Building Long-Term Positive Memories
You become what you repeatedly do, and eventually, you become what you remember. How you file those things in your brain as positive or negative will determine who you become. In their book Be A Player, Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson share this about memory: “Psychological research has...
Nationals 2020: Competing With New Eyes
Previously: My reflections on being able to see for the first time in 2 years. Gil, Doss, and I got three days to actually shoot at our field before Nationals. And that was the first time I had shot after my cataract surgery. I had not shot since last...
Inconsistency and Evaluation: What’s Holding You Back?
Ask a room full of sporting clays shooters if they would like to be more consistent, and they'll overrun you with enthusiastic responses. Few, if any, really know why they are so inconsistent. They’re good on some days and not so good on others. But...
The Limits of Massed Practice
Our intuition persuades us to dedicate stretches of time to the single-minded repetitive practice of things we want to master. We’ve been led to believe that the regimen of massed practice is essential for building mastery of a skill or learning new knowledge. But it...
The Power of Learning and its Challenges
Remember that the most successful students take charge of their own learning and follow a simple but disciplined strategy. You may not have been taught how to do this, but you can do it and will likely surprise yourself with the results. Embrace the fact that...
Vary Your Practice as Much as Possible
In Houston, we're fortunate that we have quite a few clubs to go to. But if you practice at the same place every time, you need to vary it as much as you can. I recommend mixing it up as much as possible - not necessarily...
Shoot Every Tournament You Can
Do you want to push yourself? I encourage you to go and shoot every tournament you have the time and money for. I've realized that this is one of the main reasons top shooters are top shooters. Yes, they see the same targets delivered in so...
Linking Your Movements Together
As you go on the journey of shooting single targets, you work on perfecting your game through repetition. You work on being critical; not about whether you broke the target, but how the target was broken. You can then begin to attach similar links of movement to...
The Brain’s Synchronous Circuits
I’m intrigued by the concept of the brain combining parts of different circuits and coming up with a synchronous circuit that will break a specific target. I've never really looked at the fact that the brain might combine parts of two or three different circuits...
Freeing Yourself from Mechanical Thinking
Shooting singles in different breakpoints is so critical, and playing the game is so powerful! Playing the game - shooting single targets in your predicted breakpoint - forces you to recall the circuit that your brain knows will break that target the way you want it...