Dear Gil,
I want to thank you for the help I got when shooting with you. I went from waving my gun around like a crazed madman to picking my breakpoints and slowing the bird down by concentrating on the bird, and intercepting the bird at the right place, and breaking the bird with very little gun movement. It took some practice to get it lined out, but I have moved from the middle of B class to A class. I have shot three tournaments in A class and have won two out of three. It is a beautiful thing when it happens right in front of you and you can slow it down enough to actually see it happen.
I seem to be having a problem with the third pair of a station. I pick my breakpoint and shoot the first two pair seemingly unconscious, but when I get to the third, I have seen the sight picture two times and then I seem to be trying not to miss the third pair instead of just shooting them. I know my conscious brain is kicking in. What can I do?
Again, thank you
Jim McCary
Jim,
You are not alone in your challenge with shooting the third pair successfully and shooting “not to miss.” When we made your swing change to keep you from chasing the bird with the muzzle, we talked about the fact that you would have to practice the new swing for some time until it became subconscious. You did that and you did it in record time because of your dedication to quality practice.
It seems that you did exactly everything we told you to do with no ad-libbing. It’s the ad-libbing part that gets shooters off-track, especially in practice. It seems that your new style of not chasing the birds and shooting the targets in specific breakpoints (not when the picture looks right) is beginning to work for you.
When we began to work together, we talked about the fact that the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary, and that the better you got, the harder it was going to be to progress – or at least the steps up the ladder would become shorter and shorter, and take longer to get there.
Well, the third pair-itis would be one of those steps. It takes some time to permanently eliminate it. For some, it takes a year. For others, it takes only a few months, because it has to do with more than one thing. Several things have to come together for this problem to go away forever, and they will go away forever eventually.
Now that you’re winning in A class, you have to run more stations to put up a winning score, and you’re beginning to notice the little things in your game that need work. It’s no longer a particular target that gives you a problem, but a target sequence is the problem. And it’s only a problem when you have run the first two pair.
To some, this would be seen as a mental problem that you could think your way through. And if it were dwelt upon at length in a negative way, it could develop into a mental problem. The fact that you have asked for help will keep it from becoming a mental dilemma.
We would tell you to look first at your pre-shot routine – that is, if you have one. Your pre-shot routine must be simple, sound, consistent, and most importantly, subconscious. It needs to have a rhythm so it can become subconscious and it needs to be the same length of time each and every time.
“Why all the requirements?” you might ask. Well, the pre-shot routine is designed to allow you to go from conscious planning of the shot at hand into subconscious reaction to the target based on your plan. Without a routine, you will eventually become conscious in your shot. And when the conscious mind gets involved in the shot, the only thing you will think about is the lead and the picture and not missing.
Because of the time delay in the information inputted to the brain from the periphery, whatever picture you think you see when you pull the trigger is not real anyway. It’s only a perception.
Let us explain. Visual information you are aware of that comes from the periphery is as much as 200-300 milliseconds behind real-time. When you’re shooting the first two pair, you become aware of this picture that you see as the bird breaks. You are not alone, because we have all seen it. Those of us who are brave enough to admit it in public and have tried to put that picture on the next pair have all realized that it does not work. But what we saw looked real and we are confused.
Well, you saw the picture as the target broke but it was a lie. Confused? Stay with us.
When the target broke, you were focused on the target and you were aware of the gun in the periphery. And the picture you saw looked real, even though it disappeared as soon as you realized it was there. When you saw the target break you were focused on it with your primary or sharp vision. That visual data arrived at the motor center in 5 milliseconds, or as close to real-time as it gets.
After you saw the target break, you became aware of the gun in the periphery. And as soon as you became aware of the gun, it disappeared too. It all looks so real because we are dealing with milliseconds, but the image of the gun you saw was not in real-time – it was in the past tense. It was 200-300 milliseconds behind real-time.
Although it looked real, what you think you saw occurred .2 to .3 of a second ago. This is why the picture you try to put on the next pair doesn’t work and it’s why we say that conscious sight pictures are a thing of the past.
We suggest you do two things. Work on your pre-shot routine like we describe in our Out of Your Mind book and our DVD, The Three Routines of Sporting Clays. The reason we suggest looking at both of those is your routine is just that. It’s yours. There is not a recipe for creating a routine, but there are certain things that a successful one must have – too numerous to go into in this column.
Once you get that down, or while you are getting that down, begin to change the way you practice. You have been shooting 80 percent single targets working on your breakpoints now begin shooting 80 percent pairs shooting five pair in a row. Keep the pairs simple and easy and work on shooting the first bird in the same breakpoint.
And it’s equally important to work on the visual transition to the second target and not move the gun until you have focused on the second target.
The key to being consistent shooting pairs and eventually running stations is a consistent breakpoint on the first bird and moving your eyes to the second target before you move the gun. Shooting five pair in a row over and over and over will eventually allow you to face the third pair enough times successfully that the problem will go away.
When your routine becomes as natural as loading your gun, then you will begin to run stations. And that’s what you gotta do to win at sporting clays.
You got to be in love with the challenge, not the success.
