Target Panic- Please Participate

Sometimes people like to call things like a faulty anchor TP and actually develop real TP by going with the guidelines that others have given as proof of the ailment.   If your anchor is failing, does trying to force concentrate on holding a bow back for 4 seconds really cure it?   John Schulz shot with a one second tempo, Hill's tempo was quite often faster than that.  When Hill's anchor got off, he worked on his anchor, not his hold.  One's draw should be aim based, one's release should be aim based.   It is totally possible to be on target as anchor is established, that can be practices separately from everything else.   When things fall apart because we are asking too much for the brain to be paying attention too, we all to often brand that confusion as TP.   If you practice doing a bad thing often enough, it will stick, but ya doesn't  has to call it TP Johnston.

[riivioristo]

Hi

How about this - my TP is on when I try to shoot with a tab and goes away, when I move back to my tusty glove...just do not understand    :confused:

Otherwise GFA treatment as just holding bow in full draw few seconds and then letting down without release is helping me...reprogramming as he says...so this condition is mix of personal mental / technical / fysical issues...there is perhaps not just only cure,everyone should make up their own remedy?

[Austin Brown]

Originally posted by Jim Casto Jr:
To me, it's simply not having complete control over every aspect of your shot sequence; the inability to do exactly what you want to do.

That is pretty much exactly as I define it also.  I personally started off self taught and overbowed around 18 years ago.  I have been battling getting control ever since.  

I struggled the most with the kind of tp where I completely froze up just short of anchor.  If I did close my eyes or use a clicker to get to anchor I still struggled not to cut it loose the instant I might have been on target.  With some work and alot of flinching/double clutching I could get by that part with a clicker eventually but the clicker kind of drove me nuts too.  I was still working through slowly trying to beat tp back with some success without the clicker when out of the blue one day after all these years it was gone completely.

I have been hesitant to post about it, talk about it out loud even with my wife, or even to even think about it for fear of jinxing it or that it was one of the many bandaids.  But that is the thing, I didn't do anything to fix it at all.  After all the hours of reading threads and books, years of going down/up/way down in draw weight, and honestly at times getting close to quitting it was just gone.

I am pretty sure my cure can be attributed to a complete accident. About 6 weeks ago my doctor decided after a long while of me putting it off, it was time for me to try a daily medicine for preventing migraine headaches.  I was skeptical and concerned with side effects and never even considered it might have any benefit beyond reducing the frequency of my headaches but it apparently has somehow cured my target panic also.  I am not telling this story to advocate anyone using medicine to beat target panic but am curious if anyone else has ever noticed this?  I would alot rather be able to say I beat it on my own, not have migraines, and not take the medicine but is really nice to finally have control after all this time.

[KSdan]

Originally posted by crazynate:
I used to have target panic very bad. I read archery insights by j kid well and that cured me. BUT it is very serious. To me tp can be premature release which is the most common and premature hold. I believe one more that is not talked about as much is when acquiring the bullseye triggers a release. Once I got my premature hold fixed I struggled with this for about 6 months before I fixed it. I believe I had tp because I have a lot of anxiety and I'm pretty darn hyper. Type a personality for sure. But tp can be cured trust me. I've said it 20 times on tradgang but if you have tp or just want to learn more about the mental side of shooting a recurve please pick up a copy of archery insights. From 3 rivers. Also spend 100 bucks and buy a  cheaper recurve in a low poundage to use as a trainer. It will benefit you very much as a shooter. Just my opinion.

Ditto. . .
Kidwell's Sports Pysch research (I know other PhDs in the field as well) would ALL support that they ABSOLUTELY DO understand TP.  Kidwell has 100% success curing Olympic archers/athletes.  As I stated on TradG before, I have Olympian and Pros in other fields that use this stuff regularly and it resolves their issues. It really is an issue of HOW your brain works.  It is NOT some pycho-babble but understanding and training your brain to work correctly.  

Dan in KS

[ChuckC]

Mcdave.  I agree with what you last said.

I think many folks are prone to that and not separating your shot sequence into steps, especially where aiming follows anchoring (not before), might be setting up those who are more prone to it.  Almost ( not quite ) like some folks are physically more prone to addiction than others.  Without participating in the addictive activity you likely wont get it.

[BWallace10327]

Originally posted by pavan:
Sometimes people like to call things like a faulty anchor TP and actually develop real TP by going with the guidelines that others have given as proof of the ailment.   If your anchor is failing, does trying to force concentrate on holding a bow back for 4 seconds really cure it?   John Schulz shot with a one second tempo, Hill's tempo was quite often faster than that.  When Hill's anchor got off, he worked on his anchor, not his hold.  One's draw should be aim based, one's release should be aim based.   It is totally possible to be on target as anchor is established, that can be practices separately from everything else.   When things fall apart because we are asking too much for the brain to be paying attention too, we all to often brand that confusion as TP.   If you practice doing a bad thing often enough, it will stick, but ya doesn't  has to call it TP Johnston.

I couldn't agree more.  It seems that bad habit and target panic are sometimes one in the same, but anyone who has struggled with tp can attest that this is not the case.  That type of definition is simple, available and easy to understand, but it leaves out the panic. I will wager that someone who shoots erratically with bad habits and doesn't get very worked up about it will never develop target panic.  

If an archer gets frustrated and initiates a new habit of building anxiety before each and every shot, the DSM-V framework of panic disorder are being arranged and the problem becomes more complicated.  So I guess my secret for preventing this problem is just to relax, even if your shooting badly, getting anxious will just make things worse.

[McDave]

"Just to relax."  Ah, therein lies the rub.

[crazynate]

Interesting to hear about different types of this problem people have had.

Crazynate, I know another Nate that used the old sky target to get control of his form.  Years ago I found that a back quiver full of arrows, a blue sky and a large mowed alfalfa was a great combination for getting control of the release.  What a kid does with a bow, an arrow, a big open field, launch the arrow into the air and watch the arrow fly.  The spirit of adventure, the release of tension, it's fun.  "just relax" refers to anxiety.  In the 60s I hunted with a man that had a three pin bow sight on his bows. He shot through the sight and had a swing/spread draw. He was told at a Sioux Falls shoot by a shooter that could not begin to keep pace with him, "You are almost snap shooting." His reply was, "How long does it take you to move your bow an eighth inch?"

[Draven]

For me target panic is something you develop while shooting "instinctive", when overthinking too much about "why did I miss" after the shot instead just shooting and let the brain take care about yardage, shooting sequence etc. It's the result of losing the confidence in you due to the selfimposed pressure. You try different things, it doesn't work and in the end all is screwed because you convinced yourself in a perverted way that you can't hit the target. I can see it as a twisted form of nocebo - a detrimental effect on accuracy produced by psychological factors like negative expectations based on previous results. The quicksand effect or fears becoming reality are other names imo. I tend to think is happening more to perfectionists by nature not by practice.

[BWallace10327]

This is great, just the kind of forum thread I was hoping for.  Thanks again everyone.    

[paddlepro]

I would call it the inability to control the process necessary to make a good shot.

[McDave]

Originally posted by paddlepro:
I would call it the inability to control the process necessary to make a good shot.

Your definition would include inability to control the process necessary to make a good shot because a person hasn't learned how to do it yet, because of a physical disability, because a shooter is overbowed, or equipment problems.  I think a necessary component in the definition of target panic is that a person is able to control the process necessary to make a good shot under some conditions, but not under other conditions.  One example would be a person who is able to shoot fine casually with friends, but not when competing in a tournament.  Or a person who is unable to come to full draw while aiming at a target, but who can come to full draw and hold without undue stress when not aiming at anything.  There are many variations of this theme, but the common thread is that target panic is triggered situationally, in those who suffer from it.

[Roy from Pa]

I would call it the inability to control the process necessary to make a good shot.

I agree with that, no matter what the situation is. And being over bowed will definitely stimulate target panic, especially if a person starts out shooting a bow that is too heavy for them to achieve proper form and a proper shot sequence in their learning process.

[BWallace10327]

I couldn't agree more.  Target panic can sure come about without being overbowed, but that expedites the process.  I am sure that some may doubt this, but I think the lack of control due to a too-heavy bow builds frustration, thereby attaching anxiety to every shot and with time the anxiety will preclude the shot.

[BWallace10327]

Thank you Paven, that was a great video.

[McDave]

I too enjoyed the video posted by Pavan about practice.

We have a fairly significant sub-group of members on this forum who enjoy shooting heavy bows, in the 70# + range.  Occasionally one of them will start a topic about shooting heavy bows, and a lot of others will enthusiastically join in.  I'm sure none of them got to the point where they could shoot 70-90# bows without being overbowed at one time or another, and most of the ones who are happily enjoying this facet of our sport do not have target panic.

We know that many people, including myself and Rod Jenkins, who have never been overbowed have gotten target panic.  So if a significant number of people who have been overbowed never get target panic, and a significant number of other people who have never been overbowed do get it, then I think it is a mistake to say that being overbowed is a major cause of target panic, and I certainly don't think that it "will definitely stimulate target panic," as was stated above.

I think the one factor that all people who have gotten target panic have in common is that they all have had a lot of repetitive practice shooting the bow.  I don't think anyone has gotten target panic in his first week of shooting, or probably even in his first several years of shooting.  Of course, there are also many people who never get target panic at all, even though they practice a lot.  It is like alcoholism: every alcoholic has drunk alcoholic beverages, but not everyone who drinks alcoholic beverages is an alcoholic.  

But drinking alcohol is a more common factor in becoming an alcoholic than stress, for example, and I would carry this analogy over to target panic.  Linking target panic to being overbowed is similar to linking alcoholism to stress.   Some people who are already disposed to alcoholism may drink alcohol if they are stressed, and some people who are already disposed to target panic will come down with it if they are overbowed.  Taking this analogy further, I believe that if a person is disposed to target panic, he will get it whether he is overbowed or not, and simply dropping down in bow weight will not prevent him from getting it or cure it.

The only thing that will cure target panic is to stop repetitive practice, and unfortunately, that would also cure shooting archery.  As they say in medicine, the cure might be worse than the disease.  So if we can't cure target panic, but we want to continue shooting archery and continue to improve through practice, we have to learn how to control it.  That gets us back to all the mental exercises we have been discussing in this topic and other places. And I'm sure that understanding how to practice intelligently, as in Pavan's video, is a useful component in this.

[Roy from Pa]

LOL, Ok....

[BWallace10327]

I don't disagree Mcdave, but I do agree with some points you've raised more than others.  I submit that only some personalities are susceptible to target panic, and if those types encounter an anxiety inducing factor, such as a hard to control bow-overbowed- they will become frustrated. I'd be willing to wager that these types of people are not easily deterred, and may not know when its time to quit.  They will keep shooting the too-heavy bow until they have bad physical habits, bad metal habits, thereby giving rise to target panic.
 So, I cannot conclusively say that heavy bows definitely do or do not cause target panic, but rather an unfortunate  interaction with the right type of person nudges them in the wrong direction.