I had an interesting hour on the phone with Joel Turner the other day that helped clarify a lot for me. The first thing he said, and I guess what he says to everyone now, is that his method wouldn't work for me to solve target panic. Nor would a clicker or anything else. The only thing that would work would be if I worked for IT. This isn't just motivational mumbo jumbo, but means something very specific, as I'll explain.
As we learn archery, or any hand eye coordination sport, more and more of the movements become automatic: they are not directed by conscious thought. Driving a car is a good example: you make tiny speed changes or course corrections before the errors grow to the point that a conscious decision would be required. In fact, if we have to interrupt this automatic flow, our movements become awkward. For example, a basketball player at the free-throw line suddenly becomes aware of everyone looking at him and so he clutches, meaning that he loses his easy flow of movement and has to start thinking about what he needs to do to make the shot, and of course he misses it.
In the case of the driver or the basketball player, it is desirable to stay in the automatic mode because if they start consciously thinking about what they need to do, their performance suffers. Such it would be with the archer too, if it were not for target panic. Unfortunately, the automatic mode of shooting the bow allows the sub-conscious to shortcut the process of drawing and aiming.
Something needs to interrupt this automatic flow to stop target panic. The clicker takes the decision of when to fire out of our mind and makes it external, but it doesn't change our automatic mindset of drawing and shooting the bow. The clicker is going to go off predictably, and it doesn't take the sub-conscious mind long to figure that out. What is needed is a disconnect between the sub-conscious and the conscious at the critical moments before the shot is fired. While it would benefit the basketball player to be able to stay in the automatic mode, it would benefit the archer with target panic to be able to break free from it, at least for the few moments right before the shot goes off.
I didn't like Joel's method at first because I've worked hard to expand my awareness of what my whole body is doing during the shot process, and I didn't want to lose that and concentrate all of my attention on "pulling." It doesn't make sense to lose the overall awareness you have gained from shooting the bow for a long time; you use that awareness to identify and correct problems before they ruin your shot. Nor does it make sense to have that awareness, but blow the shot because target panic keeps you from completing it. So how do you have both? Is it possible to have your cake and eat it too? Yes!
You do this by switching gears at the last moment of the shot. As you draw and aim the bow, your awareness is broadly focused on all aspects of the shot and aiming. You are drawing the bow with no commitment to shoot it at this time. Generally, people with target panic can draw and aim the bow if they don't intend to shoot it. If you notice anything wrong with any aspect of your shot sequence, you let down the bow. If you draw the bow to anchor and you are satisfied with everything, you proceed to phase two.
In phase two, you narrow your focus to just two things: concentrating on pulling until your psychotrigger goes off while looking at the target to hold your aim. This is where YOU work for the SYSTEM, as opposed to vice-versa. During this phase, which lasts no more than a few seconds, you have to maintain sufficient conscious control over the shot that you could stop the shot at any moment until the psychotrigger goes off. You have to develop immediate awareness of any distractions or thoughts that might enter your mind, and be able to stop the shot if that happens. A mantra can be helpful during this phase to block conscious thoughts or distractions.
Somehow I let myself believe that I either had to be totally aware during the entire shot, or totally focused on pulling during the entire shot. Total awareness didn't work because it invited target panic; total focus didn't work because I lost awareness of problems in my shot sequence. Total awareness followed by 2 seconds of total concentration does work, because I have the benefit of both.
I was a little anxious the first morning I tried this, because it sounds hard to shift gears during the final few moments of the shot. But to my joy, I actually felt more relaxed and in control from the first shot I tried doing this. It seems more natural to me than what I was doing, and my accuracy has improved. Ideally, a person should be able to do both: shoot methodically at stationary targets and shoot fluidly at moving targets or in a timed competition, but licking target panic comes first.
No target panic yet. Of course, this is new for me and I have tried other things that have "cured" target panic for a while. This feels right to me, and I'll keep you posted.
Topic: a clicker, back tension question (Read 1083 times)
