Do You Believe In Target Panic?

[Green]

Glad you've been able to work your way through it Austin.....and thanks for posting up what you were working through and how you overcame that.  Good luck with your shooting!

[McDave]

I agree with the method of only focusing on aiming after you have come to full draw and have gone over your mental checklist and decided to commit to the shot.  I agree with that method because focusing on aiming too early in the shot takes attention away from getting the mechanics of the shot right, which is mainly why we miss, and because the human mind is only capable of focusing on an object for a short time before our attention wanders anyway.  It requires some effort to switch your attention from the mechanics of the shot to aiming after you have committed to the shot.  Make sure you really do this.  You may think you're aiming when most of your attention is really still focused on some part of your body.

However, I believe that method only seems to help target panic; it really does nothing to address the cause of it.  It seems to help target panic because we end up shooting more accurately and consistently than we did when we released the arrow at 3/4 draw, but we still don't end up shooting as accurately as we could, as has been mentioned by several of you in previous posts.

In other words, if target panic sets in during the draw, we may miss the target by several feet.  If target panic sets in after we have come to full draw and are committed to the shot, we may miss the target by several inches more than we would without that problem.  The same symptoms occur: a nervousness and tightening of muscles as our arrow comes onto the target; the problem is just confined to a later stage of the draw.

I think Jay Kidwell has figured out the cause of target panic, which is a learned response to actions repeated thousands of times so that the subconscious mind anticipates the release.  Like AIDS, figuring out the cause and solving the problem are two different things.  Dr. Kidwell's solutions don't work for everyone, but they are aimed at the underlying problem.

The reason we turn the release over to the subconscious mind to start with is that errors are introduced into the shot when we consciously decide when to release the arrow, which is the same reason we squeeze the trigger on a rifle so the actual shot will be a surprise when it happens.  The problem is that when we turn the job of releasing the arrow over to our subconscious mind, we lose any conscious control over a significant part of the shot process, which allows the subconcious mind to start playing tricks on us.

I don't have any answers to it, other than what Dr. Kidwell has already suggested.  I seem to be "in remission" at the moment, and I'll just enjoy that as long as it lasts.