Gil: Welcome to the Coaching Hour, December 2019. We’ve got several topics tonight. Steven Canterbury called me two months ago. He wanted to take the tape off his glasses, but was afraid. And we held his hand on the phone and I told him to put his hand on the radio. He had the courage to take it off. I’m going to talk to him tonight about a few of his experiences. And Jenna, if any of this rings a bell with you…How long has it been since you’ve taken the tape off your glasses, Jenna?
Jenna: I actually never had tape on my glasses. I just closed my eye before I shot.
Gil: Alright. So how long has that been since you’ve been having both eyes open?
Jenna: Since October.
Gil: Okay, so y’all are both in about the same boat. After we get through that, I was going to talk to Jack Flesher. Rick, I’ll start with you on that post Jack put up there about his 5-stand epiphany. There’s a lot of good meat in that series of posts. And I wanted to bring out some thoughts on that.
After that, I’m gonna read an article that Max McCart gave me from Motor Sport magazine about how race car drivers get into that subconscious control that they use driving cars at 200 miles an hour. Really interesting article. And then after that, we’re gonna ease into my conclusions in my book review on “Make it Stick.” Several different studies that they cited in there talking about random versus block practice. And it falls right into why playing the game is such a tremendous tool for us, because it creates the ideal random practice. So we’ve got quite a few things to get to.
I talked to Jeff Wolfe today. He wasn’t going to be able to be here; he’s on his way from Chicago back to Pennsylvania. But I talked to him about his reflections on Jack’s 5-stand epiphany post in the Forum. And I’m looking to get some good discussion out of that once we get through talking to Steven.
Steven, you shared several things with me today when we talked about this. And one of the main ones was that you have to really want to do this to go through the confusion that you have to go through for your brain to sort things out. Tell us about that.
Committing to Shooting with Both Eyes Open
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. I knew it was going to be tough, taking the dot off my glasses and making the commitment to shoot with both eyes open, because I’d briefly tried it a couple of times before. But, you know, I said if it’s worth trying, I’m really going to make a commitment. So, I took my dot off on October 21st and my commitment was to shoot without the dot until the end of November or at least a thousand rounds, whichever was longer. And, you know, it was tough. I started out and my scores tanked. It didn’t feel natural, but I stuck with it. And two months later, my scores are right back to where they started.
The big problem that I was trying to solve was just the inconsistency. I could shoot decent scores. I was averaging 90 percent in skeet, 80 percent in sporting clays. But my eyes would measure lead. My eyes would go to the bead. My gun speed would drop. I would see the lead decrease, I would speed my gun up and get too far ahead and start going back and forth. And it just could not solve that problem. So to that effort, I said “Well, let me take the dot off and make an attempt.” And yeah, it’s tough, but it was worth it for me.
Gil: We talked and we got you on a three-bullet drill almost instantly, didn’t we?
Steven: Yep. Done a lot of practice with the three-bullet drill. The other change I made along with taking the dot off is I started shooting a low mount gun as well. And I spend at least three to four evenings a week doing 100, 200 mounts. I practice my mount, practice the three-bullet drill, the flashlight drill. So yeah, a lot of practice at home.
Gil: A lot of practice. And your scores on skeet were in the 90s when you began.
Steven: Yeah, I was averaging 90 percent.
Gil: And in sporting clays it was in the 80s with one eye. But you were not consistent.
Steven: I was not consistent. And I had been at that plateau for several months. So I just took what I call a “step of faith” to take the dot off in the effort to try to improve. And, you know, I can’t tell you tonight that my scores are better than where I started, but I can tell you they’re right back where they started. My confidence level is really high. When I first took the dot off and breaks in half, I trusted my hand to point the gun, and trusted my eyes just to focus on the target and a break would happen, and it felt like magic. It doesn’t feel like that anymore. Feels like I’m connected to the target and the break was meant to happen.
Gil: So in the beginning, it was like magic. But now that you’ve done it for a couple of months, it’s beginning to feel like an old friend.
Steven: It just feels right.
Gil: Okay. Are you going to go back to putting the dot on your glasses?
Steven: You know, when I took that dot off, I stuck it on my tailgate there. And every time I drop the tailgate of my truck, when I get to the club and get my shells out and get my shooting bag out, I see it there every time. So, it’s just to kind of serve as a memory of what used to be. Unless something changes drastically for me, I have no plans to go back to the dot.
You know, there’s another thing folks might be interested in learning about what I’ve dealt with my eyes. You can go on the Internet and find all these different eye dominance tests. I can do those tests and I’m co-dominant. I can get either eye to take over dominance, like flipping a light switch with those tests, depending on which eye I choose to shut first. So I think that’s an important piece of information as well. But I’ll tell anybody thinking about trying it, just make a commitment to stick with it for a given period of time. Because if your experience is like mine, it doesn’t feel natural. It’s going to shake your confidence at first. But, you know, my experience has been if you can stick with it, there’s a lot of benefit at the end of that.
Gil: A lot of people on the line listening to you right now have been through that. You and I talked earlier today and we talked about how your vision and what you’re seeing now has evolved over the last two months. And it will continue to evolve and it will continue to get clearer and clearer and clearer as soon as the brain begins to understand what you want it to look like and what it looks like. And I mean, what you see now when you pull the trigger is so much clearer than what you saw a month and a half ago, right?
Steven: Absolutely.
Gil: So the vision in shooting is something that just continues to evolve. And it’ll get easier and easier and easier and better and better and better the further you go along. So you’re on the right road.
Jenna, what was your big epiphany when we got both your eyes open; going from shutting an eye just where you pull the trigger to leaving a little bit of open? What was the biggest thing that hit you in the face when you finally started hitting targets with both eyes open?
Jenna: Well, I realized that shooting with one eye, you lead them three times as much as you would with two eyes open, and it’s not a stable shot. I pull through the bird, and it was just so much more complicated and it was very inconsistent pattern of shooting. So I would hit the bird in a different spot every time I shot the bird. And I can tell you now I am shooting sporting clays now, and when I plan and predict before I shoot the pattern and I shoot the pair. And I’m hitting them consistently in the exact same spot the exact same way.
Gil: Okay. How has your vision evolved over the last two months? Things have gotten clearer?
Jenna: Yeah, it has gotten much clearer. It’s so much easier to see the target, see the stable shot, and send the shot. It’s just amazing. And I suggest anyone who’s shooting with one eye to shoot with two eyes, and just try it because it builds up your game. You’re gonna be shaky at first, and it’s a long and lonely road, as you say. But you get the hang of it, you’ll get it down and it will make your game so much more consistent. And you’ll be able to see the targets a lot better.
Gil: I think a big thing for you that first day was you could cut your lead at least in half, and you couldn’t believe it. You absolutely couldn’t believe it. That was the thing that just stunned you. And now you need to cut it more, now that you’re more used to shooting with two eyes. You’re playing a lot closer to the target.
Jenna: It’s a more stable shot now, so I don’t have to cross the lead if the gun’s the same speed as the target. I send the shot.
Gil: Yeah, send it. I can’t wait ’til you come here in January and play with Brian for a couple of days. You’re going to be really excited about that. All right, thanks, guys. Jack?
Jack: Yes, sir.
A 5-Stand Epiphany on Adjusted Lead
Gil: Adjusted lead, The Ash Method…You started a pretty good thread out there. You said one of the things that occurred to you was where you were significantly off line and behind, you found that you immediately looked into the lead and your gun just naturally went there and the image stabilized and the trigger and kill. And your ratio went up dramatically after you’d shot it one time. How do you think that happens? What have you done in the past that would make that happen?
Jack: So, I think it is just simply my training. You know, you kind of profess “get in front, stay in front.” Start in front, get in front, start in front, stay in front. And if anything, you let the target come to the gun. So if I err in my setup, I’m inserting too far in front of the bird, right? If I make any error at all, I’m trying to give myself too comfortable of a window. So I think shooting that way for a long period of time, you get used to letting that target kind of close in on the gun, and it sort of pushes on the barrel. I don’t have a better way to describe it than that. But anybody who’s done it knows what I mean. The target kind of pushes on the barrel. And I realize that is an adjustment of sorts, right? Because the target is going faster than the gun, and at some point we adjust the gun speed so the sight picture stabilizes so that they’re going the same speed.
I’ve also had the experience where I was so far in front when I started that I let the target get too close to the bird, and it would have been a slight little pull away. Right? To get the sight picture stabilized the way I wanted it to stabilize. And so I realized that really is not pull away. It’s not diminishing and it’s not maintained lead. It’s an adjustment.
I don’t insert perfectly into the lead every time I insert into the lead. I wish I could. But I don’t. If I did, then I would be what I would call a “maintained lead” shooter. I would insert perfectly in the lead. The gun speed would already be going at the target speed and blah blah blah. But I think in reality, there are too many variables for me to be perfect with. And so sometimes I’m a little short, sometimes I’m a little long. Sometimes I’m right on. And the critical component is that sight picture stabilizing. That might require me to slow my gun down. It might require me to speed my gun up. But it happens in what you refer to as that automaticity circuit. If I’m looking at the target, all of that just kind of happened.
The epiphany for me and this 5-stand was that I was way out of position. I would be way out of position on a target. I misread the arm on the trap. So I was way off line and behind. And so, I was looking at the target and my gun just wasn’t anywhere near the line, right? But it went up into the lead and stabilized that sight picture at the proper lead. It knew what the vector was by the time my gun got there and just maintained it. The sight picture stabilized, and I sent the payload. It was kind of this “aha”: in reality I would have to say that I’m making these micro-adjustments in the sight picture of most of the shots I shoot. Perhaps without even being conscious of it.
Gil: I mean, it was like an epiphany to you. It was a big deal. To know that regardless of where you came from, the gun was going to get there.
I’m going to go to Rick Carter here in just a minute. Rick had a couple of thoughts on this thread, and then I’ll go to Dave Schubert, if he’s here. I also want to go back to what Jeff Wolfe and I talked about this afternoon. He and I talked about this for about 45 minutes this afternoon. I think Rick has had the same thing happen to him, and Dave has had the same thing happen to him as has Jeff.
Your ability to do that, in my opinion, comes from the gun barrel being accepted in the periphery and both the target and the gun having a place to be when the shot’s finished. Same speed at the end. So regardless of where the brain finds itself in a shot, it knows where it has to be and it has to be there to please you. So regardless of how bad you position the gun relative to the target and where it’s going, it’s going to get there. And it’s because of your prediction and your training and your stubbornness about same speed at the end. There are a lot of things that contribute to that. Obviously, it’s the OSP system where we’re using different parts of the brain optimally the way they normally operate for us every day. And we’re training those parts of the brain to allow us to come on in front of a moving target (regardless of the distance) and let the brain figure out the lead while we adjust the speed. But I think that’s a result of your training. Now, do you think it would be able to do it 100 out of 100 times?
Jack: [Chuckles] Well, if I did, I’d be national champion. But I’m not.
Gil: We’re on the same page.
“Mechanical Thinking Kills Performance”
Jack: Yeah, but the fact is, I don’t always get out of the way. My problem is I’m not always out of my own way mentally and letting that unfold the way it needs to unfold. And I believe that is the difference between the national champion and me. The national champion is simply more talented at getting out of their own way and letting that automatic circuit do its job. I think we’ve all had that experience. I think we all know that our automatic circuit is way better than our conscious circuit. I don’t think there’s an argument from anybody that’s experienced it.
So, for me, the trick going forward is to realize that I don’t necessarily have to be perfect in my setup. I need to be perfect in my trust and my ability to keep my eye on the target and trust that peripheral sight picture. And I think where I have a disconnect, if I have a day of 100 out of 100 times that I don’t trust that. By that fourth pair, I’m starting to think “Okay, I did it three times. I just gotta do it once more. Let me double check that it’s perfect.” And all of a sudden I’m dropping a target.
Gil: Yeah. Mechanical thinking is what you’re describing.
Jack: Right.
Gil: I’ve got some things to share with you that I’ve talked to Jeff about today. But I want to share a couple of my experiences and what Jeff shared with me today and a couple things that Doss has been aware of when he’s been shooting at peak form.
Mechanical thinking kills performance, just like hope and evaluation. It takes you out of the moment. We’ve all been guilty of thinking too much; second-guessing ourselves on which bird to take where on the pair. That’s an easy trap to fall into, especially if you’re only down four going into the last three stands. We’ll get to that in just a minute.
It really is because of all the training you’ve been doing. Jeff brought this up today. It’s the beauty of the system that we have or how our system has evolved that we are shooting with. It’s an evolution, and it will continue to evolve as science evolves. But every shot, or all the big crossers, most of the crossing shots and some of the quartering shots all end same speed at the end.” It’s so simple for the brain to understand that and it’s so simple for it to not feel comfortable if the gun’s not ahead of the bird and they’re not going the same speed.
There was a time when it was hard to get you to get the gun out there and adjust the speed and trust the lead. But you’ve done it so much that when the bird is not behind the barrel, you are not comfortable. And the brain doesn’t like it when you’re not comfortable. It’s going to immediately get that gun out there and allow you time as you adjust speed to kill that target, which is what you experienced the second time you went through on that 5-stand and shot 24 out of 25. Even though some of the birds beat you, the brain knows what it’s supposed to be because of all your predictions, and your execution is based on your predictions. And it’s just part of the evolution of the visual circle accepting the gun and the clay in it and knowing where that gun needs to be while you’re focused on that clay, and your hands taking that gun where it needs to be. It’s an amazing thing to me.
Rick, you have anything to add about this?
Rick: I think it’s the ending of the shot. Because when I’m caught off-guard by a wrong target pulled by my kid, you know, if you’ve been doing this method long enough, you know what the end of the shot looks like. So even though you’re caught off-guard and you snap your head around and go “Oh, he pulled that one” and you go over and you move towards it. Setup doesn’t matter. Nine o’clock, three o’clock, twelve o’clock nonsense doesn’t matter. You just go right to the front edge of the bird. The bird pushes the barrel out to the right lead, because the brain knows what the end of the shot is supposed to look like. That’s what I get out of it.
Gil: And it knows. And the more you get involved with what it is as it’s happening, the worse things happen. It is a matter of training.
Making it Automatic and Avoiding Overthinking
Gil: So I called Jeff today when he was going to the airport. He had about 45 minutes to talk to me. I thought what he wrote was really unique:
[Jeff]: “I would say the best scores I’ve shot were times when I never once thought about anything. I took six shells, walked up to the stand, got ready, shot, and walked away. No conscious effort to plan or remember my chokes or anything. I’m not saying a plan or process didn’t happen, but I am saying that I never thought about it consciously once during the station at the event.”
“Lather, rinse, repeat” is what he calls it. And he describes it as everything being automatic. He mentioned that we’ve talked about this on Coaching Hours before, but I explained that it’s an evolution of both our system of shooting and your training, as I’ve said before. Things just happen without a lot of mechanical thought.
Our system optimizes the different parts of our brain at what it naturally does every day. So whether you shoot or not, at least you are using those parts of the brain we use when we shoot. It’s an evolution. We build the capability to do hold point, focal point, stance, break points, chokes, ammo, read targets, which bird first… all that stuff, through training and firing the circuits over and over the same sequence, which allows for confidence.
I shared with Jeff that when I’ve had a good shooting experience, it’s almost as if everything I do is automatic. When I walk up to the stand, I look at the pair. I automatically know which one first and where and why. What choke, everything. I don’t even have to think about it. It just happens.
And the thing that kept coming back to me that I shared with him is, when I’m in that place, whether I’m shooting in a competition or whether I grab Jenna’s gun to go up and demo a shot for her at 50 yards with my head off the stock, it’s like I’m on automatic pilot. There’s no conscious engineering or thought process there. I know it’s going to be same speed at the end. But when I’m shooting pairs in a competition and I’m in that little place that I get into, it’s as if everything that goes through my mind in each stand is on automatic pilot. There’s no over-thinking. When I see the pair, it’s “that one there and that one there, intersecting lines. Same speed at the end.” And I go back, I get my stuff. The person before gets in the cage. I’m up there, I watch him, I watch my focus point. I get in. I shoot the pairs, and it’s like I’m never in a hurry. But it’s not like I’m thinking about “My gun’s got to start here. My eyes got to start there.” All of that mechanical thinking just is automatic for me. And I kept going back to the word I used talking to Jeff today: doubtless. It’s as if everything that I do when I’m in that experience is doubtless. There is no doubt. Jeff described that as being very confident. Both probably saying the same thing, just in a different way. But the trap we all fall into that Jack was talking about is mechanical thought. It’s doubting your gut. Would you agree with that, Jack?
Jack: Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Gil: You see it. Your gut knows better. But you see the guy in front of you shoot it the opposite way and you’re like “Oh shit, what do I do now?” And those thoughts come in, okay? But you got to be more determined to live or die by your gut. Because the more you overthink the situation, the worse it’s going to be.
I used the word “doubtless.” My zone experience is there’s no doubt. The things that I do just happen. When this happens, all of a sudden, I don’t have to think. There’s no thought. Things are obvious. There’s no caution. There’s no doubt. Things just are. So the ability to move into the zone comes from your experiences of putting yourself in the game. Training the sequence the way you want it to perform, so when it eventually happens and you find yourself confident and when you see the pair, there’s no doubt about what you’re about to do. You get ready, get into the stand, and do what you planned and trained. Run the sequence and you get out when you’re finished. Everything is automatic. No second guessing. It just is. There’s no hurry and no worry. You’re just going to do confidence or doubtless.
“Best performance is you’re confident,” Jeff said. “When I had my best performances, I’m really confident. You’ve practiced, you’re in familiar surroundings, and every decision is obvious and confident. If you missed a couple, it doesn’t bother you, and you’re able to correct it and let things continue to happen. Your confidence allows for you to be so much more aware of the surroundings, that things become even more obvious and easy. There is no urgency. There is no need to hurry. Your calm.”
And for me, things just seem to fall into place. Again, I think it’s because of what we’ve talked about on the Coaching Hour as far as prediction and execution. Prediction in your training and practice allows for the brain to anticipate further and further and further in front of you. Again, it’s the sequence of events that allows for the brain to anticipate. If you fire the circuit in the same sequence over and over and over again, and if the end product is the same the majority of the time, same speed at the end, the brain begins to accept that as the norm. And you can’t get into that zone until you’ve trained deliberately. It’ll happen, but just as quickly as you find yourself in it, guess what? You’re out of it. Yeah! Because you didn’t do anything in the beginning to put yourself in it. It just was there.
This is why the deliberate practice and the training part of this, the pause, firing the sequence the same way, is so critically important. When you walk into that cage and look at the show pair, it’s automatic. “That one there and that one there. Chokes are right. Ammo’s right. I’m number two.” At that point in time, because you’ve done it over and over again the same way, the brain is able to anticipate further and further in front of where you are to the point when you’ve done it even more the same way, the brain can anticipate all the way through the set of four pair. And you’re just a participant in the cage replicating what you’re seeing. It’s just over at that point in time. But that can’t happen unless you put in the deliberate practice. It’s just not going to happen.
I’ve been working with Jenna. She calls and she has a good practice. And if you’re not predicting and executing, you’re not building long-term memory. And then it’s the same for all you guys. We’ve talked about that over and over and over again. You can’t practice confidence and you can’t practice consistency. They are what’s left over after practice. And there exists a familiarity with the level of confidence, practice, and an automatic feeling you get when it does come together. It’s an amazing thing.
In a minute I want to share something that I’ve talked to Doss about several times that I’ve helped him with. But Jack, when you’re having that situation, do you overthink it? Is that how you get out of it?
Jack: Yes, clearly. When I’m having my best performances, you kind of are aware you’re in the zone because you’re not concerned about outcome. You’re not regretful of prior errors. You’re totally in the present. That’s the best way I can describe it. You are 100 percent in the present. So there’s no concern about future. There’s no anger about the past. You just are doing. So it’s a reaction, right? We are reacting. We’re setting ourselves up to react maximally to a stimulus. And in this case, the stimulus is the target flying, and our reaction is moving the gun into the proper lead and triggering at the proper point. And the minute my ego gets involved and says “I can do a better job at that,” I got to make sure I’m not going to miss that last target on the fourth pair. So, I mean, take a little extra time and make sure I get it. That’s when it all goes out the window.
Gil: How does that get in for you?
Jack: Well, I honestly don’t know. I wish I did, because if I knew how it got in, I’d figure out a way to turn it off. I’m honestly not sure how. I catch myself doing that. I’ll start out and “No, no, no. Relax, react, stick to your process” and I’m getting a little better at that. But that is still something I struggle with, Gil. You have to be aware it’s happening, and you have to be aware what the triggers are. And the triggers are when you start having a conversation with yourself.
Gil: Conversation is not good.
Jack: It is not good. Because that takes me out of my zone and all of a sudden I’m concerned about the future. Right? I am not setting myself up to be in the present and react maximally. I am concerned about the future, so I’m going to try to control the future events. And it’s disastrous because, I can tell you for me and probably for 90 percent of the shooters out there, it causes you to look at that bead on the end of your gun before you pull the trigger.
Gil: Yeah.
Jack: Because you want to make darn sure the barrel’s in the right place.
Gil: Yeah, like Brian says, that barrel gets really big, doesn’t it?
Jack: Well, yeah. When you want to control, the barrel becomes big. And when you’re running the process, you’re almost not aware of it. I mean, obviously, we know where it is. But it’s not the thing we’re looking at, right? We’re looking at the target when it’s all going right.
Gil: When it’s going right for me, as I said before, everything is automatic. It’s like I’m on a train and the instant I get thirsty, somebody is there with a nice glass of cool water. And the minute I’m thinking about looking outside, somebody’s over there washing the window ahead of me so I can see well. It just flows.
I’ve experienced this not only in shooting, but in public speaking. And in consulting with athletes, fishermen, basketball players, golfers, business leaders… In what we do I’ve experienced being in that zone. And the more I do this and the larger the crowds are, the less I prepare and the less I worry about it. Because I know I’ve got my computer and I’ve got everything on my computer in a certain order and I can find it in maybe ten seconds at the most. I can go any direction I need to keep the audience captivated.
Now, there was a time when just working the computer was a hard thing for me. But those times have gone by, because I put myself in front of this computer and I’ve learned how to run it. And now that I say that, something’s going to happen when I’m at Dallas Safari next month and I’m gonna have to work my way out of it. When we were at Phoenix, they had a TV over there that didn’t have a remote to it. I had hooked the HDMI cable up to it and the people were gathering and starting to watch. I just started talking to them and said, “There was a time when me having to do this would have caused me to breathe really fast and get really short tempered and I would have been nervous, but I’m not.” I knew it’s going to go into HDMI1 and I knew I had to find an “On” button on the TV somewhere. And I found it and I figured out. I’ve overcome the fear of moving the “On” button or the “selection” button the wrong way. I just move it until it goes to whatever it’s supposed to go to and I click on it onto HDMI1 and punch “pair” and boom. There was a time when that would have caused me great consternation. Because I’ve had to go through it so many times, it’s not a problem for me anymore.
I’m working with Jenna on having her go to as many competitions as she can, so that she can figure out what her brain going to tell her when she’s shooting well. Because you all know as well as I know, you’re each going to have little things that allow for your brain to get in and cause you to go mechanical. Right, Jack?
Jack: Absolutely.
Gil: And it’s going to be unique to you. So, Jenna’s still having a little trouble, not shooting as high a score as she needs to or wants to sometimes. She’s having a hard time dealing with a tough day on the range, but we all have those. But she’s getting better. Win or lose.
But each person has his own little skeletons in the closet, if you will, that are going to come out when you’re down three and you’ve got three stations to go. And you’re never going to know what they’re going to say until you’ve been in the game and have them come out of that closet. And without exception, they’re going to make you be careful. They’re going to cause you to evaluate. They’re going to say all manner of things. But what you’ve got to do is learn how to identify them so that when they’re said inside your head, you can learn to deal with them in a positive way; control them and go back to doing what you’re doing. And that’s how to compete.
As I said before, when I’m in there, everything’s in automatic. And when I miss, I’m shocked. And if I miss, I’ll be in front. I’d just given it more respect than I needed to. There you go, Jack. I was getting involved with it and I got fooled. The target setter got me. But I was able to get right back into it. Kill the last bird in that pair and go run the next two stations and finish out with a good score. But it’s something that happens to everybody.
Learning is Linear
Gil: Now, I want to share with you something that Doss and I were talking about. Understand that we’ve been shooting with Doss Bourgeois… Oh, wow, for how many years, Vicki?
Vicki: Oh, probably 25 to 30.
Gil: We’ve been shooting with Doss a long time. I’ve helped him through some family decisions and some tough times in his life. We’re very close. And he took on a new job ten years ago and it’s going to be his last job. He said, “You’re going to fly around with me in that helicopter and I’m going to shoot factory rounds the rest of my life with you over my right shoulder.” And I said “I’m waiting on that job, Bubba.”
So, I designed a practice regimen for him, because he may have to work three months in a row, and then he’ll be off six to twelve weeks. Not off, but he doesn’t have to be nose to the grindstone; he can go shoot tournaments. He and I worked on a practice regimen of single targets that he gets his game back with. Now, this is something that we’ll talk about at the ranch, and I’ll see if I can get him on in January to talk about this. It usually takes him X number of shells, X number of targets to begin to have his game come back. In 2018, he’d been watching the Kill Shot reviews a lot, and he had gotten about two-thirds to three-fourths of his targets in to get his game back.
He got there and he shot the main event. And he called me that night and said, “I’m not sure that’s the Kill Shot Reviews worked because I didn’t do very good on the 300-target main.” And I said “Well, let’s just look at that 300 target main as 150 practice pairs and let’s see what happens on the next four, five events.” And sure enough, he called me the next night and said “It’s back. Second station this morning, it all became automatic again. I hung a gear and I just let them have it.” He said it was just like it never left. And that’s something that we’ll be talking about at the Advance Class this year: what he feels when he does that.
But as I was telling Jeff today, it’s important that you know at the beginning of the year (or after you’ve laid off for two weeks or whatever) how you need to practice to get that little zone feeling in your game back. And it’s important to know how much you need to practice. For Doss, the “how much” is really important because his schedule’s so erratic. He’ll go to Greater Houston every other day and will shoot nothing but single targets. Playing the game. Shoot four or five singles at that break point. Same bird, different break point. A different trap, four or five singles and it is, to the T, random practice. When we first talked about this with Bob Shannon several years ago, we devised this program for him. And it’s nothing but random practice with single targets. But he practices deliberately. I mean, it’s not a “go out and shoot.” Every one of them is with execution based on prediction. Repeat or correct. It’s amazing what he knows about himself, and he tells me that he knows when it’s back. Because there’s a feeling he gets. He said “My plan and everything is just automatic. I don’t have to think anymore.” He’s been there so many times.
Just recently, he and I shot together two or three times, working on his pattern stock for his new Parcour 12-gauge. And he went out and shot a corporate shoot and ran 80 out of 80. He called me and said he did it with a K-20. And he said it was one of those days where it was there. There just exists a familiarity with the level of confidence, practice and the automatic feeling you get when it does come together. Learning is a linear thing. It’s not exponential. It’s just something else that I’ve begun to learn. It’s a linear thing, and you have to learn things in order. Because everything builds on what you’ve just learned and how well you learn, the first step determines how far you’re going to go. If you learn the first step and not very well, you’re only going to go three or four more steps before you have to go back and relearn this first step. So it’s important that you understand that it’s a linear journey. It’s not an exponential journey. You can’t go to someone who has seen ten times the number of targets break over the end of their gun and have them tell you what they see. You can’t see what they see. It doesn’t work that way. It’s all linear. Everything is linear.
Jenna: Can I pop in and say something about that? You’re kind of saying the more practice you get, the more trust you build. Because you can’t trust someone else’s computer system in their brain. So if you trust yourself a bit more.
Gil: Yeah. Confidence builds trust and trust builds confidence.
Jenna: Yep.
Gil: It’s all linear. And it’s an evolution from the beginning to where you are, based on how many targets you’ve seen in your training and how deliberate your practice has been and how many times you’ve faced a difficult pair or a difficult situation and you’ve looked at it and you’ve predicted it. And you stuck to your prediction and your execution kills the pair and you do it four times in a row and you come out of there.
It comes back to: “How many times have you done it? How many times have you done it with a prediction? How many times have you done it with a prediction with a number on your back? Then it’s “how many times have you done it with a prediction, with a number on your back when you’re sleeping in a different bed, in a hotel, in a different city, shooting at a range you’ve never been to?” Then it’s “How many times have you done it on the first day to put yourself in contention for the second day?” And you let mechanical thinking get in on the second day and you lost it on the second day when you put yourself in contention on the first day.
It’s all a linear event. And the higher quality shots you take, whether it’s in training, be it deliberate practice or in a match, regardless of how many targets you’ve missed, the best thing you can do is turn your back on the misses and say, “Okay, I got four stands to go. We’re going to shoot a four stand tournament starting right now.” And get yourself back into that mind frame. Not hope. Of doing it. You’ve got to do it.
At the end of the day, the person with the largest library of sight pictures and experience is going to win. So your job is to pull that trigger as much as you can. Now, you’ve got to split your trigger time with school time and with family time. We understand that. And you’re going to have to curb your expectations based on how much trigger time you actually do have. But at the end of the day, the person with the most trigger time, if it’s quality, deliberate trigger time, is going to have a much better chance of winning than one that doesn’t, than one that doesn’t have as much. Would you agree with that, Jack?
Jack: Absolutely. You said something there that I think is really important earlier, and that is how it changes from when you’re practicing to going into a tournament, going into a tournament that you have a chance of winning at, then going into a tournament at a different club, and then going into that tournament over multiple days. There is a quantum difference between shooting well at a club you’re familiar with and shooting well at a club you’ve never been to before.
Gil: Oh, yeah.
Jack: And you’re right, the only way I have found to get better at that, Gil, is to do it. To put myself in those positions so I can learn how to do it.
Gil: You have to have been there. I mean, you got to be in the game. And more importantly, you need to be in the game to know what your brain’s going to tell you when you’re down three with four to go. It’s not going to say “Just keep doing it, bud.”
Jack: Well, and that’s the other thing. When you’re only down three targets and you’ve got four stations left, I got news for you. That’s way different than being down 15 targets and having four stations left.
Gil: Yes, it’s possible to not know you’re down 21. It’s impossible to not know you’re down three. And even if it were possible, your friends are gonna tell you anyway. Eventually, you’re going to have to learn to face the scorecard.
Jack: Good friends won’t say you are doing well.
Gil: Well, ask Rick Carter. When he was in contention after the first day and he got to the first stand he thought he was at a funeral. Rick, you remember talking about that? How you were in contention after the first day and everybody on your squad was afraid to talk to you like you were at a funeral.
Rick: Or the pitcher who’s pitching a no-hitter- you see it on TV where he’s sitting on the end of the bench and everybody else is crowded around the other side of the bench and they don’t talk to him. They think that’s helping him. It did the exact opposite for me.
Gil: Yeah. Jenna’s gonna go to college; she wants to go to college and shoot. She’s a good little shooter and is stubborn as a brick. But that’s a good thing. I’m working with her on being stubborn in the right things, and I’m working with her on a positive attitude. She’s open simply because I have knowledge, and she didn’t think I did when she first met me. But she realizes now that I have knowledge that can help her.
But it’s important for her to know what her brain is going to tell her when she’s in contention on the last two stands and she knows it. We want to know what it’s going to tell you so we can begin to talk about ways to let it in. Because you’re not going to be able to not let it in. It’s coming in. But there are ways that you can deal with what your brain tells you and what that voice says to you so that you don’t let it get in and affect your adrenaline. You don’t let it get in and create doubt. You don’t let it get in and get you to begin to think mechanically. You don’t let it get in and begin to think and evaluate. You’ve got to let it in and just got to be able to deal with it.
Everybody has different voices. They all end up making the gun barrel really big. Every one of them makes the gun barrel double in size. So I’m working with Jenna on putting her in those situations where she has to remain emotionally stable and look failure in the face. Win or learn. And when she’s shooting well, we want to know what her brain’s going to tell her, so we can start giving her some contingency plans to learn to deal with those voices.
At the end of the day, it’s hope; it’s evaluation; it’s mechanical thinking. When confidence turns to doubt, you’re out. It’s an amazing thing. I’ve seen it happen to a lot of shooters. It’s happened to me. For me to tell you it hadn’t would be lying to you. However, we have found ways to deal with that, which would be a good topic of conversation for next month’s Coaching Hour. I didn’t get to even half of what I wanted to talk about today.
But anyway, sharing some of the things that Jeff shared with me, his deal was when he shot his best, the plan, all that stuff, just happens. He didn’t have to think about it. And I suggested to him that it was because he was able anticipate further and further in front because he had trained the sequences in his skill sets so many times that the brain can anticipate all the way through the end of the stand. He just became a participant in that stand. And this is why deliberate practice is so critical. Remember, the brain sees skill as a sequence of events. When fired sequentially enough times, it becomes one thing, and it’s constantly building these sequences from complex circuits in the beginning into very simple circuits in the end, based on how many times they’ve been deliberately fired. It’s the sequence of events.
I spent a lot more time studying David Eagleman. And if you haven’t looked at any of those YouTube videos, you’re crazy. Look at some of those videos. You’ll be shocked. Some of the things that we said ten years ago, we had no idea what we were saying, but we knew there was a sequencing somewhere. It had to be a sequencing. Well, that’s the way the brain sees. It’s a sequence of impulses that comes from our senses, and the brain creates your own reality. Really important for you all to understand that.
This has been a really good Coaching Hour. Evaluation and mechanical thinking and hope are all deal breakers. You just have to get to the point to where you’ve trained enough so that the sequence the circuit is fired in happens over and over again. Sequencing the shot the same way each time and varying the target, so the sequence must be consciously changed in practice. While it does not give you the same feel good as shooting the same 25 targets in a row, random practice is where it’s at. We will talk about random practice and block practice next month.
Thank you for participating tonight. We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. Be with your family 110 percent. Because the year’s starting in January some time for some of you, and we’re gonna have to get back out there and start training. So be with your family and be with them 110 percent. Good night, everybody. Merry Christmas.
