Dan,
I found a computer where I am staying!!! So here it is. The reason your nemesis keeps coming back is because you may not know how to concentrate. Analyze your first shots when you tried the feather to nose technique. The first few may have been ok, but what were you thinking about???? I would venture to guess that you were thinking about the feather and when it was going to touch your nose. If you are thinking about the trigger, you will never get to the trigger. You have to think about and do the movement that gets you to your trigger!!!! That is done by focusing the concentration through the use of the mantra. If pulling is the movement that gets you to the feather, then the mantra is KEEP PULLING, KEEP PULLING, KEEP PULLING...said in a revolving rhythm. You are talking directly to the muscles that are required for the action you are talking about (mantra). The mantra is the concsious mind's natural way of getting you to concentrate.
What are you thinking about when you shoot a blank bale shot? Blank bale shooting allows you more freely concentrate because there is no aiming involved. If there is no aiming, the subcon and the con are involved in all other aspects of the shot and they are working pretty well together. As soon as aiming becomes a factor, the subcon will naturally take over the entire shot and make it as efficient as it can. It will usually try to shortcut the system and leave you short drawing or frozen off target. When you have to aim a shot, what are you thinking about????? If you are thinking about anything other than a movement that gets you to the trigger, the subcon is left to shoot the entire shot for you, as effeciently as it can, not the best that it can. You have to remember that it makes no sense to the subcon to hold on a target, it just wants to get the body out of tension as soon as possible.
You really have to analyze your shot and recognize what you are thinking about during a shot. Only when you know what you are thinking, will you be able to control what you are thinking. The mantra is a natural tool to direct concentration. What you say, is what you think. Therefore, you are talking yourself through this shot using the proper neurolinguistic programs (action words) to make yourself concentrate on the movement that gets you to your trigger.
Any shot without a psychological trigger is a shot left to the subcon. And we know that subcon, in most of us, will shortcut the system in one way or another. There is an autopilot for most aspects of the shot, but not the shot activation. If you leave that part to the autopilot, he will fly you into the mountain every time.
With all of that said, your shot sequence is very simple but takes a major decision on your part. You have to make a decision that you are not going to shoot a shot unless it is perfect in concentration. Meaning, you have to know very intimately what is going through your mind at full draw. If it is not perfect, don't shoot the shot, there is no one with a gun to your head making you shoot the arrow. If the shot is not perfect in concentration, let down, and ask yourself, what was I thinking about during that shot. Once you start to recognize your thoughts, you will be on your way to controlling your thoughts. You should be able to stop a bad shot before it happens because you will recognize that something is not right, your thoughts are not correct in some way.
So your shot sequence is as follows: Draw back and aim. Once the aim is complete, start your mantra, KEEP PULLING, KEEP PULLING, KEEP PULLING... until the feather touches your nose or you hit whatever trigger you are using (clicker, tab sear, etc.). The rest of the shot takes care of itself. Notice I didn't mention the release. The release is triggered by the psychotrigger subconsiously. You shouldn't have to think about releasing. You are basically keeping the gremlin at bay and making him wait for the go signal. As long as you have made a decision to release when you feel the trigger, the shot will be away as a surprise if the trigger was hit as a surprise.
The trigger is the final goal of the pulling. The trigger should hit as a byproduct of your pulling. Your concentration, once again, is on the movement that gets you to your trigger. If you don't feel your muscles moving, THEY AIN'T MOVIN'!!!!! If you don't feel the back muscles moving or your elbow rotating, that means your mind is not in the right spot and you should let down.
So let's say you are in the middle of a shot. You have drawn back and aimed, so far so good. You start your mantra and you feel the muscles moving. You are thinking, keep pulling, keep pulling, keep pulling, man when is this feather gonna hit!!!! That thought that went to the feather needs to be recognized and the shot needs to be let down. It will only take a few of these recognitions and you will really start to analyze the thoughts.
The mental mechanics along with the culmination of a psychotrigger is the most robust under stress shot that I have ever experienced. I have been through the gammut of target panic and all of the "Cures" that go along with it. It was not until I developed the use of neurolinguistic programming in the shot process that I truly have beaten this demon. But it takes discipline on the part of the shooter to recognize those natural tendencies of the subconcious gremlin to shortcut the system. Just as in the bridge system, if a shot is not perfect, you have to go back and do it again, but the bridge program does not tell you how to do it right the next time from a mental perspective. That is why the bridge program takes so long and the end result is a shot that is still totally controlled by the subcon.
This shot allows the subcon to do what it does best, aiming, stance, grip, and breathing. But it does not allow the subcon to tell itself when to release. Therefore, it has no way to shortcut the system. You are consciously keeping the gremlin at bay and making him wait for the "GO" signal to release.
As mentioned earlier, I have had 71 callers so far and I invite all of those with questions about this system to please call me. If the writing does not make sense or you have further questions on how to implement the system, I invite all archers to call. I am trying to kill the demon of target panic. It does not need to exist, but but target panic is NATURAL, that is why so many of us archers are plagued by its wrath.
I am starting a shooting school to present this program in a hands on, stress scenario based format that will leave archers with a tool to be self sufficient in diagnosis and treatment of any shooting problems that arise with target panic or form issues. So please keep that in mind if any of you would like me to come to your range or if you would like to travel to mine!!!
I hope this helps.
JT
Topic: Target Panic Reality Check (Read 17689 times)
