Jitters and Your Learning Curve
All of the disappointments that shooters go through are just spots on the learning curve.
You know the ones I’m talking about:
The first station jitters, the last station jitters, the station running jitters, the long crosser jitters, the window shot jitters, being in the lead jitters, I don’t want to shoot like crap jitters, I hope I will not shoot like crap jitters (not to be confused with the I shot like crap yesterday and I hope I don’t shoot like crap today jitters), dropping the last target jitters, I’m only down a few with two to go jitters, I just had zero jitters, oh, crap, I’m squadded with so-and-so jitters…
We all have to work our own way through all those.
You can understand intellectually how that doesn’t help you. But until you’ve faced each of them head-on, you haven’t seen them the last time. All of these things are caused by fear and will lock up the subconscious computer in a heartbeat.
They are all just one more opportunity to learn, however. The unique thing is that you begin to knock them off one by one via purposeful practice, watching your routine, watching your rest and your nutrition as we’ve talked about. Then they begin to fade away.
As they fade away, your tournament performance has begun to be more in the zone because you’re committed to the experiments you’ve been conducting about your performance versus your preparation and physiology. You then become more comfortable when shooting in the zone. You become more congruent and begin to use this as a new tool.
Tournaments are no longer a test but an opportunity to excel based on your specific preparation and total trust in trained subconscious mechanics. This is when it’s all good. You begin to realize when you’re in your zone you’ll be able to give it your best shot today because you know how and have done it many times.
This is an excerpt from the September 2012 Coaching Hour podcast. You can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.
