Gil: Just so you will know who this weird guy is, throughout Vicki’s journey and my journey, people have pretty much pooh-poohed whatever we’ve said or written or done, and without fail, Stevie Ray Brown was the one person we could always turn to for comfort, encouragement and direction. When you’re as far out on the edge as Vicki and I are, sometimes it gets kind of lonesome, but Stevie Ray stuck up for us and defended us, and he’s taken a lot of heat because of his relationship with us. Throughout all of these things he’s remained a constant source of encouragement, enlightenment, and inspiration to us on our journey. He has always managed to bring a smile to our faces when we’re in the deepest depths of depression. I recommend highly that you go and study with him if you ever get the chance. He’s a very gifted instructor. His East Texas wit sometimes gets the best of him, but I guarantee you, he can communicate with anybody, even the devil.
That said, I’m glad you’re here Stevie Ray.
Steve: Thank you.
Gil: We look forward to sharing this Coaching Hour with you in the future. Tonight I’m going to start out talking to Willy Cherry. Willy, I’m going to ask you to speak up, and Stevie, I’m going to ask you to speak up too, so we can all hear you.
Willy’s going to talk to us about his experience at the U.S. Open and at his Zone out in California. Willy had some unique things that Stevie Ray did with him. He talked to him about a few things regarding his mental game. Not a lot, he just said things in different ways that seemed to work for Willy, and I want him to share those with you. After that, I want to talk to Stevie a little bit about what he told Willy and why he told it to him.
After that, I might ask Stevie Ray some questions about the two visual circles; the focal and peripheral vision and how they’re used in shooting. If we get through all that then I’ve got a couple more things. Really, I’ve got enough stuff here to talk about till midnight, but I’ve got a few things about goals that a few students have brought to me that I want to share. Anyway, Willy, tell us a little bit about your Open experience, your Zone experience and any differences in your practice routine experience.
Willy: The Open was good for me, and we kind of talked about that on the last Coaching Hour. It got easier for me to focus as time went on, and Stevie worked with me at the ranch this last year about really refining focus and accepting visual confusion. And saying, “Well, there’s going to be visual confusion there. Let it happen and then just go back to focusing on the front edge of the target.”
I shot well at the Zone and I shot really well at the state shoot this year as well. Using focus and having a better and better routine and making better plans has just led to me shooting in a way that I’m really not used to shooting at all. It’s so much more consistent. And separator stations, I’m running them a lot more than I ever have in the past. I’m putting together longer and longer runs when I’m keeping everything together. I’m shooting better in two and three day shoots than I ever have in the past. In the past, I’d win a prelim and kind of fall apart, and now I seem to get more solid as the days go on. But the problem is trying to shut up the “what ifs” and the voices that keep coming into my head.
I shot really well at the state a few weeks ago and my problem now is people coming up to me and going, “Gosh Willy, you really shot great at the U.S. Open. I saw what you did. How’s it going? It looks like you’re shooting good here.”
Things just pop into my head and I’ll be running five or six stands and I just start to think stupid, crazy thoughts. I’ve been trying to shut myself up by saying, “Okay, I’m not going to go there.”
I’ve been talking back to myself. Giving myself another name. Doing everything we’ve been working on and really trying to stick to my focus and my routine, which I can get back to, but when I really go crazy, I’m dropping one or two or three birds.
Gil: When you say thinking stupid thoughts, what does that mean?
Willy: Well, you know all of a sudden I’ll go, “Oh gosh, I’m on station twelve. I’ve got two stations to go and I haven’t dropped a bird in the last eight stations.”
Or if I’m shooting well, they’re sometimes positive thoughts, and sometimes they’re thoughts about score. Basically the realization that, “Man, I’ve never shot this well in my life.” That kind of thought. There’s some anxiety when I think, “Oh gosh, I’ve only got two more stations to go.”
I really try to do my best at sticking to the routine and sticking to focus, but I start thinking like that and usually the first thing that happens is there’s a little bit of hesitation. There’s a little less commitment to the breakpoint on a first bird, which will usually throw off my timing a little bit.
Gil: And some of the thoughts that you think are even positive thoughts?
Willy: Yep. (laughs) And you know, I’ve worked really hard on developing good, positive self-talk. So somebody comes up to me and says, “That was a great job.”
I’ll say, “Well, you know, it was a lot of fun. I had a great time and it all worked out well for me.”
I’ve looked back at my log and I’ve noticed that the shoots where the high score is going to be not a 97 but maybe an 87 or an 82 or something like that, where there’s more built-in failure to the course, I seem to focus better at those because I look at the targets and it’s like, “Well, it’s okay if I drop one of these.”
Or I drop a target and go, “Well, you know what? I’m pretty happy with a five on this station.” I shot well.
Gil: That kind of goes back to when we were talking to Craig a couple of years ago about when he would practice a hard station and he might miss one, and he’d be able to walk away from that station and say, “You know, that station was a separator. I’m glad to get out of there with a seven, only missing one.”
Willy: Yeah. So those courses are easier for me than courses where I can break every one of these targets in practice, and I can do it over and over and over again. So I talked to Stevie after I got back from the State Shoot because I was a little disappointed with my ability to control my mental game. I was just disappointed. I felt like I could have shot those targets better if I could have gotten out of my own way.
He essentially had the same conversation with me that we had at the ranch about focusing on targets.
He said, “Okay, it’s going to happen. On a visually confusing pair, confusion is going to happen so accept it and be ready for it and just kill the bird where you want to kill the bird.”
And I was looking at my notes. So when I try to not think about being mentally confused or staying focused, it doesn’t seem to work that well for me.
So what I’ve been doing since is going, “Okay, I’m starting to think crazy thoughts and I wonder how crazy they’re going to get.”
And I just sit back and wait for them, to see how silly and ridiculous they can be. Then I step into the box and go, “Okay, I’m going to shoot these now and come back in a minute or two and see if I can think of something even more ridiculous than that.”
And I feel like it’s going to be a good thing for me. I’ve just started practicing it, and it’s not where I want it to be, but I have less anxiety than I do stepping into the box and going, “Man, I’ve been thinking the wrong stuff, and I need to quiet my voice, and I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to think about that; I’m just going to focus on this.”
So when I give it less emotion, when I give it less credibility and just accept that it’s going to happen, I seem to be a little more calm.
Stevie told me to anxiously await what is going to come into my mind next. (laughter) Which I just kind of liked. For example, by saying, “Okay, what other stupid thing am I going to think up?”
I seem to not be as mentally crazy after I kind of get into that groove. Is that a fair representation of what we talked about Stevie?
Steve: Yeah, sure Willy. I think that’s pretty much dead-on.
Gil: Stevie Ray, when you told him to accept the visual confusion, what does that mean?
Steve: Gil, I think it’s very similar from a conscious mind aspect to accepting what he’s talking about: those crazy thoughts. We really expend a lot of energy and a lot of time trying to keep the voice out. These crazy thoughts. You all know what they are. They come up and they’re some of the silliest things you’ve ever told yourself. Like: God, please don’t let me miss all of these.
Some of the craziest things come in. And instead of becoming frustrated by the fact that you can’t get them out of your mind, you can’t shut that voice up, the only thing I can tell you through my experience and with some of my students is to just doggone anxiously await the silliness of the next one.
It’s not going to keep the thoughts from coming in, but it will present itself in a very short-lived way. It will be over with, and you’ll be able to go on with your positive thoughts as we talked about.
The thing about visual confusion is the same stimulus in your conscious mind. It’s what you’ve asked yourself to do, “Okay, dang it, I’m not going to let this confuse me this time.”
A good scenario would be, “Okay, these birds cross right out here in my focal point. And I want to move my focal point a little bit, but I want to shoot that back bird first and then go to the front bird, so I’m not going to look at the front bird.”
Well, what happens when you prepare yourself for that? The very first thing you’re going to see is that front bird. And it creates an emotion. It creates an emotion that immediately instills confusion, disappointment, apprehension and just magnifies itself. I’ve seen people do it, and I’ve felt it myself. Years ago it would just absolutely cause me to miss both birds.
Gil: Because you were trying not to look at the front bird, you were trying to look at the back one.
Steve: Yeah. What I’ve essentially said to Willy is this, “Willy, go ahead and tell yourself you’re going to see the front one, and as soon as I see it, go to the back target. Eight o’ clock on the back target.”
I say, “Yeah, there’s that front one, now focus on the back one, eight o’ clock, bang!” Then I go to the front one. Once you’ve taken out that one, you’ve taken out every bit of the disappointment that is about to happen when you ask yourself not to see it, because it’s not humanly possible to not see it. You’re going to see it.
Gil: So rather than resisting the obvious, give into it and make yourself a positive plan on what you’re going to do after you see the first target. I will see the first target, go to eight o’ clock on the back target and then come back to the first target.
Steve: Yeah, and by the time you’ve done one pair it’s not even in your mind anymore. It’s not even an issue. After the first pair, it works. You’re cured.
Gil: So it’s the fear of the confusion that accentuates the confusion.
Steve: In a way. I don’t know that that’s the best way to say it, but that certainly does happen.
Gil: Or the resistance to the confusion maybe?
Steve: It’s the fact that what you expected, what you predicated, what you have told yourself is this, “By gosh, you’re not going to look at the front one. You’re going to look at the back one.”
You have all that emotion and all that anxiety, because the last time you were here, you dropped four pair. This thing is driving me crazy. I’ve dropped the first two. It’s the building of a snowball of emotions going downhill that whenever you ask yourself not to see it and you do, there’s an emotional explosion. And your subconscious cannot deal with that.
Brian: Let me ask you this, Stevie. Wouldn’t you also say that it’s the fear of self-doubt?
Steve: I think that is an entirely different thing, but it certainly does exist. That is something that maybe later on we can discuss but I want to lay some parameters to this whole thing. But if you want me to Gil, I’ll go ahead.
Gil: Go ahead!
Steve: Basically, it’s what we like to call the voice. I had a student yesterday; she called it the Old Wicked One. It’s the Old Wicked One that talks to you. But we need to establish some facts, some parameters that the conscious mind is not directly connected to the swing. We need to remember that. The conscious mind is like, “Stow that away somewhere, but keep it handy.”
A good example is a level one instructor clinic I did in Dallas six or seven years ago. The first half-day, I had seven or eight students and we spent it in a little classroom. And after lunch we had some real students to teach. Some real guinea pigs. One of my guys, the wannabe instructor, he’s dealing with a guy that is in himself. He’s just dealing with the fact that he’s in a clinic and in front of all these people. He was apprehensive, his knuckles were white and he was ripping that gun at a right-to-left crosser. He’s probably exceeding the speed of the bird by the ninth power. He is way faster than the target. And so the wannabe instructor begins to tell him, “You need to slow down.” He’s polite. He’s not in his face. He’s standing back away from him watching all his body language and the tone of his voice.
But the wannabe instructor begins to dig this hole. He told him 12 times to slow down. I wanted to make an example of it so I let it go until he was in such a deep hole, it looked like a backhoe had been out there, right? So I walked out there and said, “Class, I want you to remember what is about to happen. Remember this.”
I looked at the fella. I said, “Where you from, Doc?” He said Weatherford, Texas.
I said, “Out in Weatherford, do they even have any sorghum molasses?”
He said yes.
I said, “And in the winter, it gets pretty cold right? How about February?”
It’s a cold month, he replied.
I said, “In February, how slowly would the molasses come out of that jar? Now, I want you to move with this target just like molasses coming out of that jar in February.”
The guy slowed down and broke the target, but 12 times the wannabe instructor told him to slow down. Slow it down. He was saying it very calmly. Slow your swing down. But the subconscious did not understand s-l-o-w.
So it brings me to a point. For lack of a better phrase, I call these the positive sound-alikes. You know, Gil and I, we’ve discussed this. Sometimes what we say is not really what our subconscious perceives. That might be a way to put it. Is that right? Is that kind of the way we’ve put it?
Gil: Yeah, right. It’s not what you picture. Like I could say, “Stevie Ray, I’m not saying you’re ugly.” (laughter) Now, I just told him he wasn’t ugly, but he pictured me calling him ugly.
Steve: These are the positive sound-alikes. I think that we’ve seen a lot of them in a lot of mental health, self-help type books, “Man I am good. I am good at this. I can do this.” Those kind of things.
Those are not, in spite of what you may have thought prior to this call, good things to be saying before calling “pull”. Are they good things to say after a good break? Yeah. They make a big difference. It’s a big difference if you broke a target and you tell yourself, “Damn, I’m good at this.” But telling yourself you’re good at this before you call “pull”…
Gil: It’s a form of fear.
Steve: Just by the fact that you’re telling yourself, you must not believe it. Some of these things are easy to fool us. It’s like, “I’m not going to see the other bird, or I’m not going to see the barrel. I’m not going to take my mind off this shot.” Like Willy said, “I’m not going to take my mind off the shot. I’m not going to be thinking about how I’m about to win this tournament. I’m not going to take my eyes off the leading edge.”
That’s a big one, guys. There are physiological reasons why your eyes won’t stay on the leading edge for the whole path of the target. You talk about an opening for confusion? Go ahead and tell yourself, “I’m not going to take my eyes off the leading edge.” That’s a big opening. That’s like the whole front line opening up for the running back. That voice is coming through.
You’ll say, “Damn, I got so upset at myself out there. The next time I’m not going to get mad. I’m walking away from a station, and even though I only hit two out of eight, I’m not going to get mad.”
That’s ridiculous, but we say those things to ourselves. One of my favorites of all time, I can dedicate to Brian Brewton. “I’m not going to think about my score. I’m not going to think about my score.”
Gil: (laughs) You’re toast.
Steve: One big one is, “I’m not going to think about this being the last pair. Okay, now when I get to the last pair, I’m not even going to think about it.”
Gil: These are some of the things that Willy was talking about and that you said. They’re just stupid when you think about them.
Steve: We don’t think about what we just said to ourselves. I deal with these people, and I feel like a psychiatrist sometimes. You’re telling yourself you’re not going to see the other bird? God, what are you going to do, close your eyes?
Gil: That’s like telling yourself you’re not going to see the gun.
Steve: Right. Exactly. It’s like telling yourself, “Don’t think pink.”
Gil: It’s because the subconscious mind doesn’t understand the word “don’t”, right?
Steve: Yes, exactly. There are two elements. One is that the part of the mind that’s doing the swinging and the shooting is connected to the eyes. The eyes are like my hand’s seeing-eye dog. And when you get up there and you’re letting the voice go rampant, you might as well have somebody giving you a six-month-old weenie dog. (laughter) It’s not going to work; you’re going to get run over in traffic.
Gil: (laughing) I’m sorry. I just got that picture.
Steve: Right. And it brings me to what I want to talk about — where we mess up. I think what Gil and I talked about earlier is that it brings you to a place where when you’re preparing for a shot or a presentation, two shots, it’s often not what our subconscious expects or perceives. We almost have to get a little bit smarter. You’re going to have to think these things out.
If I go up there and say, “Don’t look at the front bird, shoot the back bird first.” I can only look at the first bird of a true pair or keep my eyes on the first bird and I won’t take my eyes off until it breaks. How’s that? We say that a lot. I’m going to keep my eyes on the first bird and I’m not going to take them off until it breaks. That’s a doggone good thing to say to yourself up until you get up to about A or AA class. But it’s not going to help you past that because what you’re saying is, “Okay, I’m going to keep my eye on the first bird and I’m not going to take it off until it breaks.” So what you’re telling yourself is that you have the propensity to take your eyes off the bird.
By saying that, and I’m going to tell you, I’ve been as guilty as anybody ever has been for years. But if I say, “Okay, by gosh, here I am, I’m ready, I’m about to say pull and I’ve got to have something going through my mind to help me in a positive way.”
So okay, keep your eye on the first bird and don’t take your eye off until it breaks. Well, all I’ve done is open up a hole in that line for that voice to say, “Well, why in the hell are you saying that? If you don’t think I can’t look over there, you’re full of shit.”
It’s like saying I’m not going to think about the last stand that I just crashed and burned on. I’m not going to think about that. Or, I’m not going to think about the station coming up with the thirty-five yard quartering rabbits. I’m not even going to think about that. Right now, I’ve got to deal with this stand.
It’s like, what do you say, Gil? You have to stay in the present, not the past or the future?
Gil: Yessir.
Steve: Well, if you want to stay out of the past, the wrong thing to say to yourself is this, “I’m not going to think about that last stand.”
Gil: Yeah, because the minute you say “last stand”, you’re already thinking about it, right?
Steve: You’re already in it. So as we’re saying these things, guys, I’m sure all of you are at a point where you want to take this final step on this quest for a mental thought process that works. You want to find this last step. And you can do all you want to do, but if you continue to give yourself these positive sound-alikes to occupy your voice, it’s not going to work.
Willy, you’re dead-on. I’m so proud of you. I could just kiss you; the next time I see you I’m going to do it if I can get Janet away from you. But you’re on the right path. And this is going to work. You’ve done so much in the last few months and the voices getting in there and worrying you a little bit about what could be in the future and that sort of stuff, was what, it cost you 12 birds, you said?
Willy: Yeah.
Steve: Okay, well those 12 birds, you know, you’re not going to get all 12 of them next time, but get them three or four at a time. Take it and practice this.
Gil: Tell us what you’re talking about Steve and Willy, about how it cost him 12 birds.
Steve: Willy, his score, he was right up there in the pack. I don’t remember exactly what his score was. Willy you tell them. You knew that about half of those birds you missed were because your thoughts left the target.
Willy: There were six birds at the state shoot that I lost because I went crazy.
Gil: When you say you went crazy, was it the fact that you were trying not to think?
Willy: I was trying not to think. I was thinking like a racehorse in the final stretch. I was starting my routine over. I was focusing in my breakpoints, but my anxiety just went up and I felt like it cost me. It didn’t cost me on birds that I felt were really tough pairs. It was nothing but not being able to quiet my mind and really stick to my plan and stick to my breakpoints.
Steve: You said so much just then, Willy. You said something that we almost have to be careful even thinking—“to quiet my mind.” I’ve talked about all kinds of problems so far. Let’s talk about the solutions that I recommended. I said, “You can’t shut the voice up. You can’t silence the lambs. Like, you know, ‘Hello Clarice.’” You just can’t do that. You can’t silence that voice. Forget it.
Yes, you can remember shooting. We used to say this all the time. “Damn, boy, I was in a zone. I was in a zone. They had to tell me when I was through. I shot that whole course, and I didn’t even know what my (delete whole) score was.” Well guys, in the U.S. Open, that ain’t going to happen. You are not going to silence the voice when the terms are important to you. Whether it’s a grudge match or the U.S. Open, it’s not going to shut up.
So I told Willy to occupy the voice. Give the voice something to say.
Here’s something that I do. This is me, and you all know that we’re a little different, but this is Steve Brown. Today I was shooting about a 55- yard tower shot with a lady’s gun that was a little short for me. I was giving a lesson and I shot about six times for her to see it.
Now, there’s pressure on me because I don’t like to miss in front of a student. Although, lets admit it, it’ll happen, you know? But I just don’t like to miss in front of a student. I’m trying to show her the cor- rect way to do it, not the wrong way to do it. So I tell myself, “Ready.” We call it the initiation point, like Lanny Basham or something, but there’s a point where I go to my voice and I let my voice say this, “I feel my front hand moving to where the target is going, gradually letting the target overtake … three o’clock!” I don’t even get to overtake myself. My mind almost shouts “three o’clock,” or wherever that lead- ing edge is to me. I just smoked the first one, I looked at her and asked, “What choke do you have in this thing?” So I continue to do it, six or seven times in a row, almost just like a machine, because I gave the voice something to say. Now between shots or while I was loading her gun, don’t think I didn’t say, “Oh, this gun’s a little short for you, Steve,” or, “Boy, don’t you miss in front of her and her husband.” Here they are paying $100 an hour and you’ve already run your mouth a little bit. This voice is running crazy. Like Willy. Right, Willy?
Willy: Right.
Gil: I’ve heard that voice.
Steve: Yeah, but all you have to do is give it something to do for three seconds. Now I haven’t tried this yet, but I think I could let you put my big toe in a vice and let you squeeze it a little bit, and I believe I could think about Sharon Stone or Demi Moore for about three seconds. I believe I could do that.
Gil: Well, what I hear is that you can’t not think. And some of the things that we might have thought were good and positive to say, might not be the best things to control the voice. And giving the voice something to say ties it up. And if you give it something that is beneficial to the shot, “I feel my front hand moving to the breakpoint… three o’clock!” Or, for me, I say, “I feel the muzzles ahead of the bird, moving to the breakpoint.”
All I know is that as long as the gun is ahead of that bird and I’m moving to the breakpoint I’ve got it in control. It makes it easier for me.
That is my swing thought. That is why the last thing that I’d look at and the last thing that I would tell you to look at would be the first breakpoint. That’s where everything that I’m going to do with the gun is going to go. I’m not going to the bird; I’m going to the breakpoint. And it’s that thing that gives the voice something to say, and it’s tied up in saying that, and it’s actually beneficial to what’s going on. In no uncertain terms does it ever include the words “not” or “don’t.”
Steve: I think you’re correct. That’s absolutely correct, because remember what I told you to hang up there on the wall. That conscious mind, it’s not connected. It’s not directly connected to the swing. It is approximately 2/10s of a second behind what your subconscious could do if you’d just let it. Get the voices out of the way and you’re 2/10s of a second ahead of yourself, your brain is.
They have tested reaction times. The word “stop” is not understood by your motor center. Stop has to go through your conscious mind. Yeah, it’ll get there and how fast it gets there is measured in reaction time. What we don’t want is that delay in our performance. It’s haphazard at best.
Steve: Gil, you know how I do a lot of my thinking on the pot?
Gil: Yessir.
Steve: Well, I came up with an acronym.
Gil: I don’t know whether I want to hear this, but I’ll go for it anyway.
Steve: Okay. It’s ruf or roof, depending on what part of Texas you’re from. And that was the only word I could spell that would go along with this. And it has to do with this voice. This is really new, this only happened to me a couple of weeks ago. R stands for or represents an E-class shooter or someone who has E-class scores. He’s a beginner to sporting clays. He’s a pretty darn good hunter. He shoots real well out of the back of a truck, but the R stands for “Rarely occupies his voice”. He rarely gives his voice something to do. His voice is like a naggin’ widow woman.
Okay. Now the very first O stands for Occasionally. This is maybe, a D-class shooter. He’s getting into the game. He enjoys it. He doesn’t embarrass himself as much now. He almost ran three stations the last time he shot a round. Occasionally, his voice will utter some semblance of a feely word. Some feely word that is subconscious and sometimes his eyes will go to the leading edge.
The second O stands for Often. This is a guy who shoots in the 80s, maybe until tournament day when the pressure’s on. Or he may do well at his own home course. Things haven’t been changed too much. Familiar surroundings. He often feels the shot and confidence creeping in and they’re beginning to silence the nagging.
The F means Frequently. This is that A or AA or even a lower Master class shooter. He’s always in the top ten percent of the field. He wins at the smaller tournaments. That is where he seems to excel, in the smaller field. He shoots in the 90s pretty much every time in practice. He Frequently occupies the voice with feel and focal acuity.
But then that wasn’t enough, because there are people better than that. What’s Digweed? What’s Fowler? What are some of these other guys? I had to come up with another word. So I came up with ROOFWE, I had to come up with WE. I know, ROOFWE isn’t a word. But WE stands for Without Exception.
You could say that someone who is performing in the top five percent, pretty much Without Exception has a voice that’s pure confidence and a vocabulary that’s 100 percent feely. It’s the language of the subconscious. His mental focus at the break, at the time he pulls the trigger, it assures his eyes are acutely and intensely focused. And I was thinking about Digweed, because we’ve spent a little time around Digweed, and I don’t think that Digweed has stepped into the stand without saying, I believe he’s going to have this voice that says, “Holy crap old man, we haven’t dropped a target. Don’t drop one now, we’re about to shoot a perfect round.”
You know he’s going to have something like that that comes in. My only guess is that he’s extremely adept at giving the voice something good to say. After watching him shoot you could hardly think that his voice was doing what Willy’s was doing.
Gil: Oh, no.
Steve: No. So ROOFWE buddy.
Gil: ROOFWE. (laughs)
Steve: Yeah. Might be something for your next article.
Willy: Can I add something? When Stevie was describing his tower shot, he was thinking about swing mechanics and then he said “three o’clock.” And I hear Stevie screaming sometimes when I’m shooting, when I’m shooting really well. And Stevie screaming is, if you ever had a cat and wired him up to a car battery, (laughter) it would be kind of close, but not quite as unnerving as it is the first time you hear it.
And the first time he did it to me at the ranch, it really bugged the shit out of me. I was like, “Who is this guy?” But the more I play with it, when I’m shooting sometimes I’ll have thoughts of swing mechanics. I’m thinking, “Okay I’ve got to have a lateral move, but that bird gets close to the breakpoint, and in my plan, I’ve named the spot that my eyes are going to go to on that bird.” If it’s three o’clock, that bird starts to get close to the breakpoint, and I hear Stevie screaming “three o’clock!” and my eyes go there from wherever they’ve been, which is usually not the front of the target. It might be the back of the target or if there’s visual confusion it might be the whole picture, but immediately when I start screaming “three o’clock!” my eyes go and I lose all thoughts of my gun.
I lose everything other than that “three o’clock,” and I smoke targets harder than I ever have before. So I just wanted to clarify that example, at least in how I think about it. I’m trying to shoot without thinking of swing mechanics, but if I am, I’m dang sure hoping that I’m going to hear Stevie screaming in my ear, “Go to that front edge!”
Steve: But Willy, swing mechanics will occupy your voice until that point. Swing mechanics aren’t so bad, are they Gil?
Gil: No. no.
Steve: I mean I’m going to tell you something that’s a good thing to be thinking about. Your little old chant about, “Okay, I’m having a lateral move, my front hand is going along but all of a sudden, scream, buddy.”
I want to say this because I have messed some people up because it looks like they’re thrusting a bayonet at the end. It’s just that my voice screams to me: acuity. I have a voice like you do, and it’s talking about the swing and then at the end, it screams acuity. And then it goes back to, “Oh my God, I hope I don’t miss the next pair.”
Gil: Now I’ve got a question. What happens if you’re shooting at a bird that’s 55 yards away and you can’t actually see the front edge of the target?
Stevie: That’s a very good one. This has to do with vision, and one of the best examples of that is my 97-year-old student, my oldest student; he can’t tell you if a target is really round or flat or square or whatever, but I’m going to tell you, on any object, his hands will go to three o’ clock. Or five o’ clock, or six o’clock, whatever it is.
The one thing you always need to remember, especially when you get a little long in the tooth, is that you don’t have to be able to see clearly and acutely. You just need to be able to focus acutely, your mental focus. So on a 60-yard crosser, hell no, I can’t see the edge. Let’s see, at 60 yards your center vision, your focal vision is about the size of a nickel at 60 yards. Can I pick out a nickel, something that small on a target at 60 yards? I doubt it. But I know exactly where it is. That’s my seeing-eye dog. My hands will go there.
Gil: Your awareness is of where the front edge is, not necessarily acutely on the front edge.
Stevie: Not necessarily your ability to see it acutely. It’s your ability to focus acutely. Like when he says “three o’ clock” and bless his heart, if I’m screaming, I’m sorry. California is a long way away, but when he says “three o clock,” it’s an acute, sharp, intense little place.
Now, whether he can see it or not is of no consequence. You know, visually see it. What matters is that he can focus acutely there on a small place. I’ve taught dozens and dozens– you’ve probably taught hundreds– of visually impaired people. I find that they can shoot well if you can just get them over the fact that they don’t see that well. Their hands still know where it is. The hands didn’t go blind. The motor center didn’t go blind. You know, they can still pick their nose without missing it.
Gil: It’s an amazing thing. I’ve worked with a guy, and Vicki worked with him a little bit, a guy by the name of Steve (Nutbean?). He talks about being out in front of the target. And there is something to that, but I think that in my own way I stumbled into what he’s talking about. You’ll hear some of the British instructors talk about looking out in front of the target, and to me, when they say look out in front of the target they are not actually looking out to a space in front of the target, but becoming acutely aware of where the front of the target is, just like you’re talking about. That make sense to you, Stevie?
Steve: Very much. Now, you mentioned the circle, the neurological pathway of focal vision and peripheral vision. It’s a physiological fact, a scientifically-based fact, that the center vision, the focal vision is real time and the peripheral vision is a delayed time, or a delayed image. So to me, I don’t think I’m any different from what you’re talking about. Hopefully these other guys, understand what you’re saying. But I am intently aware, I have an intense focus on that target when the voice shouts to me “three o clock.” But I’m still almost subconsciously aware of the fact that I’m still ahead of the bird and we’re about to merge.
Gil: Yeah, it’s about to happen.
Steve: Right. We’re about to merge and it’s time to pull the trigger. Which would be compared to how I can still hit a baseball but I don’t have to look at the bat. My hands know where they need to be.
Gil: Provided there’s no interference. Provided there’s no conscious interference.
Stevie: Yes. Usually it is a conscious interference. There are a couple of things that could go wrong I think, I’m just shooting from the hip here. One is that you could have misread the target. You could have underestimated the angle, the presentation. That is always out there. But you’re either going to have your thought come off of it, or you’ve done something physically wrong, something very fundamental. Maybe you had your feet turned too far and your femur joints locked up or something. Maybe you restricted your swing. Maybe you did something like insert too close to the target. You inserted too close to the bird on a long target and occluded the vision on your right eye, or your shooting eye, if you’re left handed, it would be your left eye. There could be some fundamental move that you’ve done wrong, but in my experience, you’ve got to be able to do everything you can to be able to look back and say, “I did everything I could to focus, so now I must be…” What do we call it, Willy? Not going out in the country?
Willy: Yeah.
Gil: Getting too close to the bird or letting the bird get too close.
Stevie: Right.
Gil: Cause when the bird gets too close, it gets in the way.
Steve: Yeah. The barrel gets in the way. It can occlude the vision so easily. Somebody asked me about that the other day. With my better shooters, I would have to say with all confidence that 95 percent of their misses, on crossers, is that they have inserted too close to the bird. They’ve occluded the vision on that eye.
Gil: Yessir.
Steve: It looks like they’re shooting cross-dominant. So if you’re a shooting instructor standing behind him, don’t go there. If you’ve been shooting with him that long, you ought to know he’s not cross- dominant; he’s just getting the barrel in the way of his eye.
Gil: And that leads to a lot of excuses and a lot of other visual and vocal confusion.
Steve: Oh my gosh, yes. How many times have you read, even by otherwise intelligent people, who say his dominance is crossing.
Gil: Can’t happen.
Steve: No, it’s physiologically impossible. Your dominance cannot swap. The cells developed in the third layer of the visual cortex when you were about 18 months old, and you’re not going to go in there and change them. They’re not going to change today or tomorrow. They’re there.
Gil: Regardless of the acuity in the eye.
Steve: Regardless of the acuity in the eye. As a matter of fact, my first experience was with a man from Waco who came to me and said: You’re going to have a tough time with me. You’ve got your work cut out.
I asked why.
He said, “Well, I’m blind in my left eye.” I asked, “You shoot right-handed?”
He said yeah.
I said, “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
I get out there, and by gosh, we were on a little ol’ going away trap shot, a quartering trap shot. After he missed it about five times I said to myself, “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy is left eye- dominant, but he told me he’s blind in his left eye.” I watched him miss a couple more times.
I couldn’t stand it. I said, “You know, I’m baffled. Are you blind in your left eye?”
He said, “Well, I’m legally blind, but I can see out of it.”
I put my finger at the end of the muzzle at the end of the barrel. I asked, “Can you see my finger?”
He said, “Not clearly.”
I moved it about midway down, about where a mid bead would be. “Can you see my finger now?” I asked.
He said, “Yeah, I can tell it’s your finger.”
I said, “Well, it doesn’t matter how well you can see. If you’re left eye-dominant, your left eye still is going to guide the gun if you’re aware of the muzzle.” Right, Vicki?
Vicki: Yessir. Big time.
Steve: So he was legally blind and muzzle-aware and still letting the left eye guide it. So you can’t say that it’s visual acuity.
Gil: Would it be fair to say Steve, in discussing our self-talk, that any time we say something that has to do with feelings or pictures that it’s a good thing?
Steve: With your added advice about staying away from putting “not” or “don’t” in there.
Gil: Exactly.
Steve: But, yes.
Gil: Because to me, in all the studies I’ve done, the subconscious understands feelings and pictures. It does not understand analytical reasoning and the word no.
Steve: Right. The “verbiage”, we’d call it. Like the example of the student I gave you. He didn’t understand the word “slow” or “slower.”
Gil: Right. But you gave him a picture. Slower is a relative term. If you’ll remember in Tim Gallwey’s book, he talked about the principle of awareness. And I’ve used that several times. Somebody is out-swinging the target, and I’ll say, “Okay, the target is going two and you’re swing- ing four, I want you to go at one.” When I attach those numbers to what’s happening and change the equation, all of a sudden the student has a picture. And whenever you’re trying to mainline to your subcon- scious, if you can talk about feelings and pictures, the subconscious can pick it up. It does not understand analytical reasoning. And “no” is typically heard in analytical reasoning. Would that be a fair statement in your opinion?
Steve: Not only fair, I think it’s dead-on.
Gil: It’s not quite as East Texas, you understand.
Steve: I understand, but you haven’t been through the treatment center like I have.
Brian came up to me, we’d been having lessons, He asked me to give him a series of lessons. Brian was doing so much better. He was at the top of the pack. He was out there with the leaders. I looked up at the scoreboard and he was up there with the leaders, that old boy. I was proud of him.
He came out for a lesson and he said, “You know, I’m shooting with the guys that are the winners in the tournament and they’re in my squad and I know what the scores are and I know I’m about to win this tournament. I’ve got two stations left. Two 10 shots stations.” He said that in the last two tournaments he dropped six out of 10 on one and five out of 10 on another. He just went to pot in the last 20 birds. As he was telling me this, I said, “Well, what would you like to talk about, what would you like to do today.” He’s driven from his place a couple of hours away, and he says, “What I want for you to do for me today coach, is teach me how to not know what my score is.”
We’re standing out there in the practice area, out in front of five stand. I just turn around. I just leave him standing there. I dropped my pull cord. Walked off and just left him there.
Gil: Hey
Stevie Ray? We’re going to have to finish this story next month, because it’s time to sign off. If you all want to
hear about the rest of the
story, you’re going to have to join us next month.
Stevie Ray, thank you for talking to us tonight
and I look forward to picking this up next month. Next month we’re going
to talk a little bit more about the two visual
circles and how they interact. And we’ll talk about some things to get you ready for
Nationals. Again Steve, thank you very much.
It’s been very enlightening and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as
we did. Until
next month, just remember, your potential is like your weight. You never really lose it, you just push it in different
directions based on your attitude. Goodnight!
