Taking a Six-Week Break
When people shoot year-round and compete in winter tournaments in Florida and Arizona, somewhere between June 15th and July 15th, they hit a wall and plateau out and go down. It takes them until the end of August or middle of September to work their...
Commitment to Your Plan
You must become totally committed to how and where the shot you're about to take will come together - both in practice, and on game day. But you've got to be committed to doing it like you planned, as opposed to committed to saying you're going...
The Upward and Downward Spirals
Pressure, real or perceived, makes our brains say the most stupid things to us at the most inopportune times. We have talked about how to overcome these lapses into doubt. But when you make it a habit to turn everything into a positive, it instantly allows...
Accepting the Visual Confusion
Brian set an especially deceptive set of targets at American Shooting Center one time, and I did a clinic on how to read targets. He had a pair coming from the left and the traps were real close together. But somehow, he figured out a...
Be Lethal on Easy Shots
Do you want to get out of the C-Class plateau? Then learn how to be absolutely lethal within 25 yards. If you're going to shoot tournaments, it's not the long stuff that kills you: it's the stuff that's within the 20-to-25-yard mark. If you want to...
Neutral or Happy
In Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson's book, "Every Shot Must Have a Purpose," their mantra is “neutral or happy” from an emotional standpoint. A lot of emotional outbreak, whether positive or negative, is not good. If you're overly congratulatory and excited about positive things that are...
Minimizing Visual Confusion
“When a true pair is thrown, either close together with similar flight paths or crosses early in their flight path, are there some general practices to minimize the visual confusion? Move pick-up points? Hold well under targets? Any guidance would be appreciated." The biggest thing is...
Are You Comfortable? You’re Not Learning!
People are afraid to try things that they perceive is out of their comfort zone. And your learning occurs at the edge of your comfort zone. If you're comfortable, you're not learning. You need to make yourself uncomfortable. If you're going to shoot six boxes of...
Training Your Working Memory
You’re very confident about the things that you've shot the most of. And you don't have to think as much about how you're going to shoot it because you've shot them 10,000 times. We as human beings like to be confident and comfortable when we're out...
Force the Brain Out of its Comfort Zone
Most people practice in their short-term memory, but you’ve got to force the brain out of its comfort zone to put together a new circuit. The more you do that, the better it becomes at recall. So, when you see a pair or a target you've...