Do You Believe In Target Panic?

[poekoelan]

This is going to be a long one, so bear with me. It involves a great longbow target archer, the "Push Release" dvd, and myself.

A top notch English longbow shooter once told me he doesn't believe in target panic. He basically said there are only two ways to miss your target, you either make a physical mistake ( bad form ) or you make a mental mistake. Keep making these mistakes long enough and they will become habits thereby making you "think" you have target panic. I tended to agree with his thinking, but I was still lost.

He also said that he thinks too many people believe in it ( TP ) and suffer a lot longer than they should. He is a very opiniated fellow for sure, but also an awesome shot.

As for myself, I suffered from not being able to come to full draw for a long time. I considered myself stricken with target panic. I never tried a clicker, but I would have friends count for me and I would use a timer when alone. Niether method worked and there was no way I was going to put a clicker on my self bows.

So I got the "Push Release" dvd. His physical method didn't work for me, but after watching the dvd a couple times, the skies OPENED up to me and I realized why I couldn't come to full draw. It was a MENTAL mistake that had become a very bad ingrained habit!!

Once the light bulb went off in my head, a good bit of diligent practice cured my target panic. No clickers, no blank bale shooting, just a good understanding of a huge mental mistake that I made every time I nocked an arrow.

I'm not a great shot by any means, but shooting became SO much more enjoyable. At least my arrows started hitting close to where I wanted them to be. And when one misses pretty bad, I know it was a physical thing (  usually collapsing the line ) instead of a mental thing.

Mental things are so much harder to figure out. I found that for me, good physical form was impossible without a clear understanding of my mental mistake. Now that I understand that I am able to work on using my back muscles more and keeping my bow arm steady. Another problem I noticed just recently is that I tend to roll the string in my fingers during the draw.

So my "cure" came from two sources. One who said he does not believe in target panic ( he kind of inspired me ) and one who said he was ready to give up archery because of target panic. He also inspired me, I just chose not to use his PHYSICAL method, but his MENTAL analogy was outstanding, and reminded me very much of what that old English Longbow crackshot once said about target panic.

It was basically all in my head. But I don't believe that my form of target panic is unique to everyone. No other shooting activity requires so much of the mind and body than traditional archery. We don't line up sights and our bodies are in a constant state of push and pull. All the while our minds want to put the arrow where we want it to be.

There is a whole lot that can go wrong in that process. But I'm starting to think that there are only three mistakes an archer can make. Physical, mental, or a combination of the two. I'm also starting to think that target panic results from not knowing which of those mistakes you are making.

Opinions?

[Green]

You never do say what your "huge mental mistake" was.....kinda pointless reading without revealing what that "A Ha!" moment was for you.

[McDave]

I've never met anyone or read anything that would suggest that target panic was anything other than a mental problem.  If recognizing it as such helps you to solve it, more power to you.

Some archers never develop target panic, and your friend may well be one of them.  For someone who has never experienced a problem to deny the existence of it is somewhat egocentric, don't you think?  While he may not have target panic, it is possible that he could have a fear of heights, or a fear of being in tightly enclosed spaces.  Would it help him to overcome these fears if other people were to tell him that there is no such thing as acrophobia or spacephobia?

Target panic is just a name we have assigned to various symptoms people have, which could include the inability to come to full draw before releasing the arrow.  Maybe your friend's objection is that it's too dramatic a name, in that nobody really panics because of it.  Maybe target frustration would be a better name, but target panic is the name we're stuck with at the moment.

All of those of us who have suffered from it have started by trying to reason our way out of it, I'm sure.  Most of us are grown men who feel we have excellent control of our emotions, and it's embarrasing when we can't come to full draw when we know we're fully capable of doing it.  We should just be able to say to ourselves, "hey, this is stupid, just stop doing it!"  Going to extremes, one day I was rock-climbing with a psychiatrist, and I asked him why, if a patient was crazy enough to see snakes crawling on the walls, he couldn't just explain to him that there really were no snakes crawling on the walls, and just to ignore them.  He explained to me that as far as the patient was concerned, there really were snakes crawling on the walls, and telling him to ignore them just didn't work.

So when reasoning our way out of it doesn't work, we look for other solutions....  Fortunately, target panic isn't terminal, and my own experience is that if I work my way through it, it eventually subsides, and I have a period of relatively target panic free shooting.  During these times, of course, I convince myself that I licked the problem and it's never coming back, which is a comfortable illusion....

[cbCrow]

It seems to me that you have written a great deal about this condition known as" Target Panic"and trying to put forth the definition of it as you see it. Please read the last paragraph you wrote and tell me, is this the basic definition of TP. What are you hoping, opinion wise to get out of this. Also I do agree that your longbow friend is full of it and you make him look like a pathfinder. Heard this kind of mindless babble so much thru my shooting years that now I'm actually babbling. Oh No!!

[Javi]

Oh… Target Panic is real and it is a MENTAL malady… However the cause is not always mental sometimes it’s physical, but in my experience it all evolves from a fear of missing the target no matter whether the root is physical or mental. Again this is my opinion… you can’t fix Target Panic until you find and fix the root cause..  
Developing a specific series of processes that make up the complete shot and executing them as a go/no go checklist, learning to only proceed to the next item on the list if the previous was completed properly is a good place to start in curing Target Panic, the next step is to accept that the process is the most important aspect, not the end result….. a successful shot regardless of target is the result of a properly executed series of processes…   Learn this and you will cure Target Panic…

"It was a MENTAL mistake that had become a very bad ingrained habit!!"

A good description of TARGET PANIC.  :^)

Now... for us longtime sufferers of this malady, how about telling us what you did to cure it?

[Jock Whisky]

This is a very interesting thread. I sometimes wonder if "target panic" is a catchall phrase we use for poor shooting when in fact it is just poor technique. I can't remember the correct spelling of his name but a well known Korean coach (Ki Suk Lee???)is reported to have said that you can't get target panic if your shot sequence is correct. Is this another way of saying we need to pay a lot more attention to our technique and less attention to the result? Jay Kidwell says it is not fear but anticipation of a step yet to come. A conditioned response.
I do know that when I began to pay more attention to my technique and less to the end result that my shooting although not nearly perfect improved immensely.
I'll follow this with interest.

JW

[Jock Whisky]

This is a very interesting thread. I sometimes wonder if "target panic" is a catchall phrase we use for poor shooting when in fact it is just poor technique. I can't remember the correct spelling of his name but a well known Korean coach (Ki Suk Lee???)is reported to have said that you can't get target panic if your shot sequence is correct. Is this another way of saying we need to pay a lot more attention to our technique and less attention to the result? Jay Kidwell says it is not fear but anticipation of a step yet to come. A conditioned response.
I do know that when I began to pay more attention to my technique and less to the end result that my shooting although not nearly perfect improved immensely.
I'll follow this with interest.

JW

[Winterhawk1960]

Do I believe in Target Panic ????

Yes, while never having suffered it personally, I have witnessed it on several occasions with other people that I was shooting with. I do believe that it is a mental thing that develops over time by "ingraining" things that aren't within what is known as.........proper form.

Given enough time, doing the wrong thing and I believe that ANYONE can and will develop it.

It is VERY REAL........and I'm sure a very frustrating thing to people that are under it's influence. I will say that I truly do consider myself very lucky to have steered myself clear of this terrible vicious "cycle" that it becomes. I'm not the best shot, by any means and can stand to improve greatly. That being said, I can only hope and pray that it never rears it's ugly head in my shooting style.

Winterhawk1960

[Jock Whisky]

Ooops sorry about the double post. Must have flinched

JW

[knobby]

It's real, all right. Put me down as a thirty year member of that anxiety-ridden frustration. Makes a guy almost want to quit...almost, but not quite. Frustrating as all-get-out, though. Go to some 3-D shoots and you'll see lots of it.    
   I know a guy that competed in a number of Olympic trials back in the '70's and he openly admitted to having it. Without a clicker or release, he couldn't function. He just accepted it and used the clicker to shoot FITA-style, and the release when he hunted. Whatever it takes.

[GreyGoose]

I am blessed never to have had target panic.  What has always been more problematic for me (firearms, wheelies, and real bows) is the occasional lapse of concentration - kind of the opposite problem.

[ryguy24000]

I am a believer now.  Because I suffer from it.  Started a few years ago after I broke my left hand.  I had two and a half weeks to sharpen my skills before the season started and somehow developed some bad habits which eventually turned to this thing called target panic.  It drives me crazy sometimes.  I used to be a pretty good shot.  the best of the 3 other guys I hunt with.  Now they all give me a hard time when I shoot with them and they don't understand what happened.
I do believe that it is a part of wanting a result without attention to the process, but I have to say something about my self.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and have always paid close attention to form and warm up drills in other sports I have done!!!  Including Trad Archery.  Another sport that I liken to Trad archery is Golf I grew up an athlete and still enjoy a variety of sports to this day and I can tell you golf is the hardest sport i have ever played!  Trad Archery is second.  You can't be a decent golfer without a reasonable amount of "quality" practice.  Shooting a trad bow is the same.  
My main problem with my shot is holding low and making a last second adjustment and letting the arrow go without reestablishing a decent sight picture.  Kinda let it fly while making an aiming adjustment or an uncontrollable desire to want the arrow fly!?.  If I pull and don't adjust I can shoot great groups at 20 yards, but the arrows group 12-16" low
Useless if you ask me.
I have resorted to going all they way back to try and retrain myself.  I wake up in the morning and string my bow knock an arrow and look at my target(3 yards)where I want to hit, draw, but don't release.  I need to control the shot and not let something in my brain control it.  
TP is a very frustrating phenomena that i want to very badly beat.  I just want to to be the way it was.  Look, Draw, and shoot.  Sounds simple but for me now it's not that easy.

[wds]

Target panic does not exist if you go through each step of your form,  hand on the grip, to fingers on the string, to line up shoulders with target,  to draw to the exact same  point, to pause to allow the bow arm to settle. Then just let it happen. Its to bad people make it harder than that. if you really have target panic try not looking at the target until you have done all these things. Then address the target. It is not that hard. You can do it. Just take it one step at a time.

[LongStick64]

My feeling is just like JW said, check for form errors first before jumping to the TP therapy sessions.

[ryguy24000]

Originally posted by wds:
. Its to bad people make it harder than that. if you really have target panic try not looking at the target until you have done all these things. Then address the target. It is not that hard. You can do it. Just take it one step at a time.

Yeah it's that simple.  I know.  That's the thing!  I know because I have done it like that litterly for 20 years.  Now after that time I am a lousey shot.

[poekoelan]

Haven't been able to get to my computer in a couple days. I think I do believe in it. My English friend is a very opiniated fellow and maybe as some have said, a bit ego centric. But I can see his point about mental mistakes. And I think he also said that once you give your mental mistake a name, you give it more power over your mind.

Another thing to think about...we can have bad physical habits without developing target panic but once we develop bad mental habits, target panic creeps it's way in quick. At least it seems that way to me.

Green, my target panic was not being able to come to full draw. And if I did make it there and hold a few seconds, I flinched or jerked the release everytime. My huge mental mistake for me was aiming ( or concentrating, which ever word you chose ) DURING the draw. Once I likened it to shooting a rifle it became clear to me. You don't really aim a rifle til it's on your shoulder and everything is lined up. With that, I began concentrating on aiming only after my anchor was reached. I'm not a great shot but it improved my shooting greatly and gave me confidence in the shot. I don't stay at full draw long, just long enough to line up the shot, between 1 and 2 seconds sometimes less.

It's much like the quote in the previous post. I do all the physical things first, and only THEN do I concentrate on the target. That's how I kicked my target panic for the most part. In the process I also shortened my range and used a little lighter bow but now I'm back to regular bow with no problems.

[poekoelan]

One more thing, many times it is easy to see what physical mistakes we are making. We have a friend watch us shoot or we video ourselves. But no one can see our mental mistakes. I think that if you have target panic there is something you are doing mentally wrong during the shot. Once you figure out what that is, you can begin work on it. But just telling yourself to come to full draw won't work in most cases.


For years I tried to shoot using the "instinctive" methods. Everything I read about that said to begin your concentration ( aiming process )  during the draw. Once I stopped doing that and likened it more to shooting a rifle, I had my "AH HAH" moment. It worked for me but I can't say it will work for others.

[JamesKerr]

I highly recommend the push release as a cure for TP I had it bad for a couple of years and the first time after trying the push release I was cured. You just have to focus on pulling your hand back into your mouth and let your eyes do the "aiming" work for you. It works 100% of the time for me.

[poekoelan]

James, that dvd is what did it for me. Pulling that extra quarter inch didn't work for me, but his whole analogy of comparing shooting a bow with shooting a rifle is what did it for me. It made me realize that I was "aiming" during the draw and not after I settled in at full draw. Once I realized that I was on the road to recovery. Now if I could just stop dropping my bow arm from time to time.