How Shooters’ Perception Evolves
Let’s get back to the evolution of perceptions shooters go through as they gain more and more experience in deliberate practice and shooting tournaments. Everyone has a sequence in their brain that has been fired many times to point at something they are looking at. When...
Shooting Without Thinking
We think it would be good to talk about one more step in the performance part of sporting clays that not many of you have considered. When you look at a target for the first time, your long-term memory sees it and instantly searches the inventory...
Physiological Diplopia and Neurological Suspension
When a new shooter says something about the confusion, someone - albeit well-intended - throws their hands up in the air and proclaims that you’re left-eye dominant. You immediately feel like damaged goods, and some well-meaning person puts tape on your non-shooting eye and the...
The Rhythm in Your Routine
It is not so much what is in your routine that is important, but the rhythm of your routine that allows your brain to know exactly when you will be calling. This in turn allows the brain to begin doing its job before you call “pull”...
Failing and Failing Better
For most of you, facing a long, crossing target will make you a little uncomfortable on your first attempt because you have no expectation of hitting it. You simply call for the bird and the gun magically goes out in front. Then the trigger is...
Blocked vs. Random Practice
In our research, we have begun to understand that there are different kinds of practice. While there are many different phases of practice, we want to deal with two of them here- “blocked’ and “random.” When a shooter goes out and shoots the same target over...
Creating and Strengthening New Sequences
Consistently pointing ahead or in front of a steadily moving object is a new sequence in our brains. And like everything else we do, it must be repeated enough times so that it happens without us having to think about it. Your ability to consistently create...
The “Win or Learn” Attitude
Things that happen to you just are. But how you remember them turns them into strong influences on who you will or can become. When you attach to the memory something positive that helped you to achieve this memory, it becomes more like you. We are...
From Shooting to Building Your Own Game
When we see the obvious mistake, we know where the mistake began, and we attack the root cause which is rarely where the shooter missed the target! Remember that your skill is what you have trained the brain to fill in when it finds itself...
Skill and Repetition
We have discovered many things in our years of shooting and coaching, and one of the most startling ones is the direct link between the quality, frequency, and intensity of a shooter’s practice and how well they shoot when it counts. This discovery comes from our...