huge mixture and I didn't even bring up like the articles that we had started here started doing, and it's really huge because I think that that's a big part of this and I think people are really enjoying that is especially the shooter spotlight. So, besides any of the other type of content that I'm trying to make sure I cover is the shooter spotlights, because there's a lot of good shooters out there that they just, you know they're not good at the social media type of game or anything like that, but they deserve the spotlight. Like we have some phenomenal shooters, like I know you know plenty of them yeah, and there's.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them that, uh, I think there's a lot of them that probably wouldn't write anything, but there's a lot of them that you can go up with a little recorder and talk to them and get a pretty good article out of it. Oh, absolutely so. I think what you're doing is way too much for me to do. I'm talking about you have to be sitting behind a computer constantly when you're not working or shooting. It's just unbelievable. I appreciate, I appreciate, brother.
Speaker 2:I got a pretty good computer to sit behind, but no, I appreciate it but you're doing good, man, and uh, you know, I'll, uh, I'll see you down at southeast and and uh, we'll catch up there for sure, and maybe have some cool stuff coming out. Just bring the video camera with you.
Speaker 3:Oh, I will, All three of them.
Speaker 2:There you go, all right. Well, there he is, jareem. Tyeman. Appreciate you coming on buddy.
Speaker 3:I hate you. Thanks, brother, all right, good seeing you, We'll see you. Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace peace peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace peace.
