This month, we get deep into the analysis of where great performances come from and how they result from certain habits. We loop in a couple of shooters who have recently experienced the transition from intermediate to advanced, which is often a result of truly adopting those great performance habits. We’ll kick things off with a brief discussion of mindset from the book Golf Flow.
Ego Mindset vs Mastery Mindset
Gil: All right. Welcome to the Coaching Hour for March 2015. I’m going to begin tonight with a few points that Rick Carter sent me back in February so he wouldn’t forget about them. They were about going from the intermediate level to the advanced level. This is going to continue our journey from how to become an advanced shooter after you become an intermediate shooter, and I’m going to reference a few of my notes on that. But most of tonight is going to contain some things that occurred at the advance class this last week at 74 Ranch that Rick was a part of. We will talk about that, and then I can begin to talk about the filler part of the brain.
Firstly, (and Rick, feel free to comment on this) Rick sent me this on the 18th of February because he was afraid he would forget his thoughts on intermediate to advanced:
“One must have a clear and decisive reason for shooting this game at the advance levels.” (We’ve talked about that quite frequently. If you’re not doing it for yourself and your own satisfaction, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Don’t do it because somebody else expects it of you.) “You must be willing to accept that defeat will be a regular part of your advanced game and that you can’t win them all. This is no more evident than in A, AA, and master class. At the advanced level, a mastery mindset will take you much further than an ego mindset.” (We took that away from Gio Valiante in Golf Flow, where he talks about the ego mindset and the mastery mindset.) “Tournament results should be reused as a feedback tool.” (No doubt about that.) “And practice sessions should become more methodical and more purposeful.” I couldn’t agree with that more.
I want to read just a little bit of what I’ve written. When you’re an intermediate shooter, you got there because you were having fun, and we’ve spent I think two months on what the intermediate shooter must do to become an advanced shooter. But I want to bring up just a few more points. To move from the intermediate plateau, you’ve got to begin to focus on error correction and focus ratios by developing a sound, simple pre-shot, post-shot and correction routine. That allows for you to never miss the same target the same way two times in a row. And, Rick, we learned last week at the advance class how important that post-shot routine was in building the filler, which is where the zone experience comes from. We’ll go over that in just a minute.
What it Feels Like When You Stabilize the Picture
Gil: We have a DVD out called “The Three Routines in Sporting Clays.” We’ve also done numerous Coaching Hours on routines, and heck, I’ve learned to spell the word “routine” by writing about it so much. And understand something: this will be the beginning of learning how to compete, and you will be building a foundation for learning the mental game as you build your routines. I have a suspicion that we’re going to talk about this routine thing a bit tonight. I think that we’ll probably talk about it a lot next month because of some of the things I’m going to say tonight about the importance of the post-shot routine, how you control your emotions and how that benefits the zone experience.
If you’re an intermediate shooter, you’re not ready now, but when you pass from this plateau, learning to compete will be the most important thing on your horizon. As you work your way through the classes, you’re learning to shoot. When you arrive in master class, you must learn to compete.
As we mentioned previously, to leave this level of performance you must expand your peripheral acceptance by playing further and further and further and further away from the target and seeing the target behind the barrel. As the target comes to you, you stabilize the picture. Rick Carter, what does that feel like when you can finally see it way back there?
Rick: Well, you can finally get a grasp of seeing it way back there. It’s a feeling of control. It’s a feeling of “I have got this all the way.” It’s coming to me. So, you know, I am not chasing after the bus. The bus is coming to me. [chuckles] I’m sitting there waiting on the bus.
Gil: And you would be in the front row on the bus, too, dude.
I have to share something with you about when Rick spent a day with Vicki this last advance class. Vicki’s group got there a little before my group. When I came in, he was so excited. He couldn’t wait to come over and tell me what an exciting thing it was to actually see the bird way behind the barrel and let the bird come to him. It was just the most wonderful, exhilarating feeling to never feel like he was going to be rushed again, and I can’t play that down too much. Quite frankly, that’s part of the evolution of our system, and one of the reasons that we’ve talked about this last week at the advance class. One of the reasons that we’ve moved to the two-part mount and seeing the bird even further behind the barrel was to eliminate the feeling that you had to rush at the end of the shot. Because what keeps you stuck in the intermediate class is feeling like you have to rush. You’re always in a hurry.
I’ve said it before. Max would come home from working out at Rio and say, “You know, these people don’t put two and two together and get four. They start the gun in the window with their eyes, and every muscle in their body is tensed up like they’re getting ready to pounce on the target. When they call pull, they don’t understand why they’re always behind and chasing the bird.“ Once you have that breakthrough, that’s an amazing thing, isn’t it, Rick?
Rick: It is. I also mentioned that I could feel the difference between starting the gun a little too late and being right on time, and that was a breakthrough. When you know you’ve got the bird all the way, you can feel it. You can just feel it. And then if you mount just a fraction too late, you’ll be able to discern the difference and you’ll say, “Oh, that’s not going to work. The other way felt a lot better.” That’s a great feeling.
Gil: Yeah. And we emphasize this over and over again. For example, if you get there too early and the gun mount is too far in front of the bird, as long as you keep your nose on the bird, the brain will fix the lead while you fix the speed. If you get there a little too late, you feel rushed, and you miss your break point by about 15 percent, don’t you?
Rick: Every time.
Gil: Yeah. And I can’t tell you how many people have had trouble hitting those break points. They’re always 10 to 12, 15 percent behind their break point or beyond their break point. And like you say, it’s almost a euphoric feeling when you put that gun out there in front of that bird and see that bird way behind the barrel. You’re like, “Dude, you do not have a chance. I have you trapped. All that has to happen is to wait for you to get over here, and I’m going to give you something. You’re not going to like it, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.” And the whole game slows down, doesn’t it, Rick?
Rick: The game goes in slow motion. It goes like your Kill Shot Review on the website, on the Knowledge Vault. It goes in that speed, that slowed-down speed. That’s what it looks like to me. Those high tower shots at 75, 100 feet, those birds look like they were just standing still up there because I was able to trap the bird behind the barrel.
Gil: And as I said over and over, and I’m going to say it again tonight, it’s not so much your inability to put the gun in front of the bird as it is your inability to see the bird well behind the barrel. Would you agree with that now?
Rick: I couldn’t have summarized it better. You need to lock onto that phrase and hold on, because that one is the one. That’s the new phrase that I’ve heard you mention, and that’s the one that’s clicking. Definitely.
Gil: I mean, anybody can throw the gun out there, but when you get comfortable seeing the bird so far behind the barrel that you can’t even see the barrel and you’re not worried about it, you’re there. You’re absolutely there. So, anyway, I’m sure there are going to be quite a few other people who are going to say something about that next week and the week after. And there are some people on the show tonight who have experienced that.
[reading]
“Of course, everything that you learn is important to move forward, but until you start anticipating the target and controlling it from in front, you will never leave this plateau. If you ever feel like you’re chasing the target, then you are behind because you can’t chase it from in front. Moving your hold point to the 70-yard line or further out is essential for controlling the target from in front, and this combined with the two-part mount described on many Coaching Hours can be seen in the shot simulator under video tutorials. Look at Gil’s shooting in both of the crossing presentations. Then listen to the voiceovers on all shots and get a feel for what we call engaging the target with a soft mount to the shoulder and keeping your nose on the target. Finish the shot by merging the muzzle speed with the target speed as your face comes softly to the stock and then take the shot.”
We have a new set of animations. We’re going to do some revisions to some of the animations, and we’ll be sandwiching several of the animations together and some new stuff as soon as the new website gets up by the end of this month. So those are being worked on. Rick saw some of the new “engage the target and finish the shot” animations. Rick, do you think it helped you at all, just seeing those animations?
Rick: There’s no question about it. It just accelerates the learning curve. One of our shooters at the school, Chuck, mentioned that he is a visual learner. And some are and some are not. But, boy, oh, boy, does the animation help with the visual aspect. This is what he’s trying to tell me. That’s what Gil means.
Gil: Yeah.
Rick: Absolutely.
Gil: [reading] “This must be learned and practiced to attain higher levels, and in great measure this is why we insist that you learn to shoot with a downed gun in the beginner stage. You will need to begin work on what we call the preload, which is a visual picture of what you want the brain to do with visual information.”
Now, if you remember, Doss was there, and I think I mentioned on this show last month that he went and shot a tournament. He hooked his computer up to his big screen TV in his media center, and he watched the clay Kill Shot Review over and over. He practiced with four boxes of shells Saturday afternoon after hunting duck, goose and deer this whole winter. Then he went out to one of my son’s ball buster courses. One of the toughest courses he sets is at the beginning of the year. Doss won high overall in two of the events and runner-up in the other event. When you win something in Houston that’s high overall, it’s like winning a huge big shoot like the Open. If you win two of them and you’re runner-up in the third, you’ve done something, and all the big dogs were there. And he directly attributed his ability to walk in there and be in that zone that he gets into to watching the Kill Shot Review over and over and over again. So there you have it.
There Are Only Two Pictures
Gil: There are only two pictures.
It’s either going to be beside the barrel or across the barrel, and you must
begin to identify in your preload which of the pictures you want to see as the
shot comes together. This is where looking at the animations will come in and begin
to train the brain what it really looks like.
I have to tell you that rather than training the brain when to pull the trigger
by watching the Kill Shot Reviews, this improves your ability to preload
instantly when you see the shot. It’s not necessarily looking at the Kill Shot Review
that allows you to know when to pull the trigger. You know when to pull the
trigger. It’s when they’re going the same speed. But it allows you to instantly
have a vivid preload of a picture of what it needs to look like to kill the
bird. It is in the preload where watching the Kill Shot Review will give you
the biggest benefit. That’s what Doss told me straight up. He said, “It
wasn’t that I needed to know what the picture looked like at the end, because
it’s going to be stable when I pull the trigger. Every time I saw a bird from
looking at the Kill Shot Reviews, it was preloading automatically. There was no
doubt in my mind.”
And the key phrase was “there was no doubt in my mind what I was going to do with that target.” None whatsoever. And he won these tournaments. He won high overall with an 86 out of 100 and high overall with an 89 out of 100. I don’t know how many All-Americans are on the course. So, he not only shot well, but he had to hold it together knowing he was losing enough targets to take him out of the nineties. He said he was surprised when he won, but that shows his dedication to keep clawing and trying hard at every level regardless of the result.
Live in the shot simulator and look at the clay kill shots as well as the game bird shots. Look at the kill shot reviews over and over as this will begin to aid you in your preload, to really give the brain a vivid picture of what it will look like when the shot takes place. I’m going to diverge. Let me mark this down that we’ll pick this up right here in April. We’re going to keep talking about it in April.
Building Quality Filler in the Brain
Gil: It occurred to me, and I don’t know where these thoughts come from. I have to be honest with you. It occurred to me last week that I began to understand more about the brain’s ability to fill in the stuff that is filled in in the automaticity part of the brain. This is how the brain is deceived. It’s not what we are focusing on that is the part of the deception. It’s the stuff that the brain is filling in based on your prior experiences is where the deception occurs.
Now, just follow me here for a second. As you become more and more skillful at something, the brain begins to fill in parts of what you’re doing and you get better and better. As you do, the brain fills in more and more, and eventually the brain fills in a lot of what you perceive and you find yourself in the zone. Remember how we’re watching the brain game and how easily it is for the brain to be deceived? It’s not what you’re focused on where the deception occurs. Deception occurs when the brain automatically fills in things based on your experiences. Pay close attention.
In shooting, the most basic thing is an awareness of where the muzzle is pointing without looking at it. The ability to focus on the target past the barrels, see the target behind the barrels, and the ability to move and mount the gun the same way or at the same level of competence is an example of what we’re talking about. Then we go through all the steps that we have outlined in the past few months as important things that must be experienced, cataloged, and evaluated so our brain knows automatically what needs to be filled in from the subconscious to allow you to have higher and higher levels of performance. And, as you develop more circuits in the brain that are filled in, then through the automaticity file, you’re able to have higher and higher levels of performances. At the same time, you become more skillful and are able to perform with less and less focus on what you’re doing. You also become more intent on smaller parts of the picture and the outcome desired because all the stuff that has already been handed off to the subconscious part of the brain.
I’m going to say that again. The journey to subconscious awareness or automaticity comes from repetition. The handier you get at things, the less you have to be consciously aware of them. As you begin to be less and less consciously aware of all the chunks in the move and everything you have to do to perform at a high level, you begin to focus on them much less because they are taken care of by the brain. Although you’re only aware of the front of the target and the same speed at the end, the brain fills in all the other junk that it has to based on how you’ve trained it, based on your experience.
In Brain Games, we’ve learned that as you develop an action into a skill and it becomes more subconscious, you become less and less aware of what you were doing and you begin to focus on less and less of what is going on. In doing this, you become more skillful.
So, where does stuff that makes up the zone performance come from? That’s a question that’s been plaguing me for a long time. What is it really, and how do we make it come up more often? Well, it occurred to me at the Ranch this past week that as you get better at something, you become less focused on what you’re doing in order to have better levels of performance. Because you must focus on less to achieve the same level of performance, that would be called the zone. This filler that I’m talking about must be of the highest quality. And when you just let it go, that means that you allow the filler to just flow and take over and you consciously focus on so much less.
And when you overtry, think about this. You’ve all overtried. Everybody on this phone line has overtried, and you know what happens. Let me explain to you what happens to the filler, because the filler is where the talent is. The filler is where the talent resides. The filler is in the subconscious, and when you overtry, you are focusing on too much and you get in your own way. This makes so much sense to me because we’ve all been there, and suddenly we’re aware that we’re in the zone. Because we did nothing for us to get there, we were in the zone. As soon as we were aware, we were out of it because we started thinking and the fill-in stopped. It stopped because we started trying to consciously control what was going on. The talent resides in the fill-in because the fill-in is what the subconscious puts in there that allows you to focus on fewer things so that you can have those peak performances. Because you can’t focus on all of it.
So, the talent and the skill reside in the fill-in. Being in the zone is the art of not thinking. So, when we are practicing and competing, we are building filler, and our ability to have greater and greater performances is determined by the quality of the filler we are building which is, in turn, determined by how you react to what happens to you in practice or in a tournament. This is why it’s so important to always look at whatever happens to you as an opportunity to learn. It is not good or bad. It just is what it is. That way everything can become good filler.
Rick Carter sent me a list of ten things that Gio Valiante put in an article in Golf Digest. “See the positive in a setback. What can I learn from this? The positives are always there if you make the effort to find them.” Remember, it’s how you react to what happens that determines whether the filler is good (and beneficial) or not good (and detrimental).
The Game Will Tell You Why You’re Underperforming
Gil: Allow success to find you. Players often get impatient and make a swing change or a shift in strategy when all they really need is perseverance. Don’t think that the game owes you anything. The amount of commitment or the amount of shells you shoot or the amount of time you put into it does not entitle you to anything. Playing the game with appreciation and in good health — those are the gifts. That realization can have a major effect on you. Be thankful that God has given you the ability and the talent and the financial wherewithal to shoot a 30-cent bullet at a silly 40-cent target just to try to break it before it breaks when it hits the ground. You’ve got to love playing the game. If you don’t, you’re not going to get much out of it.
The game will send you a message. The game speaks to us,
and it tells us why we’re underperforming. Listen up. It will tell you. The
game will tell you what the problem is if your thought process is not clouded
with judgmental emotion: woulda, coulda, shoulda.
You must play with a fearless edge. Don’t shoot not to miss. Be early. See it come and stabilize the picture. You know what it’s supposed to look like. Talk sense into bad shots. It doesn’t mean you have to like the shot, but you got to come to terms with it because you did it. You’ve got to accept it. It is what it is. Learn from it and move on. The score isn’t the only measure. There is often a great lag time between practice and performance. It often takes time for improvement to show up. You need patience. Rhythm will relieve the pressure. Find the rhythm in your pre-shot routine. Soften your grip pressure. Trust the lead. Adjust the speed.
And, remember, part of the solution to every problem, a big part of it, is always slowing down. Do a mental checklist. The routines that you go through the night before you go to a shoot are important to eliminate any nuisance decisions that you might be plagued with. It’s of great importance that you establish a routine the night before, that you establish an eating routine the night before, that you establish a sleeping routine the night before, that you establish a routine when you get to the course and that you establish a routine when you go to the first station and a routine for every station thereafter.
And let me tell you something here now. Being able to accept a miss is just as much a part of your routine as enjoying the hits. As we’re going to talk about in a minute, how you react emotionally in great measure determines the quality of the filler that you’re building. You can’t lie to yourself. And Shane is going to talk about that in just a minute.
Log in or become a member to read the rest of this article.
