Gil: Welcome to the Coaching Hour, July 2017. There has been a thread on the Forum on the Knowledge Vault about the voice and disturbances. Every time I read that thread and similar threads, I go back to what we were talking about last year. I don’t remember what the question was, but [John] Eagle said, “When fear gets in, everything matters.” That resonated with me and has stayed with me. It has proven itself to be more profound than I would like to admit. You understand? It’s very profound and it summarizes the struggle really well.
I talked to John last week about respecting the game and controlling your attitude when you’re practicing. It allows you to control your attitude when you’re on the tournament field. If you have any more reflections on that, I’d like you to talk about that tonight.
I’m going to start with Dean. But before I start, I’m going to read one page out of David Cook’s book, “Psychology of Tournament Golf.” Chapter 11, page 81; the conclusion:
“‘Well then, it’s simple. Adversity is strewn along the path that takes you to greatness. It makes your roots go deep. Challenge is the unexpected gift on the way to being mature and complete,’ Johnny revealed.
‘It’s this uncommon perspective that provides freedom in the chaos. Very few competitors really get this.’
‘A player that I’ve worked with for a few years,’ said David, ‘recently sent me his ultimate goal. No, it wasn’t to win a major. His goal was succinct, and clear, and profound. It simply said, to put my mind in a position over every shot, so that I have the greatest chance for success at that moment in time.’”
Eagle, I think I read that to you, didn’t I?
John Eagle: You have read that to me before, actually.
Gil: It goes back to goals. This is like chewing coconut. The more you chew it, the bigger it gets. But that one line led me to talk to you about the respect you gave each shot when you were practicing first. I wasn’t asking the question, I was just making the statement. Until you begin to give every shot you take on the practice field the respect it deserves, and stop going through the motions, you’re not going to be able to do it on game day.
One of the greatest values to us doing the Coaching Hour for 15, 16 years, is it separates me and Vicki from our everyday tasks. We have to sit down for four to six hours, talk about it and flesh out what we’re going to talk about. Sometimes it comes to her and she writes it on the computer. Sometimes it comes to me, and I write it on the computer.
It’s forced us to go beyond our comfort zone, and question and discuss some things that we may not know the answer to. But we’re certainly not afraid to look at the challenge or adversity, or to explore a question that we don’t know the answer to. Just by talking about it out loud and among ourselves. That respect of this show has changed our lives and has opened the door to so many new things. We don’t take what we do on this show lightly. Talking to you about your problems and what the voice says to you- we don’t take that lightly, either. We might help you make a little fun of it every now and then. But it’s a real thing. It’s part of the maturation process.
I’m going to go to Dean [Troutte] now. Then, I want to come back to Eagle; and, then I’ll go to Larry [Peck] about a conversation that he and I had. We’ll start there. Dean, you said you had an encounter with the voice.
Encountering the Voice, Addressing the Ego
Dean Troutte: I had a major encounter with the voice. You want me to lead up to it?
Gil: Sure! You’re not the only one who’s ever had this occurrence. But sometimes the answers to the questions are in the lead up. And you just don’t know that they’re there.
Dean: Actually, it’s the lead up that caused it. I’m pretty certain.
So, here’s the deal. I got six punches over the last month at small shoots where I’m lucky to get one at a time. So I’ve had some success. I’ve been shooting pretty good. I got focused on all my punches and punching out, and I lost track of what you told me to do a year ago, which was “I’m not going to the shoots to win anything; I’m going to learn how to compete.”
For the last two weeks before this weekend, I’ve been thinking about punches. I’ve got two punches to punch out of E class. That’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last two weeks. I get to the shoot this weekend, and on my second station, first I didn’t realize it was the voice until after the shoot when I reflected on it. But during the shoot, I was having things happen (for example) on the second station I ran the first three pairs; it was a tough, tough four-pair station. I ran the first three pairs and I heard this cart coming up to the station and this voice in my head said something like, “Don’t let this cart distract you. Be careful. Don’t let this cart distract you.” And, of course, I dropped the first bird.
Then it happened several other times with the voice, like on tower shots coming from behind me. “You know you’ve got these, you know how to do these, don’t screw these up. Be careful. Don’t screw these up because you know how to shoot these.” That kind of voice was talking to me. So, instead of being confident, and my normal aggressive self, I got defensive and was trying not to miss. The voice talked to me. I agreed with the voice and said “Okay, I’ll be careful. Just try not to miss these.”
Looking back on that, it was amazing how loud that voice was in my head. The thought process that I went through; not realizing I was paying attention to the voice and listening to it and agreeing with it. I don’t know if the voice was the reason for the defensive shooting or if it was a byproduct of defensive shooting.
Gil: I’m going to ask Jeff to comment on that in just a second. He’s had a little experience with this. It’s kind of like the chicken or the egg thing.
Dean: It really baffled me for a couple of days after the shoot. Because the voice was so clear. It was just like another person standing behind me talking to me.
Gil: It’s you!
Dean: I know. It’s weird and disconcerting.
Gil: I think it was Gary Davidson who summed it up when he said “the problem is not that there are problems. The problem is thinking that you’re having a problem is the problem.”
What you’re going through is something that everybody out there, including me and Vicki and Brian, has all gone through. Not only on the sporting clays range, but on the skeet range and public speaking, and writing. You know, it’s so easy for your brain to buy into fear. It can get in a lot of different ways. Jeff, do you have anything to comment on that?
Jeff Wolfe: I’ve been there. And, every time I think I’ve come up with every single way to let that affect me, and addressed it, there’s a new one that pops up that I haven’t thought of yet.
I mentioned the other day that for me, the root of it is in performance ego. It all boils down to “I want to do well” and finding that place where you’re aggressive enough that you do well without over-trying or under-trying, and without being too aggressive or too defensive.
In the last Coaching Hour I said that I crashed and burned in the second day of a two-day shoot. Because I had a really good score on the first day and the first thing I did on the second day was try to be careful and not screw it up. And that didn’t go so well. If there is something specific you’re fishing for, I might be blanking on it. It’s the level part of it. Much like looking for a problem is enough to cause a problem. If that makes sense.
Like [Werner] Heisenberg said, “If you measure the effect, you affect the outcome.” I’ve started to become convinced that the best place for me to be at a shoot is just interested enough to want to break the target. As long as I stay away from wanting to win, or trying not to lose, that’s when I tend to be my best.
Gil: Would you agree that ultimately, this all comes from fear?
Jeff: Oh yeah. That was what I was alluding to with the ego comment, right? Over the years that I’ve shot, when you start to hang around sporting clays courses long enough, you start to see the same people. You start to see the same names on the scoreboards. And you start to think, “Wow, I’m shooting pretty well.” Or, “Oh my gosh, that guy’s here. He’s going to beat me. Now what is he going to think if I shoot well this week but not well next week?”
You get worried that your performance is somehow going to reflect on you. At least for me, that was the big root cause of a lot of my fear: what other people thought of my scores.
Honestly, probably my biggest revelation was finally accepting that most of your friends you compete with, even if they’re your staunchest competitor, are happy for you when you shoot well. And they forget when you don’t shoot well. No one’s going to remember or really bust you about a poor score. No one’s going to come back to you and say “I remember last year at the state shoot, you shot a 150 out of 200. Hahaha.” No one’s going to do that. No one thinks that way.
If they see that you shoot a good score they come by and say, “Congratulations, you shot well.” If they don’t see that you shot a good score, they might wonder if you were sick or had a bad day or whatever but that’s the extent of it. You can’t place any self-worth or any self-valuation on that. And you certainly can’t project what you think they think about how you shot, because it’s just not productive. It creates a performance anxiety and a level of pressure and fear that, at least for me, really affected how well I was able to shoot.
In retrospect, the events that I’ve always shot well (28 gauge and 410 in sub-gauges) have been the least stressful. They were the least pressure-inducing events that I’ve ever shot. I never cared what anybody thought about my 410 scores. I never cared what anybody thought about my 28 gauge scores until I started shooting really well. Then it was a point of pride that I could win those events whenever I entered them, no matter who was there. It didn’t matter anymore. I was never afraid. I just went out and shot. I’m still working on carrying that over in the 20 and 12 gauge events, in the main event and FITASC and all that other stuff.
Gil: How did you handle the fact that you didn’t have a lot of time to train before this last event? Did that affect you at all?
Jeff: Yeah. Honestly, I think it did. The first day, I shot the Pennsylvania State Shoot, 200 bird event, a hundred on Saturday, and a hundred on Sunday.
I got there totally exhausted on Friday afternoon. I didn’t touch my gun, I just registered, said hello to some people, went to the hotel and slept overnight. I came back at 8 AM and started the main event. I should have shot something… warm up, five-stand, something more. I actually did shoot a round of make-or-break poorly on Friday.
I was so tired, but I should have shot something because that was one case where I was not in synch with the gun the first three stations on Saturday. I dropped five targets. They were all technical errors that I don’t normally make, and they had nothing to do with my mental state. It was just that I wasn’t with the gun at the moment. I ended up with a 91 after that. Once I got my head on my shoulders straight, it wasn’t a big deal. But I think I gave away a few birds at the beginning of the event by not doing that. Then on Sunday, it was back to level flight, and just working the way I know how to shoot. I did pretty well on Sunday.
Dean: I’ve got a question for Jeff. Because what he just talked about as far as ego, shooting better in sub-gauges and stuff, is exactly what I’m going through right now.
I’m getting all my punches in the sub-gauges where I’m relaxed and not worrying about stuff. Then I get out on the main, and I think I’m worrying about how the other people are thinking about me shooting. We had the same discussion year or two ago after I shot with regionals for the first time with Shane and Ben and them. We talked about how I faced these thoughts about how they expected me to shoot, and that was all I could think of. I was so scared to go out there and shoot, because I was worried how they were thinking the same thing. Not quite as extreme, but it’s the same thing. Jeff, is there something you do to address that ego?
Jeff: Man, I wish it was easy. Two things have worked best for me. One is just unfortunately the insanity defense. Just keep doing it until it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s the expensive way.
I’ve actually have squadded with some people who I don’t know. And that’s a crapshoot, because you never know if you’re going to get some duds or if you’re going to get some nice people. If you get nice people to shoot with, none of them know who you are and none of them have any preconceptions about how you shoot. I can be more comfortable in that environment. I’m not really worried. I just eliminate that.
When I’m shooting the sub-gauges, I typically shoot them by myself, or with one or two other people. That’s the other thing I try to remember. There’s a comfort level that you feel. I don’t know if you use the same gun or not, but my carrier barrel looks the same to me on my gun. So, I try to remember and channel how I feel in the middle of the 28-gauge event, or the middle of the 410 event. I just try to draw on that energy when I’m out there.
It sounds corny, but it has to be routine. Even if the targets are super technical and weird, and take a lot of energy. It still has to be a routine station for me. Walk up, go through your process, call for the bird, shoot the bird, and go through your process. If I can make that part of the process comfortable like I’ve done it a hundred times before on the sub-gauge course or in practice, then I can use that to tamp down all the other distractions and stuff around it.
I mean, it’s totally in your head. I think we all agree on that. You have to convince yourself that if you can do what you do on the sub-gauge courses, you can do it on the main event as well.
The Differences between Sub-Gauge and Main Courses
Jeff: It’s not that the targets are a little longer. One of the things you have to watch out for (at least around here) is that the leads are different on the sub-gauge courses. Gil can attest to this. I remember him coming off the 28-gauge course at Nationals a couple years ago.
Mostly there aren’t any on the average sub-gauge course. So you have to watch out for your brain to be in the right mode when you’re shooting on a main event course. If you put 150 sub-gauge targets through your gun and then you walk out the main event (for example, at M&M, where Anthony is known for throwing longer targets that require lead), that’s something else you have to start thinking about. Being able to transition from targets that need no lead to targets that you have to read and understand what you are looking at. So, it may not all be mental.
Gil: Summarize for me, you two and anybody else, the difference in the sub-gauge courses and the difference in the main courses.
Jeff: Well, at least in the ones that I run into, the target setters tend to set slower, closer, fatter birds. You don’t see a lot of edge typically. You don’t see a lot of speed, and they tend to be under 35 yards. A lot of times you can cover the bird. I don’t want to talk about it specifically; that would be bad. But typically, you don’t have to be very far away from the bird when you pull the trigger. There’s not a lot of space between the bird and the gun on any presentation.
Gil: So they’re close, fat, and slow?
Dean: I would say that’s just almost the opposite here. They’re using the same targets for all of the side events. Twelve gauge, true pairs, super sporting. They’re using the same machines, just different stands. So they’ve got them cranked up a little bit for the 12 gauge shooters.
Jeff: Do you find that they throw shorter targets, though?
Dean: No, there’s quite a bit of distance in a lot of them. This weekend, I shot the 12 gauge true pairs, and the 28 gauge were the same exact targets, the same exact distances. There were some long targets out there.
Jeff: I’m coming out to shoot your sub-gauge target. It’s way more fun.
Dean: Smaller clubs with limited equipment have to try to do everything with less equipment. There is some challenge in them. Some speed, some on edge. They’re not all fat.
Gil: Eagle, what do you think about this?
John Eagle: Well, I think Jeff’s right. I think at most places the targets are closer. Whether they’re faster, or more technical, or whatever, they’re generally closer. I mean, even at the U.S. Open they’re closer. And I shoot a lot of sub-gauge stuff. I think Dean’s kind of got a subspecies out there, if that’s really a generalization.
But regarding the voice thing, I think of a famous guy from Fulshear that has repeated to me many times, “You’re unique, but not very special.” There’s an evolution of the voice. As your ego gets out of it, it doesn’t go away, it gets a little smarter. I surely can remember hearing a voice say to me, “Wow, you really don’t belong here. What are you doing here?” And, to me that’s 100 percent of your ego talking.
Respect for the Practice
John: In the conversation that you and I had last week, the word that stuck out to me was “respect.” Two things I’ve been thinking about for the last year. One: David Radulovich posted something that just locked into me about as hard as it could lock in something. He said the goal was to get to the point where when you pull the trigger on any target, the outcome just didn’t matter. It didn’t have anything to do with the equation. So, whether you broke it, or whether you missed it, it was the same. And, to me, that’s the part of getting expectations out of the way.
The golf people seem to be saying the right things that strike chords for me in shooting a clay pigeon. One that I saw the other day was that “your attention has to be equal to your intention.” You have to get to the point where the quality of the question is good enough, so that you have the right intention.
Gil: We talk about how giving what you do in practice more respect and more brevity would play into not having to force that attitude on game day. Are we still on the same page on that?
John: I think we are. There’s been a lot on the Coaching Hour in the last few months about practice. Maybe it’s in one of your books, but I know we talked on the Coaching Hour a while ago about the difference between training and practice. It’s been on the Knowledge Vault Forum a few times lately.
I think of training as a completely different thing. You have to have respect for training as well. Training to be better has to be a constant. You can never stand still in this thing because everything just passes you by.
It’s wonderful to have the attitude to show up on game day and say, “Wow! Somebody thought enough to invest in money to buy this place, and somebody thought enough to buy machines to throw clay pigeons. Somebody thought enough to set targets that they thought would be challenging, and somebody thought enough to have someone come keep score.” Somebody did that all for me and I need to respect that. That was a wonderful thing.
And then we get back to Bobby Knight. You know, everybody wants to be on a national championship team, but nobody wants to practice. You can’t have that respect when you get out of your car if you haven’t had the respect in practice. You haven’t listened to the voice in practice say, “I can’t hit that target; it’s on edge.” My voices now are, “I made a big mistake.” And I listen to the voices and try to change.
The way I then tried to deal with it was to say, “Okay, I don’t hear you.” Rick Carter is the one that came up with one of the best scenarios for that, which I enjoyed reading. It was “Yeah, you’re absolutely right. This is really hard to see. And yet guess what? There are other people hitting this and you just hit the first one. So there must be a way to do it. Let’s figure that out.”
But if I get through, like Dean: Dead pair, dead pair, dead pair. “Okay, I got this. Oh.” Dead lost, lost dead, lost pair. If that thought comes in before that last pair, boy, you better open the gun and get your mind right, as my friend Fritz Odenbach used to say.
Gil: Dean, did you experience that thought coming in? And did you stop and open your gun and get your head right, or did you just shove it off and call “pull”?
Dean: I just shoved it off and called “pull”. That’s it, you know.
When we were at the ranch up on the berm with Brian, I had a voice pop up. I stopped and pulled the shells out my gun and turned myself in a circle. That’s something I’ve done in the past. It’s a way for me to disconnect from my thought process at the time and then load it back up and go to work. I didn’t do that this weekend.
Gil: Well, that is something that you have to do.
Dean: Part of it was that my recognition of the voice and what was happening at the time was all in reflection. It wasn’t at the time it was happening. I’m going to be more of aware of it in the future, because I know better. I just got wrapped up in other stuff these last two weeks, and not the job of competing. I was more worried about my punches, moving up in class, and all the stuff that you told me not to do.
Larry Peck: Dean, I was there when you turned in a circle, and I thought you were losing it.
Dean: But I came right back and broke those birds. I disconnected myself from the thought process and stuff that was going on at the moment, and then went back to doing what I was supposed to do.
Gil: Larry, in these stories, do you hear any of the comments that your voice has been making to you?
Larry: Oh, it’s an exact duplicate. I called Gil earlier this week, and I’ve had a lot of success this year.
Gil: How many punches?
Larry: 23 so far this year. My current position is that I lost all my confidence. So how do you get 23 punches and lose your confidence? The last few shoots I’ve been to have been successful; therefore, I have high expectations. When I have high expectations, I shoot poorly. When I shoot poorly, I start losing my confidence. I try not to shoot with anybody I know. But I’ve shot so many tournaments that I’m now beginning to know everybody. I keep seeing the same people show up. Now I’m just a recluse and don’t introduce myself anymore.
Gil: Whatever you do, don’t turn around in a circle if you have a problem.
Larry: I think they would all freak out if I did that. In this last tournament, I shot the State of Tennessee and I shot the 28 sub-gauge. It happened to be a situation where they had trappers there, but they didn’t have enough trappers for every station. So they would send a trapper with you or with your group. I came up, and it was just me. So this trapper just went with me.
I shot 28 sub-gauge and shot HOA for the tournament with this guy saying, “Okay, look at them. Okay, run the process, shoot the bird. Next station.” So I know I can do it. But when I got to the main event my little voice also says, “You don’t deserve to be in A class. You got all your punches in sub-gauge. You can’t win in A class.”
I don’t know about the targets. I think the targets are certainly easier. I’m having some vision issues as well, with cataracts that I’ll get corrected in October. I know that hurts me in the main event. But, in this last tournament, I ran three stations in a row and then I took a one out of eight. I walked away and I turned to the trapper and said, “Shooter out with a one.” And he said, “I didn’t want to say that.” When I do that, I know I had high expectations, therefore I know I’m out of it. Or I think I’m out of it, and I just kind of shut down.
I’ve heard Jeff say this before: you just keep doing it until it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s probably the solution. But I think I’ve actually over-trained, because I went from shooting four to five days a week to shooting six or seven days a week in the last month.
I’ve had the experience (which didn’t dawn on me until this conversation tonight), where I’ve gotten to the station, looked at the pair, planned the shot and run my process. I shoot and kill the first bird, and actually forget where the second bird is.
I have shot so many, or I’ll be so focused on the first bird, that I usually still hit it but I say, “What’s going on? What are you thinking? Didn’t you just plan your shot?” Either I have early Alzheimer’s setting in, or I just shot so much that I don’t think I’m doing a quality of practice anymore. I’m just absolutely pounding the lead.
Typically, when I go for practice session, the minimum I shoot is a flat. Usually it’s about 300 rounds in a day. Multiply that by five to seven. The last three days I’ve just stopped shooting. I got on the Knowledge Vault and have been reading everything I can about how to practice versus how to train. Tomorrow I’ll start shooting again, but I’m going to have a very specific practice. I can relate to everything everyone said tonight, but I was hoping Gil had a magic pill. He told me I’d have to go through five layers of people to get to him if he did.
Gil: Just like everybody else from the [Coaching] Hour, I have told them all that they’re unique, but just like Eagle, you’re certainly not special. You’re just as normal as everybody else.
Cataract Surgery, Respecting Your Time in the Box
Gil: Now, I have something I want to bring up about this. Then we’ll get back to what you probably should do going forward from this three or four-day layoff. Max McCart, I’m coming to you to talk about your cataract operation.
Larry told me that he was developing cataracts and felt like he was losing three to four targets per hundred because of his cataract problem. I told him if he felt like he was losing three to four, that he’s losing eight to 12. What do you think?
Because there are three things that happen when you get new lenses and get rid of your cataracts. Number one is contrast. Number two: white is white. And number three: color is vivid. Those three things – not having contrast, having white be yellow and having colors be muted – has got to affect you on more than just three or four targets. It may be obvious to you because you can’t see three or four targets out of 100; but, I think you’re going to improve dramatically more than you realize once you get on the other side of your cataract operation.
You and I talked about going to the shoots and just shooting the event with no expectation, not even worrying about score. Just get into the event with a number on your back and get that experience as much as you can. You’re retired. You’ve got time to do it. You’ve got the money to do it. You’ve got the desire to do it. So go to as many shoots as you can. If it’s a three day shoot and there are six events, shoot every one of them. Get in the game and get used to being in the game without expectation of score. Don’t worry about what your score is. Get in there. Work your program.
Larry: Easier said than done though. That’s the problem. I’ve been reflecting the last three days, and laying off for three days is like laying off a month.
Gil: I understand. You’re going to be a lot like Craig Hill. I think he had just punched in to master class and was shooting three or four times a week, two flats minimum. And I backed him off. He was in similar circumstances. I told him I wanted him to shoot three or four times a week, but to only shoot one flat. He said, “Gil, come on, man. I’m a big guy. I can handle this.” The problem is, yes, you can handle it physically. But you’re not respecting the time in the box like you should.
Larry: You’re not giving every target the same attention you would in a tournament.
Gil: Exactly.
Practice vs. Training
Jeff: Would you say that volume is for training, and that patience and limited shooting are for practice? If you’re shooting high volume, it should be in a training mode where you’re working out the technical part of your game. And if you’re “practicing” that you shouldn’t. For example, I wouldn’t put a flat of shells through my gun in a practice session.
Gil: Practice meaning shooting pairs.
Jeff: To me training is “I’m going to go out because I shot a Chandelle and my mount wasn’t right and I wasn’t in the right place. I just didn’t execute properly. So I’m going to run 100 Chandelles and work that out.”
But practice is “I’m going to go shoot 100 targets as if it was an event, and make sure everything works right, and I’m going to go through my process each time and work through all those things. To me, practice does not require a lot of shells. It requires a lot of effort and focus, but not a lot of shells. But training does.
Gil: You have to put in the reps. However, it’s so easy when you’re training and putting in the reps just to make the repetitions without being there mentally.
I’ll share the story with you. Years ago, when sporting clays first began, there was a lady competitor named Casey Atkinson. She and Vicki competed head-to-head in a lot of tournaments. Vicki was raising a family and helping me run a business. We didn’t get to shoot as much as Casey did. But Casey shot every weekend. She might travel to three different tournaments a day, two days on the weekend, and never worried about her score. If she won something, she might get it, or she might not.
But she was there to enter the tournament, enter the pressure, go shoot a 100, get in her car, and go to the next one. She’d pay her entry fee, get in there, shoot her hundred, get in her car, and go to the next one. Pay her entry fee. Get in there. Shoot her hundred. Go home. Get some rest. Go back the next day. She was one of the first true high-volume shooters.
Vicki: Probably.
Gil: I have to believe that experience of being in competition six times a weekend for two or three weekends a month helped her tremendously when she would go to a bigger shoot. She’d been in so many shoots and shot courses that she’d never seen before. She put herself in the game with no expectation. It didn’t mean she didn’t want to do well. But it’s just the repetition; getting in the game, which is what I shared with Larry.
I felt like he should do this between now and he has his cataract operation. I know it’s hard to go without expectation. But you’re going to have to tackle this expectation monster eventually.
Now, the first place you have to attack it is in practice. You have to give each shot the respect it’s due, and don’t go through the motions. I think you hit it spot-on when you said you were shooting too much. You lost your desire to be there. You lost your excitement; the fire in your belly. As a result, you got bored with it and boy, when you’re bored, that voice comes in big time. It’s hard to get rid of it.
I think you’ve made the right decision by taking two or three days off, Larry. You and I both know you can shoot. But when you go back, what you’ve got to do is to begin to develop an attitude when you’ve got the gun in your hands.
It’s like I read in the book a while ago: in every shot, putting your mind in a position that you have the greatest chance for success at that moment. To give yourself a goal that’s achievable, as opposed to a goal that you don’t have any control of. You have absolutely no control over winning, because in order for you to win, everybody else has to shoot worse than you.
What you do have control over is what you’re about to do right now. And if you begin to develop a mantra in practice, nothing else matters. “Right now, I’m going do this.” When you do that every time in practice, it’s going to make it easier for you to do it on game day.
What we typically see are people who don’t respect their practice time, their practice reps, and themselves enough to practice with the right mental attitude. Then when they go to the tournament, and they start trying, the brain says “who the heck is this? This isn’t the guy that I’ve been having fun with out on the practice field, shooting 50 yards Chandelles with the gun backwards. Who the hell is it?”
You have to give it the respect it deserves. Every shot must have a purpose. Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson talked about your reaction to the shot in the post-shot routine. It has everything to do with your ability to develop a history of good feelings, good shots, and good memories in your game. What you do immediately after a shot is really important.
We talk about the post-shot routine but very few people use it effectively. They don’t savor what they’ve just been through. They shoot the first pair and they expect it. There’s that expectation thing, where they smoked the pair and expected it. Then they shoot the next pair and expected it. Rather than, “Wow, that felt good. Let’s do that again. I like the way it felt.”
When you begin to use positive reinforcement, rather than associating with something really good, when you experience something emotionally, they begin to disassociate from the success they just had. They didn’t allow themselves to experience it emotionally, and it’s as if it never happened.
I think Eagle and I touched on this the other day when we were talking about respect. People work on their physical game, but they never work on their mental game. When they’re working on the physical game and then they go to the tournament and try to think like a champion. If you’re thinking you’re behind, you’re never going to compete at a different level in a different frame of mind than you are practicing. Your ability to compete at a high level physically and mentally has to do with how many times you’ve respected the time you spent getting ready to shoot the pair, and you savored the result.
If you haven’t read this book called “Every Shot Must Have a Purpose” by Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott, you should read it. Larry, if you haven’t read it, get it tomorrow. It’s a bestseller. It is an incredible book that I’ve read probably eight or ten times. Almost every page is dog-eared in it and has red ink on it. They have influenced my life and my coaching career more than just about anybody else, because they’re so common sense and so down to earth.
It’s all about golf. But they talk about the need to develop something (a word, a gesture) that you do after every good shot or good station. When you do this it becomes a part of your shooting history. This is what the post-shot routine is all about. The great feeling that happens penetrates your body before you go to the next station.
Learning to win is about accumulating positive memories to draw from in the future. If you miss a shot, don’t lament it. Listen to this. Just replay it in your mind with the desired outcome. To lament the miss is to associate with it. Listen to this. Listen to this. After a miss, (my wife is probably the best person I’ve ever observed at doing this) stop and observe what just happened like you’re looking at it through a TV frame. This has a lot to do with what David Radulovich wrote, Eagle.
Creating a Story to Disassociate from Misses
Gil: React to your miss as if someone else had missed. “Oh, I saw what that guy did. He was way over the top of the target.” Replay the miss. If it’s not your shot in your mind, you can replay it, because it wasn’t you doing it. Learn from it. And at the same time, disassociate from it. Correct it. Move on. “That guy was way in front. I’m not going to miss that target way in front.”
Practicing with the correct mindset on every target, and stopping to either practice disassociation or association. Practicing how to do this in practice allows you to do it on game day.
We were out practicing with Alex Sitz at Kiowa, and I’d be throwing him a pretty difficult pair on the five-stand. He turned around after he ran four straight, looked at me and said “Some yahoo somewhere is going to set that pair so it is a falling pair. So I have to shoot the other bird first and the second bird is going to be really far out there. I’m going to break it that way.”
He’s constantly putting himself in little positions. He tells a little story about it, as opposed to “let’s see if I can break it.” He attaches a little story about some yahoo who is eventually going to set that target to where it has to be shot out there. “I’m going to be ready for that yahoo.” He’ll stop and do his little squat, call “pull,” and break that pair. Then break it again. Enjoy it, and break it again. Enjoy it and break it again.
He’s a gifted shooter and has been a real pleasure to coach. But, unlike Larry Peck, he doesn’t have all day to go shoot every day. He’s got a business to run and three small kids. So he has to make the most of any practice time he gets. Respect the game and your commitment on every shot to the game. Give every shot the respect it deserves. If you begin to do that, you’ll stop going through the motions. I’ve got to believe your practice will rise to another level.
And if you do that in your practice day and your training, stop when you do it well and enjoy it. When you don’t do it well, step back, look at it and say, “Yeah, that guy did it that way. I’m going to do it this way” (however you deal with it). Too many times we just go through the motions. You’ve got to approach every shot with the correct frame of mind to give you the best result possible. And make that approach a habit on every shot, because it can’t help you unless it’s a habit.
The Habit of Paying Attention to Intention
Gil: If you have to think “What do I need to say? I just smoked that pair,” you’re not there. You’re thinking. You’ve got to begin to build better habits. You don’t build a habit on tournament day; you build a habit when you practice.
It’s like when I pick up a gun to shoot a target for somebody. The first thing I do is feel the length of the gun. If it feels strange and is going to be really long, I’m going to mount the gun. But I’m probably going to close my eyes or look somewhere else. I just want to get a feel for how it mounts. I’m going to stop. And then I’m going to play the movie. Once I’ve played the movie, I close the gun, set the gun, and call “pull.” Here it comes. Same speed. Pull the trigger. And if it doesn’t break, I’m shocked.
But many times a day, when somebody else has nailed it with the same speed at the end, I get to say “Wow! What a great shot!” I get to share it any time I’m demonstrating a shot or when Vicki and I get the chance to go [out and shoot], or when me and Brian do. After a real good series of shots, I’ll stop and I’ll just say “Wow, what a powerful thing it is that we’re teaching people to do.” There’s so much to the same speed at the end stuff. Being able to be attached to that emotionally, allows for me to remember that.
Last week in northern Michigan, I had to shoot at a target in a huge wind. The wind was gusting really badly and the targets were going crazy. I said, “No problem. Watch, guys. I’m going to be way in front of this. So, if the wind catches it, I got plenty of time to react to it and get the same speed at the end.” And I smoked it. Not with my gun, but I still did it. Because I’ve done that before, but I did it with the right attitude. I didn’t load the gun to see what happens. I paid strict attention to my intention and I was determined. But I was determined before I ever loaded the gun.
Larry, when you’ve been out practicing, were you going through the motions more than you were being specific about the thought process on each shot?
Larry: I’ve tried, but I think when you shoot that quantity you’re just going through the motions. Also, in the last couple of tournaments, in the main event I’ve actually said to myself, “God, how many stations are left before this thing is over?” And that tells you something; when you have that attitude of “I just want to get out of here.”
I’ve got to practice with a purpose, as they say in the Talent Code. I’ll probably shoot less with greater intensity, and with greater intention. Like, tomorrow morning, my friends want to shoot with me and I don’t really want to shoot with them. I want to go practice.
Gil: You don’t have to worry about the difficulty of the target. What you need to begin to pay attention to is your intention. Every time you have the opportunity to close the gun and shoot a pair, treat it with respect. When it comes together, savor the moment. Begin tomorrow when you go do that.
You can go and practice with your buddies, and all you’re going to do is go through the motions. But when you go up there, do what Alex does. “I want to shoot that trap and that trap on report.” And shoot your five pair and get out of there. That can be done and can be turned into a great learning opportunity. When you’re shooting with people that are hoo-rahing and aren’t doing things that are conducive for your concentration, you can learn to deal with them. You can deal with things that might be adverse to what you hoped they’d be in your shooting environment.
I think that you need to back off on the amount of shells. I think you need to increase the intensity and respect you have each time you close the gun and call “pull.” You need to respect yourself and respect what you’re about to do. You’re better off shooting 50 to 75 rounds, five days a week than you are shooting 300 rounds in one day. So you may need to take a little break and practice every other day. Jeff, what would you say?
Running the Process during Practice
Jeff: I was going to ask, (because this is something I’ve found I’ve been able to take advantage of) when you go out and shoot with your buddies and shoot a round, and everybody’s having fun, where’s the voice?
Larry: The voice isn’t there. But I also don’t shoot that well either, because I’m not really running the process.
Jeff: If you do run your process, and you stay true to your shooting to your tournament form, you have a perfect opportunity to execute that process in the face of the distraction of your friends and everything else with no consequences.
If you can get used to that, when you’re in a tournament later, you can think back and feel how it felt when you were there on Thursday morning, shooting for fun. And all you had to do was execute a good process. Pick the target, break the target, to walk out of the stand. How is that any different from a competition station than a fun session?
Gil: I think it would be interesting to get together in a month and see what the result is. It’s time for me to sign off. But this has been a really good evening. Larry, I think you were probably shocked when everybody started talking about getting punches in small gauge, weren’t you?
Larry: Yes.
Gil: I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t know what they were going to say tonight. It just so happens that that’s what happens.
Dean: You’re unique, but not special.
Gil: Yes, and remember that. You’re unique, but just like Eagle, you’re not special. All right, guys, we’re going to sign off. Thank you very much for participating. Great show tonight. And we look forward to doing the same thing covering the same subjects. Keep posting in the Forum and we’ll do the same thing next month. Goodnight, everybody.
