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Controlling the Future The more we study and teach the mental side of performance, the more it becomes obvious to us that our students are their own worst enemy. They create under performance as a result of their negative thoughts, actions, and emotions. Throwing shells, slamming the gun shut, grimacing. These outbursts over missed targets simply serve as reminders to the subconscious that you desire missing. The ever expanding list of excuses that we see shooters come up with is mind boggling. What they don't understand is that any excuses that they make for missing is a justification for the miss. This ensures that the probability of recreating the miss again is VERY HIGH! Everyone wants to take responsibility for their successes, but no one wants to take responsibility for their failures. Until a person takes responsibility for their failure--their failure will continue. Once a person takes responsibility for their failure then and only then can a commitment to change something take place and turn the failure into a success. Can these things really cause you to miss a target? 1. The background? 2. What someone said? 3. The rain? 4. The time of day? 5. Your gun, choke or ammunition? 6. Having to wait to shoot? 7. The type of target? 8. The people you are shooting with? 9. Whether or not you play the options? 10. The cost of entry? If you want to succeed then you must take control of things like these and not let them control you. If you use excuses to justify your failure then what you are really saying is that something is controlling you and you can't do anything about it. If you let little things that you can't control, control your performance, you will never experience your potential. You must control you and stay in control of the targets. If your score for the day is the total of all the targets that you had hit, would it be fair to say that the future is a product of the past? If you looked at your scores on each station as you shot them, would it be fair to say that the past creates the future? Would it then be fair to say that the only way to control the past or the future is to simply control the present and shoot the targets one at a time. This is the only way to control your future. Like Bill Bacon at American Shooting Center said to me once on a fishing trip-- It doesn't matter where you are--you are there. It doesn't matter the temperature of the room--it is still room temperature. Ultimately, you must accept this one fact--- It is how well you control what you do that breaks the target---- Not what goes on around you! Back to Article Directory Instinctive Shooting Sooner or later in order for you to even come anywhere close to achieving your potential with a shotgun, you must learn to shoot instinctively. You must let it go and let your subconscious control the gun and be aware of only one thing in the conscious mind---the target. There is a major difference between the conscious and subconscious mind. The conscious mind can think of only one thing at a time! The subconscious mind on the other hand can coordinate and be aware of many things at one time. There is also a three tenths of a second delay in conscious reaction. This means that it takes three tenths of a second for the conscious mind to see the lead and tell the body to pull the trigger. In essence you are shooting in the past tense. It takes the subconscious no time to act because it is reacting instinctively in the present. A fun way for you to illustrate this is to walk up to a friend and ask them to concentrate on something small like the primer in a shotgun shell, or a pencil eraser, or even your fingernail. Once you are sure they are focussed on the object ask them what they had for supper last night. Observe the blank look on their face while the conscious mind stops looking at the object and concentrates on supper last night. Then with the same person focussed on the same object ask them to reach into their pocket and get their car keys and show them to you. They will not miss their pocket or drop their keys because this action is subconscious, requiring no conscious thought. They have reached into their pocket so many times to get their car keys that the movement is programmed into their subconscious mind. It happens with no conscious mechanical thought. One might call it instinctive! Webster defines instinctive as: Behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level. Webster defines conscious as: Acting with critical awareness or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation. Webster defines subconscious as: Existing in the mind, but not immediately available to consciousness. A pro basketball player is consciously aware of the ball--only when he doesn't have it! A pro golfer is consciously aware of the club only when he is selecting which club to use for the shot. The weekend duffer thinks about the grip, stance and swing plane. The mechanics of the swing. The pro visualizes what he wants the club head to do and trusts his trained subconscious moves to instinctively move his body to create the swing necessary to make the club head do what he has visualized. With no conscious thought of the swing of the club. Shooting a shotgun is no different! The more you are consciously aware of the gun or the lead the more you will miss the target. Remember your conscious mind can think of only one thing at a time. As long as it is focussed on the target you have a chance to hit the target. The instant you become aware of exact lead, you have to take conscious focus off the target and onto the gun or the lead. When this happens, the gun stops and the target is missed! Remember, the most perfect lead picture in the world if not applied at where the target is when the trigger is pulled--is wrong. We talk to many people who are afraid of learning to shoot instinctively. We have begun to understand why. They feel that "instinctive shooting" means that a person walks on to a shooting stand, loads the gun without any plan or routine, calls pull and shoots the targets. Although this is instinctive, this in not what instinctive shooting is all about. You have all heard people refer to athletes performing at their peak potential by saying, they were in the "Zone." This is a term that simply means that they were in total subconscious function. They were reacting instinctively and flawlessly, because they were totally trusting themselves and the mechanics they had trained. The one common thread in the "Zone" experiences of the athletes we have studied is that everything is moving in slow motion and that everything is clear and larger than in real life. You have all experienced this at one time or another. It typically happens when you are having fun and not caring about whether or not you hit the targets. The instant you realize you are in the "Zone," you are out. Why? Because you consciously and mechanically began to try to continue your performance without realizing that the reason you were in the zone to begin with was because you didn't care about your performance. You were just having fun and you were consciously aware of only one thing--the target. The Sports Psychologist calls it getting out of your own way. My son Brian says, "just grip and rip". Sooner or later you must understand that 2 things must exist in order for you to ever reach your potential: 1. First, you must have mechanical excellence. This means you must practice Fundamental swing mechanics until they become instinctive and subconscious. 2. Second, you must maintain mental Focus on the job at hand and trust the mechanics you have trained to produce the desired outcome. Sounds easy doesn't it! Turning loose of conscious control while performing with a shotgun is one of the hardest things you will ever try to do--the first time. After you do it once and experience the rush it gives you to perform above your normal level, it becomes easier to do the next time and the next time and so one. The more you "let it go", the more you want to let it go. We call this getting our of your box and just letting it happen. This is the hardest thing for a student to learn and is the hardest thing for an instructor to teach. This difficulty exists because in order to actually let it go the student must change the way they think! There are so few people that are willing to make this change. There are others who reluctantly will try and there are others who automatically refuse. This is why there are so few truly great athletes. The greatest athletes, regardless of skill, make the most difficult of tasks look simple--instinctively. Back to Article Directory The Search for Consistency Intermediate shooters almost always want to be "more consistent". Four things come to mind that most often have to be dealt with: 1. Developing a plan for shooting each target, Before stepping into the Box, and sticking to it; regardless of what others say or do. 2. Using their eyes correctly and trusting what their vision is telling them. 3. Getting them to understand that they should trust in their ability to Point (not aim) the gun in the proper predetermined place without checking-(Don't Look at the Gun!). 4. Learning how and when to use choke. Understanding that choke use is determined by target presentation more often than distance!" In dealing with these and the other problems that all shooters eventually face, the origin of consistency becomes more and more obvious-- "Consistency comes from practicing proper form and technique--i.e. weight on the front foot, gun in the front hand, and Look at the front edge of the target." Intermediate, as well, as other shooters will have days where they will shoot great and then they will have days when they couldn't hit the ground if they fell off a stool--thus begins the "search for consistency". They almost always look for consistency out in the target zone, and the paradox is that the answer they seek is not out there; it is from the muzzles back--!! Inconsistent results are the results of inconsistent form and/or technique! In almost every instance the problem is a result of one of the following: 1. Poor foot position 2. Incorrect weight displacement 3. Incorrect gun hold point 4. Incorrect eye focal point 5. The student begins to check himself by looking at the gun. Once the emphasis is placed back on good sound fundamentals, the targets become easy and the shooter becomes more consistent. Practice makes Perfect???? NOT "Practice makes PERMANENT! "Perfect Practice makes Perfect!"   Back to Article Directory   Have other questions on other issues? Visit our Clinic FAQs section or submit your own question.   How We Teach • Teaching Schedule • Tips & Articles Our Services • Clinic FAQs • Products & Programs • Meet Gil & Vicki Client Comments • More Info/Sign-up • E-mail Us • Home OPTIMUM SHOTGUN PERFORMANCE SHOOTING SCHOOL Toll Free 800-838-7533 P.O. Box 826 • 29354 McKinnon Rd., Suite A • Fulshear, TX 77441 Voice: 281-346-0888 • Fax: 281-346-1500 Copyright © 2000-2006 Optimum Shotgun Performance Shooting School Gil and Vicki Ash of the OSP Shooting School provide shooting videos, shooting books, sporting clays, shooting instruction, skeet shooting, trap shooting, shooting dvds, gun fitting, bird hunting, and shooting lessons. Learn to shoot today! 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