2014-01 – January 2014 Coaching Hour – Performance Observations

…….January – Performance Observations)…….

– Noticing Folks Noticing Their Guns

– Honing Self-Talk

– Two Concerns of Process-Oriented Self-Talk

– Harping on Preload

To start the first session off right, we dive into a summary of performance observations that we’ve tallied up at tournaments over the years, most notably two widespread habits.

Those would be shooters looking at their guys and shooters talking to themselves in ways that submarine their performance and self-confidence.

We also offer up alternatives that have worked for our students regarding how to hone self-talk and use process-oriented language to keep from going down the negative rabbit hole.

Noticing Folks Noticing Their Guns

Gil: Last month I finished up talking about how the gun gets in and how people check for the gun at the last minute, which masquerades as a specific hold point, and we see that a lot. We still see it. We continue to see people checking the gun as they close the gun and checking the gun as they set the gun at a hold point, and it just ain’t going to work. That’s one of the leading causes of people letting the gun get into their shot, and I’ve got some more to talk about that a little later on.

In the last 30 days we’ve been able to go out and shoot some targets. We’ve shot a couple of courses. We haven’t been able to shoot any tournaments; but we’ve had some downtime, and we’ve  been trying some new gun stocks and some new guns, new parcours, and we’re playing with them. We were able to go out and actually shoot courses, and we watched people. I’ve got to tell you, it’s crazy how much attention people give their guns and their setup and they wonder why they keep looking at it. Well, most of them don’t know they’re looking at the gun. They wonder why they keep shooting behind. They wonder why they can’t get the lead right. They wonder why they can’t get the lead consistent. They wonder why they’re inconsistent, and it was amazing to us.

We went to several different courses, and a lot of times we would go and shoot; but then we would back up and just get in the back- ground as much as we can be in the background and be who we are and watch people shoot, and at the first time of difficulty, it’s like drop- ping a water balloon. It makes you explode with this psycho-babble of how they screwed everything up, and it just cascades into one nega- tive comment after another. One of the things that I ended with last month, and I said, it’s much like my sister in law, Vicki’s brother’s lovely wife. She is constantly babbling about something. And shooters, what we see is it’s usually about how they’re shooting or what they’re hop- ing to happen or what they’re hoping not to happen. I would think this kind of parallels, Clyde, when people are just starting to fish tourna- ments. If they’re out there and if their first plan doesn’t work and if they have a second plan and the second plan doesn’t work, they’ll have a third and fourth plan, and they don’t have experience enough to stop and go over thoroughly what they’ve done to make a good third and fourth plan and all of a sudden they imagine everybody else in the tournament already had the limit. Would that be correct?

Clyde: I’d say that would be really correct.

Gil: Yeah. Because everybody always imagines their competitors are always doing much better than they are, and they always give their competitors credit for for shooting all of the targets that they missed or already having more fish in the boat. I know we’ve worked with several club bass fishermen, and the biggest thing they’ve got to do is to realize that giving in and talking to yourself in that negative way ups the pace of what you do, which pulls your lure out of the strike zone most of the time, and most of the time you’ve given people credit for something that they haven’t already done.

What was your strategy when you were competing mostly in the tournament circuit? When your first and second plan didn’t work out, what did you do?

Clyde: Usually went back to the basics. You went back and just sud- denly analyzed, okay, it’s structure. It’s the drop offs. Just get back to the basics part of it to figure out where you’re comfortable and have confidence because that’s about 90 percent of it.

Gil: Is it amazing to you how people, when you put a shotgun in their hands, at the first sign of adversity, they’ll take any advice out there from somebody that they perceive can hit a target better than they can? It doesn’t matter how far off from basics it is. They’ll still take that advice and try to implement it even though it’s against most sound fundamentals that they even thought about. Isn’t that amazing?

Clyde: The amazing thing to me, it seems like, is the advice you get without having to ask for it.

Gil: Yeah. And it’s also amazing that some guy 25 steps to your right thinks he’s seeing the same thing that you are.

Clyde: Yeah.

Gil: Yep. The unsolicited advice is amazing on the sporting clays field. I go back to what I’ve used several times in some of our larger presentations, where we tell people you never have to worry about getting lost in the woods if you have a shotgun because all you have to do is fire it twice in the air, and there will be ten sporting clays shooters come out of the woods and tell you where you are. So you never have to worry about being lost.

Honing Self-Talk

Gil: But most of the time self talk is just babble. It’s just going on and on and on and on. There are times and usages for self talk and I’m going to talk a little bit about that from a piece that Bob Shannon sent me three or four weeks ago; but most of the stuff that we hear on the sporting clays course is a justification to people around you that you know why you missed and you’re not stupid; but in making that nothing but babble, it ends up making you look really stupid to the people that know what they’re doing.

I think we need to revisit what Jeff Wolfe told us a couple of  months ago when he had that incredible round. He said there was nothing in his mind. He said it was completely blank, and being able to capture a mindset like that is also a neuro-circuit that you have to do enough times so that you can call on it.

My thoughts when I was shooting in the National Championship, and I did well this year, were on process on the preload. The more I  did it, the less I was aware of the picture. It just happened in the plan. When I would walk into the stand, my preload was that it’s either       left of the barrel or across the barrel. Where is the target coming   from? Same speed at the end. And I was stubborn with the picture on quartering birds. I’ve worked with several shooters recently on that.

Doug, I worked with you a little bit on that stable picture at the end and being stubborn on quartering birds and trying to not see the gun, accept the path, that the gun is going to be there, and if you’re still around, I want you to answer this. I think at the end of that lesson you told me that it was a momentous occasion or something like that, right?

Doug: Correct.

Gil: Yeah. And that puts a different light on everything, doesn’t it?

Doug: Without a doubt.

Gil: Regardless of where we go, regardless of whether it’s in our shooting, regardless of whether we’re coaching people, obviously you’ve got to keep the score thoughts out of your mind; but I find it so much easier if I preload what it is I’m about to ask the brain to do, and then I execute being stubborn with the picture on quartering birds, and I’ll explain that in a minute, stabilizing the picture on quartering birds. I feel very comfortable with that. It really takes the thinking out of the actual shot, and I feel more like what Jeff said, that when he was shooting, in his mind he was completely blank.

And I’m asking to ask you if you thought that way in a second, Doug, after our lesson.

When I was shooting, even this last month, when we’ve been play- ing at the club watching people, it’s been a real journey. I’ve got tell you. When I got in there, I must say the first station I didn’t shoot very well. I didn’t shoot very well on the second station; but after the third station I kind of got my groove and I got my timing back, and I shot really well on some very difficult targets that Brian had set; but my preload continues to get easier and my preload continues to get much better and more specific in the preload so that when I close the gun I just have this blank thing. It all just goes to the right place. I call pull.

I’m on the bird. I’m moving away from it, and if it comes together I’m either going to stabilize the picture or if it’s a quartering bird that I’m going to be very stubborn with that picture. I’m not going to pull the trigger until I know the bird is just to the right of the muzzle or just to the left of the muzzle. I’m going to make sure that I don’t just jab at that bird and hope. I’m going to slow it down at the end.

I found myself this year at Nationals being very stubborn with quar- tering pictures and realizing that, in the past, the reason I’ve had trou- ble with quartering pictures is I was not slowing down with the bird. I was really accelerating because I was trying to mount the gun and take the shot at the same time, which means on a fast bird you typically do that pretty fast, and because the quartering bird is a decelerating bird, I was going right by and over on a lot of those quartering birds.

And I shared that with Doug, and everybody that we’ve showed that to, it just seems to make them be a lot more in control and slow on those quartering birds, and it makes them relax on the crossing birds because you know what you’re going to do. You’ve already seen it in your mind, and it takes the thinking out of it because you’ve already given your brain a command for what it is you want it to do.

Is that the way you felt, Doug?

Doug: Without a doubt. It’s just really hard to explain because, like you said, you aren’t rushed and you had plenty of time. In the past you felt that your timing had to be exactly perfect. Perfect. To me, it felt like I was showing the gun a little bit with this. The operative word there was stubborn, stubborn with the picture, and when you’re stubborn with the picture, it’s just amazing how it’s just right and you pull the trigger and it’s done.

Gil: And the pictures make sense.

Doug: Yes, without a doubt.

Gil: And the more you go through the round, the easier the pictures come, and the more you do this in practice, the easier the pictures come. The easier the preload comes, the more consistent the preload, the more consistent the brain knows what it is you’re asking it to do. Everything gets better and everything gets easier so that it’s easier for you to relax before the competition and turn it on on the first station and then turn it off between the stations.

To me when you’re totally consumed with this triangle, if you will, when you’re totally consumed with it, there’s no score thoughts, and it really helps you control your self talk. You’re not begging yourself. You’re not telling yourself it’s like you to hit these, come on, come on now, you can do this, you can do this when the score thoughts come in. When the score thoughts comes in and it says, hey, man, you’re only down three, you’ve got three stations to go, you’re not having to talk yourself into not thinking that way. You automatically go to the preload. You know what you’re going to do. You’ve done it before, and it just makes it so much quieter in your mind. Like you said, Doug, it’s just quieter.

There’s not as much junk going on, getting in the way. And understand that self talk is not bad. We just make it that way. We can control it, and you can find different ways to control it. Your self talk can provide a task specific focus in pressured environments and can be applied to each performance setting.

Just like Clyde was saying, when the first one doesn’t work out and the second plan doesn’t work out, you stop. You don’t keep fishing faster and changing baits faster. You slow down and you stop. You go back into your memory bank and observe what’s around you, go back to fundamentals, something you have confidence in. It’s the same thing in sporting. You go back to fundamentals, either crossing or quarter- ing. If it’s quartering, stabilize the picture. If it’s crossing, stabilize the picture, be early, let it come, keep your nose on the target, go back to those fundamental things.

Self talk can take the form of a cue word or a phrase or a self direction pertaining to what you’re about to do, front edge, same speed, stable picture, stubborn with the picture, just left and just across the barrel.

Team sports require a little different self talk, and we need to talk   a little bit about self talk because inevitably, it’s going to be there. You’re not always going to have a peak performance where your mind goes blank; however, I’ll tell you that Doug discovered when you’re really there and you begin to give your brain much clearer commands on what it is you’re asking it to do and it responds: oh, look out. Especially in a single person’s sport like we have. In a team sport, it’s different because in a team sport you’re part of the team, and you’ve got to pay attention to your job, and you’re always talking about contingency plans. I know when I played softball, fast pitch softball, my goodness, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?

Vicki: Right.

Gil: Forty years ago, I played center field and right field, and I asked to play right field most of all because I like anticipating overthrows at first base, and I felt like when I played that I was going to be involved in every play. I wanted to know what my job was. If the ball came to me, I knew what my job was. If the ball went to center field, I know I was going to back up first base. If the ball went to second base or shortstop or third base, my job was to go in and back up first base in case there was a bad throw. Countless times, countless times when there was a bad throw on first base, I was there when I wasn’t expected to be there, and just thinking ahead and staying in that game from a team standpoint, thinking about: okay, what’s my job, that kept me in the game, and it kept me from thinking negatively because I was always being a problem solver. I was always there to help somebody else.

Even one time, the runner got around to third base, and there was no play on my side of the field, and I went in and I backed up home plate, and they overthrew the third base. When the catcher missed the ball, I caught the ball. The runner that’s coming in from third thought he had a free shot at it, and I cut him off and got him in a hot box and put him out, and Andy looked at me and said: Where did you come from?

I said: Right field. And I trotted back out there. I mean, it was just one of those things that just kept me in that game. But now that’s in a team sport where you’re always anticipating when the next play will occur and what could happen. You know, I was always positioning myself to back somebody up. What’s my next job? Process goals, check- ing what might happen and being there to help.

Two Concerns of Process-Oriented Self-Talk 

Gil: There are two concerns about process oriented self talk. Listen up. There are two concerns about process oriented self talk. One, conscious process. Skill performances will deteriorate if the performer tries to exert conscious control over movements that are subconscious. So sometimes conscious self talk when you’re in the zone is not the best thing to do. Stop the babble. Think about process. Thinking about mechanical thinking while performing is a distraction. It can really hurt your performance. It’s one of those things that Steve Brown would call a positive soundalike. It sounds good. It sounds good; but it encourages you to think mechanically, and when you start thinking mechanically, you become distracted in your performance.

While a series of instruction cues during the competition  may cause a performer to focus on the step by step mechanics of the shot, the use of one holistic cue could actually prevent that from occurring: Same speed at the end, away, smooth, stable, the front, there. Those kinds of thoughts that carry a picture, not necessarily a conscious hold point here, blah blah blah blah, not necessarily a one, two, three, ABC shot observation but, more or less, an end product … those kinds of things are good. Not: make sure your head is down and follow through, dismount between targets, reciprocal move back into the face. Those are the kinds of things that pull you out of that subconscious realm   and that zone performance that you’re having because those kind of thoughts are a distraction during performance.

So it’s important what you say and how you say it. Speak the lan- guage of pictures and feelings and you’re there. That’s what Steve Brown would say, stable there, same speed, picture, smooth, away.

Practicing the preload allows you to begin to develop the correct self talk phrases for you and begin the process of visualization when you use them. The preload, and it seems as though this is a broken record on this show for the past three or four months; but I’ve learned more and more as we present this material to larger and larger groups. I get up there and I get in my zone, and my lovely wife is standing over there just waiting on me to stumble, and when I stumble I look at her and say: where should I go and shoot, and she will tell me where to go. I mean, what should I talk about next, not where to go. She would tell me where to go if I needed to be told that; but she keeps bringing me back to this preload.

Doing the preload when you practice is critical, and when I get a little bit further into this in a few more minutes and I start talking about some of the things that we’ve discovered in the presentations that we’ve been giving when we’ve been in our little zone, it’s increasingly more important to us that you understand that the preload is where you’re being clear to your brain what it is you’re asking it to do. It takes you away from that psycho-babble. It allows you to use the same self talk in practice as you do in the game. It’s all the same. It’s just another day at the sporting clays range. And the more you use your preload in practice, the more the preload is equal to the reality, the more the brain understands what it is.

Man, I’ll telling you, I see things now, guys, that I’ve never seen before. It’s just different. That’s all I can tell you. It just happens and my preload is not as detailed. My preload always includes left of the barrel or across the barrel. Especially if it’s right to left I always say across the bar- rel. I want my brain to be clear about that. It’s the same speed at the end right there. And the more I’ve done it, what little I’ve done it, the more I’ve done it, the better I shot, and you can ask Vicki. I’m not chipping targets. I’m ink balling targets, and it’s like before you pull the trigger you know the target is going to break. It’s an absolutely amazing feeling.

You know, of all the things that we’re looking for, we’re looking  for confidence. We’re looking for consistency. We’re looking for con- gruency. We’re looking for those positive phrases. All of those things are a result of the preload and reality being the same thing. Every sin- gle one of those things we’re looking for are a by-product of the pre- load and reality being the same thing. I can’t say that too many times. That was an amazing realization for Vicki and I two or three weeks ago. We’ve said it; but we haven’t said it that way. We’ve understood it; but we haven’t understood it as deeply that way as we do now. The second concern that you might have about the positive self talk process is that performers reliably report that peak performance states are character- ized by a lack of conscious thought process.

Now, hear me out. When I get in my little zone, my wife can tell you when I’m there. I can’t tell you; but she can tell you while I’m going into it. When I get into my little zone, the preload just happens. I see it. And it’s like the plans for the shot are more obvious. I’m going to cover this a little later; but it doesn’t matter how difficult the presentation is. There’s no difficult presentation because you’ve already got a solution because you’ve got a plan. Because you’ve preloaded stuff so many times, all you have to do is have the confidence to say: oh, okay, well, that’s a crosser, I’m going to stabilize it right there. That’s a quartering bird across the barrel. I’m going to be stubborn with the picture right there.

Because you’ve done it so many times, the things that we’ve been trying to create, artificially are a by-product of that preload and reality being the same thing. And there are people out there trying to create it on their own by thinking positively; but they rarely get there, and if they do they can’t recreate it. But you can recreate this over and over and over and over again, and everything that you’ve been searching for from a mental game standpoint is a by-product of the preload equaling reality. It’s a hard thing to imagine if you haven’t experienced it.

We were down at the Browning-Briley, oh, a week or so ago and I’ve been studying color, lure color, water clarity, incoming, outgoing, overcast, sunlight, and based on what I’ve been studying, I’ve got probably 150 pages of written material that I’ve been studying. I said: okay, this afternoon, it’s going to be overcast. We’re going to catch fish on this bait, and we’re going to catch them right down there at that depth, and they’re going to start biting at about 4:30, and this was nine o’clock that morning. Vicki said whatever.

Vicki: Sure. 

Gil: Now, I want you to know, at 3:30, four o’clock I went and got       my waders on. She said, What are you doing? I said: Don’t forget my waders. I’m going to go down there by that little reef and I’m going to catch fish.

Oh, okay, whatever.

And she went out on the dock with the same lure, and she was catching fish down there. By that time I was in the water, and I waded right by her on the dock, and I went down there to almost within ten steps of where I told her I was going to catch these fish, on what lure I was going to catch the fish on, and I caught fish until it got dark. Now, that may not sound like much to you guys; but I made a commitment at nine o’clock that morning, if the forecast was true, where I was going to do something, what I was going to do it with and what lure I was going to use. I know I’m not impressing Clyde because he can do that in his sleep; but for a guy who has never done that and never experienced stuff like that, that was a very satisfying experience to me because I predicted it, and I did it and it happened.

Now, I wasn’t thinking while I was doing it. I just made the decision. I went ahead and did it. Just be aware that when you’re in that little zone, too much self talk can turn you into a conscious fool. Individuals do tend to think when performing, especially in pressure situations. It’s good to have a Plan B.

Now, I go back to what Clyde said. Every performance that you have is not going to be a stellar performance. It’s just not going to happen that way. Some are going to be better than others. Some are not going to be as good as others. So on those days where your mojo is not there and it’s not working, it’s good to have a Plan B; but you practiced in case Plan A happens not to show up that day. And so when you’re out practicing, you’re having a difficult day, those are the times to try, okay, like, practice, go back to fundamentals. Those are the days when you’re going to learn the most about yourself, and you’re going   to create the greatest amount of  improvement.

Would you not agree with that, Clyde? When your Plan A doesn’t work and you’ve got to bring your Plan B to Plan A’s level and it works, those are the days that you really learn the most, right?

Clyde: You learn the most about yourself, too.

Gil: Yeah. That’s huge. That’s absolutely huge. I cannot tell you how many people, and for some reason this happens in cycles, but how many people have emailed us and sent us texts about how working with us has changed their outlook on themselves and how it’s changed the way they carry on and conduct their lives. I guess it goes back to the true measure of a man. It’s not how he handles success. It’s how he handles adversity.

I guess the bottom line is we had two guys stand up here in a Safari Club seminar we were giving and give testimonials to people about how not only had we improved their shooting but we changed their personal lives, as well, and their wives were sitting right there next to them and stood up and said: My husband can go shoot and go play with you and Vicki anytime he wants to as many times as he wants to because they completely changed his outlook on life. He looks at things as the glass that was half full now. Now, I can’t tell you how good that made us feel; but what Clyde tells you is right, and I know Doug and everybody on the line feels that way. That’s why you’re on the line. Everybody out there on the line that’s privileged to call in to us feels that way because we feel comfortable sharing our deepest and darkest secrets with you. I know you have shared that with us. But, yeah, it will show you a lot about yourself.

Clyde: It sure will.

Gil: It’s better to have some strategies planned and practice to help direct attention and mindset in a productive way on those days where it’s just not clicking. You know, one of the best things you can tell your- self when that’s happening is, not every day is going to be a great day, and what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to make the best of the situation at hand, and we’re going to keep doing our best.

I remember one time coming off of a sporting clays field with a    68, and the guy said: Man, you had a tough day. And I said: Actually, it’s one of the best rounds I’ve ever shot. And he looked at me like I had two noses. What he didn’t know was I was sitting on a 48 after the fifth station, and I had to struggle to get to a 68, which goes back to  the adage that we’ve always said, you hadn’t shot your worst round yet. And it’s the struggles that make you get better. It’s absolutely the struggles that make you get better.

So it’s good whenever you’re having a tough day to step back, like Clyde said, and start talking about fundamentals and thinking about fundamentals and look for something that may be a B plan strategy   for you to use, and manage your self talk because I promise you when Plan A doesn’t happen and when you don’t really show up, what you’ve got to do is make sure your thoughts, emotions, and actions are all in a synchronously directed way that would likely lead to as good of a performance state that you’re going to have because you’re not always going to be in the game with your A game. It’s not always going to show up, guys. I’m telling you right now it ain’t going to do it.

When I’m giving speeches and Vicki is up there straightening and doing things in front of all these people that we have a fallback plan. I usually get up and she introduces it and talks about it and tells what we’re going to tell them. Then I get up and tell them, and then she does some demos with people out in the audience, and a lot of times my mind goes blank; but I’ve got a little cheat sheet. I go to that com- puter and I click it up and I click on an animation that tells a story and everything is okay. Vicki takes it over for me.

You’re just not always going to have your A game there every day. So don’t be concerned about it not showing up because you’re going to find surprises that just aren’t perfect, and it’s those days, like Clyde said, where you learn the most about yourself and you learn how to handle those off rhythm days. You go back to fundamentals, stabilize the picture, do the best you can, get out of there and keep going. By managing your self talk you can take control of your emotional state and your ability to pay attention to the correct things that will impact positively on your ability to perform.

Also when you’re on a hot streak, it’s probably not the best time in the world to focus on self talk. When you’re in that zone, you’re in that zone. That’s one of the beautiful parts about the preload and neuro- suppression and stabilizing the picture like we are right now. It’s an amazing thing. It just kind of takes self talk out of the way. There’s no point in trying to build confidence if you’re already confident.

So helping performers be more consistent is often just as important psychologically as it is physiologically. If you let the environment impact your performance levels, then appropriate self talk may assist in achieving a more consistent starting point for your performance.

So I go back to the beauty about the preload. It’s just been amazing to me. I’m preloading what I’m going to say in a sequence when I’m giv- ing speeches now. And when I put a shotgun in my hand, it’s just amaz- ing. I’m just bowled over. This is a whole new level of unconsciousness, I guess you could say. We’ve experienced it, and it creates neuro-suppres- sion that makes it really easy for you to perform, and it’s easy for you   to create a routine that you use just prior to a performance that creates the environment by which an optimal state is more likely to occur.

For so long we were trying to get the right frame of mind and try- ing to have the right thoughts, and you can’t talk yourself into doing that. You just can’t do it; but what you have to do, and we’ve said this before, you’ve got to act your way into the right way of thinking.

Harping on Preload

Gil: That said, I want to move into the next part. I’m not going to get through with this tonight; but I want to share with you a little bit  more about what we’re talking about. We’ve long been puzzled why people see differently. We’re more sure now than ever before that neuro-suspension is the zone everyone is searching for; but they don’t know how to create it and we do. Neuro-suspension allows for you to have a clear, uncluttered view of what you are doing when you shoot a shotgun or anything else.

In our travels shooting, coaching, and speaking about our passion, we’re still amazed at the perceptions that each shooter brings to what they do when they shoot a shotgun. We’ve spent most of the last 30 years of our lives confused, constantly searching for a deeper understanding of how talent and skill is really developed, and that definition has changed several times in our lives so far. No doubt it will change again a few more times; but like Vicki said, it’s not what you know that makes you better. It’s what you’re willing to learn.

We’ve learned that always playing at the edges of your ability, being willing to fail and learning from it and moving on is a lesson      and skill development. We have been writing about it for a long time, and science has now proven once again what we have observed in our research. Keeping up with the science and skill development in   the most recent developments in brain based research has kept us    on our toes and has really influenced the way we teach and coach.  The shotgun, as well as basketball, golf clubs, fishing rods and in the business field. It’s the same process, just a different tool.

All skill is stored in the subconscious brain, and we live 90 percent of our lives in our habits, and developing a habit is about three things: Cue, response, reward. Building skill is about creating habits, and a habit is a neurological programmed response.

As experienced coaches, when we began to watch a shooter, we would instantly pick up on certain things that they were doing, and we can tell you for sure that when we began coaching, those things were not seen as obvious like they are now. They were hidden behind the clutter due to our inexperience. As we became more experienced, our brains began to suspend from our consciousness things that were not essential to the task at hand or were confusing to the task.

They were still there; but due to our experience level and skill development, we began to see past the clutter, and things that once were confusing with many moving parts became simple and more obvi- ous to us. This is what 30,000 plus hours each of coaching has done for us and, as a result, we can get to the heart of the real problem, and the fish will come so much quicker. That is also one that encourages you to look for a shooting coach like us with experienced teaching, not necessarily a great shot or a world champion.

But the first thing that’s always bugged us is why are there so many different perceptions out there when shooters shoot the same targets successfully. We now think we’re closing in on the answer to that ques- tion. Understanding that the eyes don’t see is huge in comprehending this, and we feel we are closer now to understanding this than ever before. What we see is that shooters are in different phases of learning how to shoot a shotgun, and it’s those different phases that carry dif- ferent perceptions based on the shooter’s experience and skill level.

This is what we feel creates most of the divergence in what people perceive when they shoot a shotgun. They all see the same thing; but when you understand that the eyes don’t process the visual data, it’s the brain, then you begin to realize that you’re not trying to get the person’s eyes to see something different. You’re actually trying to get their brain to interpret the same visual data, but in a different way.

It’s just like if I was fishing with Clyde. Okay? Clyde has got the front of the boat because he knows more about it than I do. I watched Clyde throw and wind and throw and wind and he’s catching fish, and I’m using the same bait, the same line, the same lure, the same thing, same thing, same thing; but he’s catching five to my one fish. What’s the difference? I’m just throwing. Clyde is visualizing the structure, the drop off that he sees on the depth finder, the temperature. He’s visualizing where that limb goes. Does he go to the left or go to the right, and he’s putting his lure in exactly the right spot because he knows he is making a commitment to know exactly where the fish is hanging on that structure. Every one of his casts has a preload.

My preload is just don’t backlash or get hung up because I don’t want that, and we feel it’s that way when people begin to shoot tournaments. They’re trying not to look at it; but I go back to what the preload does for you. It keeps you centered on what you are about to do, what you’re asking your brain to do, but it keeps the extreme based ABC mechanical thoughts out of your mind and keeps you focused visually on what it is you’re wanting to do. You’re actually trying to get in their brain. You’re actually, once you understand that the eyes don’t see, you’re not trying to change the way the person’s sees. You’re trying to get their brain to interpret the same visual data in a different way.

Just like watching the same shooters shoot the same shot. We would both be getting  the  same  visual  data,  but  would  come  to two basically different conclusions, not because our eyes were seeing something different, but because our brains, due to our experience, were able to see past the clutter in the shot and get to the  real problem. The novice, on the other hand, can only shoot a clutter and then goes to the obvious, which you know is not really the root cause of the problem.

So let’s see. We saw the same thing; but due to our skill and the novice’s lack thereof, our brains came to two entirely different conclu- sions. We think that shooters’ perceptions when they shoot evolve in the same way, and this is why we think ten shooters can successfully shoot ten out of ten and all perceive something different. They all saw the same thing; but their brains, due to different amounts of skill, perceived things differently, even though we all got the same result. This is what we think is causing the greatest amount of disparity when shooters com- pare notes after a shoot or a hunting experience or even after shoot- ing a difficult stand on a sporting course. Our research shows that one shooter will never be able to perceive what another one perceives unless there is a similarity in their experience level and their background.

I have to tell you that understanding more about the phenomenon of neuro-suspension, and I’ve talked to the doctors two more times about this, and they say: You’re on to it, Gil. You understand it com- pletely. You understand it better than most people who teach it because you live it every day; but this thing about the preload, and I know I keep going back to this; but, damn it, it’s really important because the guys at the top of the game automatically preload the shot.

They know what it’s going to be before they ever close the gun. Scott Robertson, when he looked at the shot, he’s already visualized that shot five times in his head before he ever closes his automatic. He’s already done it. Bobby is the same way. Craig is the same way. Will is the same way. And let me say it another way. They don’t have to try to visualize. They don’t have to try to visualize.

When you shoot three or four thousand targets a week with a preload, let me tell you something. You don’t have to try to preload because the preload is just as much a part of the shot as the gun mount and the trigger pull. That’s why we keep coming back to the preload thing and the stabilized picture. When I say stabilize the picture, I get that picture. I see it.

I have to tell you something else. I think one of the reasons that we’ve had this breakthrough is all of the shot cam shots that we’ve been doing, and we’ve got a bunch to upload next year on the Knowledge Vault, guys. It’s going to be a fun year. No, I can’t tell you everything we’re going to do because it would take too long; but I’m pretty excited about it. I’m going to try to make a tape, a looping tape of just kill shots that all take about 14 seconds where you can just stand in front of the monitor and watch kill shot after kill shot after kill shot in every different perceivable angle. You see the bird coming. Let it come to the gun. The gun adjusts the speed, the picture is stable and you pull the trigger and the target blows up. I’m convinced based on a lot of the quail shots that I’ve been doing, I’ve done a quail video. Three trips. I got one more trip to do it, and I’m getting incredibly good at shooting these quail shots, and when I don’t have the camera on the barrel, I’m there so fast. You can ask Vicki. I move the gun two inches and the bird is dead. My ability, when the bird flushes, to anticipate where it’s going to be is phenomenal.

Now, have I shot a lot of quail this year? Yes, I’ve shot a lot of quail this year; but I’ve also looked at the same shots probably six or eight times, and we got over 200 quail shots. So you multiply 200 quail shots times six. That’s how many times I’ve looked at these quail shots, and my brain is beginning to pick up on when a bird does this, when it comes out and does this. Rather than anticipating a couple of feet in front of that bird, I’m anticipating 15 yards and now I’m waiting on that bird to get to me. That’s how valuable going through the kill shots has been for me.

I’m convinced that looking at all these kill shots with the stable picture and being very critical, is it stable enough, I’m convinced it’s so helpful with anticipation. I’m convinced in editing all of this film that I’ve been doing, because we’ve got 350 shots we’re going to add this next year or this year, I’m convinced in going over all of that so many times that it enabled my brain to be so much clearer about what it is I’m asking it to do. So I can anticipate so much farther in front of the target now, whether it’s a black target or a clay target. It’s just like it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s a feeling of calm confidence that I’ve never before felt, and it just goes to show you how important that preload is. I know I keep harping on it; but, damn it, it’s important.

The results you’re looking for will come from doing what I’m talking about doing. Your practice will immediately go to a higher level, and your benefit from your practice will springboard into performances of higher and higher levels. This is perhaps one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve experienced a lot of exciting things; but I can’t wait to get with y’all this year. I can’t wait to see some of you at the ranch and I can’t wait to get with y’all and share some of this stuff one on one with you because it’s an amazing thing.