Self-Correction: The Big Step

Until every shot you take is first a prediction of when where and how you are about to break the next target, and then the shot mirrors that prediction, you are not building long-term memory or skill!

What you see when shooting a moving target all happens in the periphery, and everything you are aware of in the periphery is 300 milliseconds behind real-time. This is why matching gun speed is so critical. When the speed is matched long enough for you to know, then the picture becomes real.

At that point, it can be replicated or corrected by the shooter.

Our findings now indicate that self-correction is one of the biggest steps shooters can take to becoming consistent and shooting better scores. Self-correction becomes easy when your preload is detailed enough for the brain to take the shot with no conscious interference.

Anticipate Ahead of Where You Are

To be good at anything, you must be able to anticipate further and further out in front of where you are. And the better you are at anything, the less you become aware of – not more. The more detailed your preload is and the more you have trained using this preload, the less you have to get involved with during the shot.

And when that happens, focus is a result of your approach, rather than something you are trying to do! It is a choice!

When practicing without a coach:

• Focus
• Feedback
• Fix It

When shooting a moving target, you have one of two choices:

1) Here it comes.
2) There it goes.

You are either anticipating the target’s arrival or you are reacting to what the target has done. When reacting, you tend to hurry and think your way through the sequence.

The Anticipation Circuit

When anticipating, you never hurry and are in control of the situation! There is a circuit in your visual cortex that is constantly anticipating 300 milliseconds ahead of where you are and you use it every day. It knows more about you, your timing and balance, and your abilities than you do.

The neurologists are telling us we have found a way to allow for this circuit to take care of the lead on moving targets. And it will do it with amazing consistency, provided the target comes to the lead! The instant the target gets inside the lead, you are reacting to the target. You switch from long-term memory to short-term memory and begin to try to fix the shot.

The only way this circuit in your visual cortex can anticipate ahead of a moving target is to have an unobstructed view of the target and where it will be in the future. And the calculation is based on where it has been.

It’s similar to points in a graph. Once you have a few points on the graph, the brain already knows where it will be in the future. And this computation continues unless the gun gets in the way of the brain seeing both where the target is and where it will be in the future.