Gil: Welcome to the Coaching Hour, June 2017. Tonight we’re going to lead off talking to Dean Troutte about his experiences in tournaments. Then we’re going to talk to Rick Carter based on what he and Vicki talked about at Camanche, and what he was able to do. Jeff has called me a couple of times and said he had some reflections on some of his tournament experiences. I’m going to discuss that with him after we get through talking to Dean and Rick. Then we’ve got some reflections from several of the states we’ve been to in the last month or so: things we’re learning and pattern we’re seeing. We’ll discuss those and then see how far that gets us.
Dean, you and I talked briefly during the weekend while you were shooting. You mentioned that you felt good about your shooting. You were shooting 80 percent, which is good. But you had a little trouble with some targets under your feet. We’ll get to those in a minute. Why don’t you just review what you went through at the tournament last weekend and any of the “aha” moments that you might have had?
Dean Troutte: It was a local Charity Shoot. You’re familiar with Quail Point; this club is right next to Quail Point. It’s Raahauge’s [Pheasant – Chukar and Sporting Clays]. It’s in that same type of hilly terrain where you can set targets underneath your feet or you can set targets up a hillside. I shot an 80; I’m happy with that. It’s better than I was shooting last year. We’ll talk about targets in a second.
This year, after my shoots, I started reflecting on the fact that my misses usually come at the first target or the second target of my first pair. This year, I’ve been really good about correcting the problem. Knowing why I missed and being able to correct that problem on the next series of pairs.
Gil: That’s huge. Yeah.
Dean: It’s not something I’m thinking about consciously while I shoot. It’s something that I think about in the week after when I’m reflecting back. You know, when I’m sitting down with my log and thinking about things. That’s when I realize that it’s the first or second bird of the first pair that I miss, and then I’ll correct it the next time.
Making Your Plan and Shooting Your Plan
Gil: I got a scorecard from Alex Sitz on Sunday, and he shot a 95. Looking at his scorecard, I noticed that he missed two birds in a first pair, ran the station out, and the other three birds were random misses after the first pair. The scorecard that I got from him two weeks before was a 93. There was only one miss in the first pair. The rest of the six birds were intermittent through the last pairs.
As a coach looking at the scorecard, we want the misses to be in the first pair only. Now, did Alex get better? Yes. He missed a bird in the first pair. Both of the stations where he missed the bird in the first pair for his 95, he ran the station out. That’s huge. He did have one bird after the first pair in three other stations; not two, just one bird per station.
We reflected on where he was when we were at Kiowa Creek. The first tournament after Kiowa Creek was like an 89. He said “I’m waiting to close, I’m feeling good, but I feel like I ought to be shooting better.” And I said, “Just be patient.”
Remember, your job is to make the right plan in the first pair. If a miss occurs, correct it and run the station. That’s your job. If you break the first pair, then run the station. Your goal this year is to run stations. Practice running stations, because you’ve got to run stations to win.
He only missed five. The strong part of that was two of the misses came in the first pair, but he did run the station out. That’s what we’re looking for. When you approach a pair, and for whatever reason you’re not committed, or it doesn’t feel right; whatever reason you miss the bird on the first pair, being able to self-correct instantly and run the pair out. It’s a huge step in the right direction. The more times you do that, the fewer times you’ll end up missing the bird on the first pair. The more times you correct after the first pair and run the station out, the more times you are going to run them. If you get the first pair, you’re going to begin to run the stations out. It’s a big deal.
That comes from one of the things that we talked about years ago in Coaching Hour. You take your five-gallon bucket out to the course and shoot the easy course. Shoot five pair and move the bucket two steps. Shoot five pair and move the bucket two steps. Shoot five pair and move the bucket two steps. You’ve got to go through that five pair thing with a routine enough time before tournaments.
When you shoot a tournament, there are only three pairs or four pairs. I’m not bragging, merely stating a fact. We’ve been on the road for eight weeks and have had a lot of time to talk about the different phases we went through when we were competing. If I go back and look at performances that were the highlights of my career, and I go back through the courses that I shot in the situations I shot them in, there was never any doubt what I was going to do and how it was going to look when I saw the pair. With the targets I missed, I was never as sure as I was on the ones that I hit.
I’m convinced that the belief in that plan is something you’ve got to practice and you’ve got to train. When you look at that pair and you make your mind up how you’re going to shoot it, you’ve got to believe it. It’s like Shane keeps telling us, you can’t lie to yourself.
There were several times in the last eight weeks where I had to shoot a bird left-handed. I started to call “pull” and mount the gun, but I wasn’t convinced. I stopped; I replayed it in my mind. I was convinced, and I called pull and I broke it left-handed. I’m convinced that we don’t give belief in the plan the brevity that it needs. Whether your plan is easy to believe or not has everything to do with how many times you’ve made a plan and believe it and it’s been successful.
At the end of the day, it’s about making the right plan. But even if it’s the wrong plan, if you completely 100 percent believe in it and it’s wrong, you can fix it. And the chances of you making that mistake again, begin to be less and less based on the commitment you have and the belief in your ability to pull off your plan.
It seems like the more we go down these roads, as Stevie Ray says, it doesn’t matter which road we take; we always end up back on the cul-de-sac. We go down it and we come back. You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing, and you’ve got to believe in your plan, and the more vivid it can be a movie. I don’t know how many times I’ve played the movie in the last eight weeks, going to different places. It’s been a fun ride. There have been some unusual things that have happened that we’ll share a little later.
Dean, right now I think your ability to be down there with the targets, see that pair, and really believe in your ability to hit it the way you want to hit it is a huge thing for you.
Conscious Planning and the Unconscious Brain
Bob Shannon: Do you think if a conscious brain doesn’t really seriously believe that it actually inhibits aggressive commitment from the subconscious?
Gil: Bob, belief is a conscious thought, right?
Bob: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I agree with you. But do you think it inhibits the subconscious performance?
Gil: No, not if you believe it.
Bob: I know. I said if you don’t believe it seriously. You know “I don’t really believe I can hit this target. I’m going to try. But I don’t really believe.”
Gil: Then it becomes an inhibitor. You and I have talked about it personally. We’ve shared a bottle of wine over it before. And the closer to the bottom of the bottle we got, the smarter we got. This is like that age-old chicken and egg question.
Bob: I’m just trying to find out if you’ve come to any conclusions. That’s all.
Gil: As I look back on what I’ve done, and as I get ready to take a shot, I’ve already seen it happen in my mind. And because I’ve seen it happen so many times and hit it so many times, it’s easier for me to believe it. You can’t think your way to the right action. Once you’ve done it enough, you act your way to the right way of thinking.
Once I hit that Chandelle 500 times at 50 yards, I don’t have to tell myself I can do this. It’s a foregone conclusion I can do it. My preload as a movie becomes even surer. It becomes easier and it becomes more detailed. All I’ve got to do is keep my eyes still, my hands soft, be early as it comes, match the speed and send the shot.
Do I think about it as detailed as I did the first 50 times I broke the Chandelle? No. I don’t have to think as detailed about it, because I have the inventory of circuits in my brain that have been successful, that I can draw on. Am I talking in a circle? Tell me what you think, Bob.
Bob: No, I think there’s a lot to that. Personally, and with my teaching, I’ve observed that the failure to be in the belief to be committed enough seems to inhibit the actual action. That’s what I’m asking about, and if it’s something you were seeing.
Yes, you and I have been back and forth, and I don’t know that there is a final conclusion. It probably varies from person to person. I don’t think you’re talking in circles. We’re still trying to figure out how this conscious-subconscious interaction really works. Unfortunately, brain studies haven’t been able to tell us yet.
Dean: Let me add a little bit of a wrinkle to this. One of the things I’ve been battling with (and I think is also part of my success) is that when I get into competition, subconsciously I get wrapped up in the competition. I don’t do the things I’m supposed to do. I don’t do my preload. I know how to break one bird. I know how to break the other bird, but I’m not making a plan on how to break the two of them together. I have to come consciously into my setup and get myself consciously thinking about what I need to do.
Bob: But that’s plan formation, right?
Dean: Right. Subconsciously, I get wrapped up in the competition. My subconscious takes over and doesn’t do what I’m supposed to do.
Gil: So your plan is not as detailed.
Dean: Right. My plan is not as detailed until I consciously bring myself to make that plan.
Gil: Vicki and Rick have some things to talk about this in a few minutes. I’m not going to steal their thunder. But it’s an interesting situation that you pose, Bob.
With students, I’m convinced their belief in me in telling them “just put it out there, just park that barrel out there, when the bird comes match the shot or match the target speed” helped them be able to do it; when they see me do it with their gun.
Bob: I agree.
Gil: But they’re on their own. They’re going to have to do it 500 times before they can get on the tight rope on their own and walk it on their own. You’re talking about that line from 85 to 90. It’s obvious to you what the plan is.
I was talking to Jeff either last year or year before, when he called and said “Dude, every station I went to I looked at one show pair, and it was obvious what needed to be done. And I did it.” You get to that point in your inventory where you’ve seen so much, and you planned so many times and your plans have been successful. And even if your plans haven’t been successful, you’re able to correct immediately and run the station out. It’s a product of how many times you’ve been in the game. You’re more comfortable being in the cage in front of people.
I’ve often compared this to public speaking. You’ve got to be a master of the material first. Whether you’re an expert or a master, it’s very similar. A person who is a master of the game is not only an expert at the fundamentals in the automaticity fundamentals, but they’ve also mastered the competitive part of the game.
There are a lot of experts that are able to shoot with the automaticity circuit who don’t have near the same competition experience as the top 25 people in the game have. It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. It just means one has spent more time in the cage in front of people with a scorecard with a number on their back than the other.
“You Can’t Talk Yourself into Confidence”
Gil: There’s something to be said about that, Bob. Because it doesn’t matter what field you’re in. The more times you’ve done it, the easier it is for you to anticipate ahead of where you are. The further you can anticipate ahead of where you are, and have the confidence that regardless of what happens, you can fix it. The more relaxed you are, the less you have to actually have to focus on. That frees up more and more focus for the things that you feel are the most important in the situation.
Bob: It’s just like driving a car.
Gil: It’s like everything you do.
Bob: Things you do a lot of get reinforced every day.
Gil: When Vicki and I go to the gun club in the morning, we get there at five minutes ‘til eight, and we’re talking about something entirely different than what we’re about to do. We get out of the vehicle, I get my roll-around, she gets her roll-around, and we walk to the front door of the gun club and we become Gil and Vicki Ash. I don’t have to worry about what she’s doing. She doesn’t have to worry about what I’m doing. Because we’ve both done it so many times, we know we’re going to both end up at the same place. We may get there entirely differently today than yesterday, but we just become those two people. We become those two people because we’re comfortable being those people, but we’ve become those people for 25 years in a row, a hundred times a year.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition that you’re proposing and it’s something that I don’t think we’re going to solve tonight. There’s a difference between thinking and knowing. It has to do with how many times you’ve done it. You can’t talk yourself into confidence. Confidence is the result of practice and experience with the right attitude. So, Dean, tell me about the targets you were having trouble with.
Updates from Dean and Rick
Dean: The main one I had trouble with was the stands facing at 12 o’clock. There were two right-to-left quartering birds that came out of machines about 20 yards at two o’clock. They came up from behind these two bushes. And they played with the horizon; it was right on top of the hill.
And for whatever reason, I dropped seven out of those eight birds. I couldn’t find them. On reflection, I was thinking about the horizon and how that horizon wasn’t flat. That horizon actually had a drop from right to left. My brain was acting like that was a straight, flat, level line, when it wasn’t.
Gil: Wow. I wish it was Wednesday night, so Brian could talk to you about that. He loves using the terrain to make you think the target is flat but it’s not.
Dean: The other ones I was having problems with were machines down below me and quartering away.
Gil: Going out from under your feet?
Dean: I was shooting with John Kirby, who’s a local instructor. And he told me, “You’re shooting over it.” Then I started thinking about what you told me: to hold way low underneath those birds. When I consciously did that, they started breaking. But if I let the subconscious take over, I’d start missing again.
Gil: That’s just one of those things. You’ve got to put yourself in the game and get beat enough times. Or you have to come to the ranch enough times to where you understand how to do those. We did those at the ranch; we’ll just have to do more of them next year.
Dean: There were some targets that were going uphill that were hugging the terrain and coming up the hill. But not exactly on the same angle as the hillside, and those gave me a little bit of trouble.
Gil: Those kinds of targets have the background in them, and the background typically fools you with respect to speed. If it’s closer to the background than in the beginning, that’s what targets under your feet do to you. That’s something you’ll need to work on.
Gil: Rick? You executed something that you and Vicki worked on at Camanche this last weekend, right?
Rick Carter: Sure did. You bet.
Gil: Well, tell us about it.
Rick: I came down from Reno to shoot with you guys at Camanche just for the day and thought “Man, I’m just going to walk right through this and just have a great time, chat with Vicki.” I started out really well, you know.
After the morning session I sat there at lunch and thought “what the hell is going on? I don’t get this.” I make a great plan. I kill the first pair. Then I kill the second pair. Drop one, drop one. I get to lunch, Vicki and I are talking, and she said “Are you making a plan on every pair?” It was that moment where she caught me with my hand in the cookie jar and I finally had to admit it.
I said, “Vicki, I go on autopilot. I don’t make a plan on every single pair. I see the plan, I’ve got the material, I know the skills. I just think it’s going to break every time. I don’t need to make a plan.” She said, “You need to make a plan on every pair.” And I said, “Okay.”
I went back out in the afternoon. Unbelievable! George Digweed would have blushed at the way I was shooting. I don’t think I dropped but a couple of birds the whole afternoon, and that’s no exaggeration. Why? Because I made a plan on every single pair.
This last tournament, I wrote an email to Vicki and said “Vicki, I finally get it.” I’ve been working on this since March and this is a big deal for me to make a plan on every single pair. And I finally accomplished that goal. I can honestly say without reservation, in all truthfulness, that I shot a 100-bird tournament where I actually made a plan and repeated the plan on every single pair. If I had to stop and start again, I did.
I’m going to admit to you, there were a couple of times where I had already closed the gun and I had to figure out which was the three and which was the nine. I had to stop and start over again. There’s something Brian Ash said in the last Coaching Hour that caught my ear, and I’ve been working on that, too. He’s a lefty like me, and he said everything is either across the gun at three o’clock, or behind the gun at nine o’clock. I said, “God, is it that simple?” I had a tendency to have a lot of verbiage in my pre-shot routine. “Okay. Right here. Three o’clock. Across the gun.” It was a little dialogue going on. So, I shot this last tournament completely with Brian Ash’s way. Every single target I saw that would allow that kind of plan I said, “across the gun, three o’clock, behind the gun, nine o’clock.” And, damn, did that simplify my game and absolutely allow me to focus on the targets a hundred percent. Well, maybe 95 percent. Most of the time.
It was so liberating to be able to go out and think “that one’s across the gun at three. This one down here is going to be behind the gun at nine.” I didn’t even think about the hold point. The gun just went to the hold point by itself. I stayed within my cadence. Close, address, pull. Man, it was best tournament I shot, and I was so happy. I didn’t even win my class. Shot fantastic for me. But it was the final self-realization that I did it. I did it! I finally shot a tournament where I shot every single pair with a plan, and repeated the plan on every single one.
The first thing I wrote down in my notes was “I cannot wait to go back out and shoot another tournament this way.” I can’t wait, because this is now such an easy way for me to shoot tournaments. It takes all of the nuisance decisions out of it for me. And because I just say “three o’clock across the gun, behind the gun, nine o’clock.” As long as the gun is out there waiting for it, they’re behind the gun at nine o’clock. They are across the gun at three o’clock. Vicki, you were right. I made a plan and stuck to it every single time.
Vicki: I keep telling you all, you just have to understand that I am always right on this thing.
When Rick was there at Camanche and it looked like once you finally did it enough in the afternoon, you just felt very calming. Then when I got your email I thought, “finally!” I was glad you finally did your routine on every single target, and that you felt so good about it.
Rick: Some shooters on the [Knowledge Vault] Forum, Vicki, may find that unusual. How come you can’t say it for 100 shots? I don’t understand. It’s easy. It isn’t for me. I would say I’d make that pair plan, bust them, and think every single pair after that was going to be on autopilot. And it wasn’t. It was making my game inconsistent. I worked on this since March, believe me.
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