Bullseye Mind

• For a long time, I've noticed that at home, it is so easy to smoothly apply pressure to my trigger until the gun goes "click", but at the range the trigger doesn't move so easily.
  
• I have found that my wobble zone at the range is double what it is in my living room dry-firing.
  
• Finally, when dry firing at home, my gun never bolts off to one side or another when firing, but always does this at least once out of ten shots at the range.
  
• my trigger increases in direct proportion to how long it takes before the gun fires - ONLY - at the range.  Never at home.
  
• my trigger press at home feels perfect, but at the range it's a struggle to do what I know I know how to do.....
  

I was discussing this with one of my doctors earlier today, and it seems to be all wrapped up in one word: anxiety.

People in this forum have recommended two books that deal with this:

• Bullseye Mind (Mental Toughness for Sport Shooting) by Raymond Prior, PhD  and
  
• With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham,  Olympic and World Champion.
  

I've read well over half of Bullseye Mind, and finished reading With Winning in Mind.  At the time, I didn't see any obvious way that this applied to me.  I'm mostly shooting for fun, there is no pressure other than what I generate in my head, and I didn't see any of the examples as relating to me.  But my friend, who is a Clinical Psychologist at a local hospital, thinks that this kind of thing directly relates to me, and in more ways than shooting.

I found myself explaining to her that I've been trying to deal with anxiety/pressure/tenseness by relaxing at the range, and minimizing any need to "do good".  I suggested I might stop shooting at targets, and just shoot for fun, so there is no pressure to make the holes appear in the desired spot.  ........She said that wouldn't work.  She said I need to find a new way of going about shooting at the range to replace my old ways.  Maybe something I think, or say to myself, that puts my head in a better frame of mind.



By posting this here, you can all have a good laugh at my expense.  That's OK.  

But I'm thinking that at least some of you might relate to this, and maybe even found a way to eliminate the "anxiety" if that's the cause of what I'm describing.  I have a more open mind right now than when I started reading those two books, so I'm going do so all over again, starting at the beginning as if I was reading a novel.  Maybe I've identified the problem - but even so, I haven't yet found a cure.



In the meantime, I have a simple question to ask in this thread.....

Have any of you had similar issues in the past, and if so, what thing(s) did you do to get over it?

Inner Game of Tennis - read it.

Golf is Not a Game of Perfect is also good.

The thing that keeps me interested in Bullseye is that it is all a mental game. You have to find the mental tricks that work for you. Maybe you need to focus on the process rather than the outcome. It is too easy to have 2 different mental processes when dry firing vs live firing. When dry firing there is no hole in the target for all too see. Dry firing is ALL internal. Pick one process element to focus on... Smooth trigger pull, sight alignment, calling the shot. Use that as your judgement of goodness of a shot, not the hole in target.

When I get to the range, I dry fire quite a bit without setting up a target. Just at the berm without "aiming" at anything just as you would white wall dry firing. Once comfortable with the results there, I set up a target and dry fire some more at it until I like what I am seeing. Then I load up a magazine and go back to the berm and fire at it again with no target just as I would white wall dry firing and focus only on the dot or front sight. I find that that seems to eliminate the "tension", "anxiety", "anticipation", or whatever of live fire compared to dry fire. Then it's back to the target and on with the training. If at some point I find the trigger getting "heavy" again or the gun starts moving around more than I like, then it's back to the berm for a few shots to smooth things back out mentally.  

In my case I find that the "difficulty" is a natural tendency to want to perfect the shot. Taking away the target for a few shots and only concentrating on the dot helps eliminate that tendency. 

YMMV

If you want to see how much better you shoot with the anxiety reduced have your psychologist friend write you a script for a beta blocker such as propranolol, its effects are mild but will reduce your body's adrenaline response. Musicians and speakers use them to reduce "stage fright".

Mike,

I'd like to simplify your post to the following two sentences: "At home, without a target present and with no rounds in the gun, I can execute my shot process very well. At the range, with a loaded pistol, and a black circle in the center of the target, I cannot execute the same shot process as well."

So, what is different?
1. The pistol is the same
2. The person holding the pistol is the same - at least physically
3. The state of mind of this person is the same... wait, is it really?

Your "friend, who is a Clinical Psychologist at a local hospital, thinks that this kind of thing directly relates to me, and in more ways than shooting."
She is telling you in no uncertain terms that the difference, which negatively affects your performance at the range is in your state of mind.
Therefore, read the two books again and try to figure out how to (for you):
1. Develop a greater mental toughness that will allow you to overcome the stress/tension/anxiety, which affects your range performance - Bullseye Mind, by Richard Prior
2. Bring yourself to a higher mental plane of performance when at the range - With Winning in Mind by Lenny Bassham.

In addition, invest into a third book, already mentioned in this thread - "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey and figure out how the approach of non-judgmental observation of your performance at the range can apply to you and help you.

You have been studying the art of Precision Shooting for a few years now. 
You have made a tremendous progress. 
You have developed good technique, which you can execute on demand at home when dry-firing.
The only obstacle, which prevents you from doing the same at the range is in your mind, not in your body. Listen to what your doctors are telling you and what people on this forum are advising you.

Recognizing mental obstacles is not easy. But once you accept the fact that the state of mind is really the ONLY difference, you will find it much easier to overcome these obstacles.


And to answer your question - all of us had to in the past and are continuing every day to work on improving the mental part of the game. It is a constant ever-evolving process.

Regards,
Oleg.

Oleg, in my heart, and my brain, I know you are right, and this is what I'm being told.  So, I'll be spending some time reading Bullseye Mind again before anything else.

DA/SA, having thought about what you wrote:

"When I get to the range, I dry fire quite a bit without setting up a target. Just at the berm without "aiming" at anything just as you would white wall dry firing. 


Once comfortable with the results there, I set up a target and dry fire some more at it until I like what I am seeing. 


Then I load up a magazine and go back to the berm and fire at it again with no target just as I would white wall dry firing and focus only on the dot or front sight. 


I find that that seems to eliminate the "tension", "anxiety", "anticipation", or whatever of live fire compared to dry fire. Then it's back to the target and on with the training. 


If at some point I find the trigger getting "heavy" again or the gun starts moving around more than I like, then it's back to the berm for a few shots to smooth things back out mentally."



....I will try this out exactly as you wrote it tomorrow.  I was going to bring a different gun, but I'll stick with the 45.  Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for, a suggestion of "what to do".  That's what my doctor friend called it, replacing the negative things in my mind while shooting with positive things.     Thanks!

The whole reason Lanny Bassham wrote With Winning in Mind was the anxiety he had during his first Olympics where he "fell apart" (if you can call winning a Silver falling apart) mentally.  The idea of developing a shot process and following it so religiously that it becomes like tying your shoe - you just don't have to think about it was born for him.  But you still need to develop indicators that tell you when to abort.

Second guessing, hesitation, anxiety all these things happen from the beginning shooter to the Champion.  The shot process is the key to relieving you of all those things that create the noise by training your subconscious WHAT is right and letting it take the shot.  The more skilled you become the more you realize this is truly a mental sport. 
- Dave

Dave,

I did read that book, but I came away with a different thought.  Lanny also had the skills, and the patience, and the youth, and the hand control, and the eyesight, and the strength to accomplish his goal.  Even you just wrote he  still needed to  develop indicators that tell when to abort - which implies experience.  

It seems to me that while he developed so many things within his body to do so well, there is still the part of it that he was born with.  Oh, and good coaching!

The advice from DA/SA up above is far more useful to me, than how to win the Olympics.  Or put another way, long before a person tries to conquer calculus and analytic geometry, he needs to learn the basics of mathematics.  .....or, for this discussion, the fundamentals.  .......and, when I think of myself, to un-learn bad habits.   :-)

Choose to have Fun
Fun creates Enjoyment
Enjoyment invites Participation
Participation focuses Attention
Attention expands Awareness
Awareness promotes Insight
Insight generates Knowledge
Knowledge facilitates Action
Action yields Results

And do some searching the vast posts in Fundamentals.  Used to be some good stuff there from lots of others that have since departed the forum.

CR

My favorite chapter in Bullseye Mind is "Q.R.S...T" (Quiet, Relax, Sharpen, Trust). It's so simple, and so obvious, yet I can't execute it reliably. Getting there though.

DA/SA wrote:When I get to the range, I dry fire quite a bit without setting up a target. Just at the berm without "aiming" at anything just as you would white wall dry firing. Once comfortable with the results there, I set up a target and dry fire some more at it until I like what I am seeing. Then I load up a magazine and go back to the berm and fire at it again with no target just as I would white wall dry firing and focus only on the dot or front sight. I find that that seems to eliminate the "tension", "anxiety", "anticipation", or whatever of live fire compared to dry fire. Then it's back to the target and on with the training. If at some point I find the trigger getting "heavy" again or the gun starts moving around more than I like, then it's back to the berm for a few shots to smooth things back out mentally.  

In my case I find that the "difficulty" is a natural tendency to want to perfect the shot. Taking away the target for a few shots and only concentrating on the dot helps eliminate that tendency. 

YMMV

In a similar vein, I will put up a 'target' with no bull, just white, and take 10-20-30 shots, just to ensure that I'm watching my sights and moving the trigger smoothly. And there's also dummy rounds, which is a bit tricky to "randomize" in a five-round magazine, but I load two mags with 2 or 3 dummy rounds mixed in, then shuffle the mags in my pocket and take one out; this way I'm sure to have lost track of where the dummy rounds went. This works great for me.

mikemyers wrote:I did read [Lanny Basham's] book, but I came away with a different thought.  Lanny also had the skills, and the patience, and the youth, and the hand control, and the eyesight, and the strength to accomplish his goal.  Even you just wrote he  still needed to  develop indicators that tell when to abort - which implies experience.  

It seems to me that while he developed so many things within his body to do so well, there is still the part of it that he was born with.  Oh, and good coaching!

The skills used to win the Olympics, especially the mental skills, are no different from the skill a new shooter needs to keep all shots on paper, or in the scoring rings, or in the black. As long as you are thinking about the advantages he had that you don't you are completely missing the point of the book. Read it again. And again. And again.

A High Master told me a long time ago "Everyone makes the same mistakes, anticipating, flinching, losing focus, getting discouraged etc. The only difference is when a High Master does it they shoot a 9 or 8, when a Marksman does it they shoot a 5 or a miss". Focus on the skills you have and what you want to improve. That is true in Bullseye and in every aspect of life.

Most importantly the way to win at bullseye is to stop trying to win. Execute your shot process as well as you can on that day, at that time, regardless of conditions or competitions. You are only in competition with yourself. Nearly everything we think of as "bullseye competition" is there to distract you and make it harder to follow your process consistently. The big black bull is there is distract your eye from the front sight or to make you try to only pull the trigger when the dot is dead center. We score targets and spend more time looking at targets than it took to shoot them only makes it harder to let go of past shots and concentrate on what's really important for the next shot.

mikemyers wrote:Dave,

I did read that book, but I came away with a different thought.  Lanny also had the skills, and the patience, and the youth, and the hand control, and the eyesight, and the strength to accomplish his goal.  Even you just wrote he  still needed to  develop indicators that tell when to abort - which implies experience.  

It seems to me that while he developed so many things within his body to do so well, there is still the part of it that he was born with.  Oh, and good coaching!

The advice from DA/SA up above is far more useful to me, than how to win the Olympics.  Or put another way, long before a person tries to conquer calculus and analytic geometry, he needs to learn the basics of mathematics.  .....or, for this discussion, the fundamentals.  .......and, when I think of myself, to un-learn bad habits.   :-)

If you thought that book was how to win the Olympics you missed the whole point of the book.  Inner Game of Tennis is not how to play Tennis and Golf is Not a Game of Perfect is not really about Golf.  There is nothing in those books that would be considered anything but "basic math" - mental math.  The difference between shooting your 1st perfect target and any goal beyond that is dedication and repetition (good reps).

If you have introduced a bad habit then you are not following your shot process - follow your shot process and bad habits won't creep in.  Developing and following a shot process is a basic fundamental.

This sport is considered >95% mental.  When you finish a dry fire session you should be mentally tired, same thing with live fire training.  When you practice you should be putting into play what you learned in training.  When shooting for competition you should be more relaxed and let your training take over and have fun.
- Dave

dronning wrote:........If you thought that book was how to win the Olympics you missed the whole point of the book........

I don't think I "missed the whole point of the book".  I do think we all have our own limitations, and while we can all improve, some people are inherently "better" than others.  This might include genes, training, size, weight, age, and so on.  I know that I can get "better".  I know I can never be "best".

The mental states of Trying to hit something and Trying not to miss, are polar opposites .

mikemyers wrote:

dronning wrote:........If you thought that book was how to win the Olympics you missed the whole point of the book........

I don't think I "missed the whole point of the book".  I do think we all have our own limitations, and while we can all improve, some people are inherently "better" than others.  This might include genes, training, size, weight, age, and so on.  I know that I can get "better".  I know I can never be "best".

The book wasn't about being THE best it was about being YOUR best, that's what you missed.
The thing is Mike if you continue to focus on having limitations, you will never find YOUR potential because anytime you reach a plateau you will find a reason why you can't get any better.  It's a frame of mind.  It's one of the reasons you should not focus on your failures.  You should focus on what is successful and develop a process to repeat it (a shot process).  Focusing on errors to improve is like trying to get a math problem right by figuring all the wrong ways to do it.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right. - HF
- Dave

Yesterday I planned on going to the range today and following the suggestion from DA/SA as posted above.

However, before going to sleep, I read the first chapter over again in the "Bullseye Mind" book.  That got me wondering what Raymond Prior had to say about "anxiety", and the closest thing I could find was Chapter 13, "Nerves are a Good Thing", which I read twice.  Nerves, Anxiety, whatever I want to call it - maybe I should stop fighting it?  His thoughts about being nervous were "That's Awesome!" (page 95).

So, I got to the range, and fired off several shots at the dirt behind my target, and sure enough, I could do everything as if I was dry-firing.  Then I  switched to  my real target, and while the first shots were fine, the next one was way off, and more importantly, I found that I was tensioning the muscles in my right arm.  When I deliberately relaxed those muscles, I was better, and when I tried Cranky Thunder's trick of seeing how far I can press the trigger in without the gun firing, the holes were much more precise.

The next to the last target had my holes too high, so I adjusted the sight.  (There is play from somewhere in the sight - will find and fix that tonight.). For my last target, I combined Dave Salyer's suggestion of Area Aiming, with Cranky's trick so I don't deliberately fire the gun, it just happens.  During all this, I was checking that all my arm muscles were relaxed.  I'll post a photo below.

My thoughts right now are that: 

• I need to use "area aiming", instead of aiming at a point.
  
• Next, I need to check that my arm muscles are relaxed, not "tense".  
  
• I need to fire the gun without moving it.  Cranky's suggestion works, and with some more practice I can do it naturally again.
  
• Finally, I should accept "anxiety" as a good thing, and stop fighting it.
  

Last target of the day (I need to fix the sight), ten rounds, 25 yards:

(Since I now think Raymond Prior is correct, and anxiety/nerves/etc. probably is a good thing, then what I wrote up above when I posted this thread was all wrong.  Lots more to think about.)

From CR10X:
 by CR10X Yesterday at 8:26 pm

Choose to have Fun
Fun creates Enjoyment
Enjoyment invites Participation
Participation focuses Attention
Attention expands Awareness
Awareness promotes Insight
Insight generates Knowledge
Knowledge facilitates Action
Action yields Results


Sounds like a good plan to me.

bruce martindale wrote:The mental states of Trying to hit something and Trying not to miss, are polar opposites .

I'm not  doing either of those.  Thanks to Dave, I'm just trying to keep all my shots in my "wobble zone".  

I'm always trying to "do", rather than trying to "not do".  In that sense, for whatever it's worth, I agree with you.

dronning wrote:The book wasn't about being THE best it was about being YOUR best, that's what you missed.
The thing is Mike if you continue to focus on having limitations, you will never find YOUR potential because anytime you reach a plateau you will find a reason why you can't get any better.  It's a frame of mind.  It's one of the reasons you should not focus on your failures.  You should focus on what is successful and develop a process to repeat it (a shot process). 

Focusing on errors to improve is like trying to get a math problem right by figuring all the wrong ways to do it.....

That's probably good advice, but for better or worse, I'm "not" trying to do my "best".  Whatever my "wobble zone" is, I'm just trying ensure my shots end up within it.
Just my way of doing things.

Dave, with a math problem, since I wouldn't yet know "the" answer, I used to try many different ways, and I often learned things by trying the "wrong way" that helped me find the best answer.   Again, just my way of doing things.  For better or worse.

Why not try going the other way and have a shoot off against a friend? Loser pays range fees. Bust through the anxiety. 

I really like shooting in ISSF type finals. It gets the ice-water flowing when you get down to the last shot. It can be like 20 parachute jumps.

Mike, you might need to think about something. Every time you go to the range to "practice" or even train, your are actually competing. Yes "competing" no matter how much you deny it mentally or orally when you post. Every time you shoot, if you are trying to get better, you are competing with your previous image of yourself / results, which is exactly the same conditions that occur at a match. So reread the the books and substitute "competing" or "competitions" with "when I train or shoot" and you might begin to understand the genesis of your anxiety issue.

Anxiety is not good or bad in itself, but we set the context in our minds. And your mind talk or inner monologue might need some improvement.

Same caveat about bourbon and typing as my other post, mostly hammered and waiting for Uber to Sunset Terrace for dinner. Y'all have a great 4th.
CR

Mike, you might need to think about something. Every time you go to the range to "practice" or even train, your are actually competing. Yes "competing" no matter how much you deny it mentally or orally when you post. Every time you shoot, if you are trying to get better, you are competing with your previous image of yourself / results, which is exactly the same conditions that occur at a match. So reread the the books and substitute "competing" or "competitions" with "when I train or shoot" and you might begin to understand the genesis of your anxiety issue.

Anxiety is not good or bad in itself, but we set the context in our minds. And your mind talk or inner monologue might need some improvement.

Same caveat about bourbon and typing as my other post, mostly hammered and waiting for Uber to Sunset Terrace for dinner. Y'all have a great 4th.
CR

Mike, you might need to think about something. Every time you go to the range to "practice" or even train, your are actually competing. Yes "competing" no matter how much you deny it mentally or orally when you post. Every time you shoot, if you are trying to get better, you are competing with your previous image of yourself / results, which is exactly the same conditions that occur at a match. So reread the the books and substitute "competing" or "competitions" with "when I train or shoot" and you might begin to understand the genesis of your anxiety issue.

Anxiety is not good or bad in itself, but we set the context in our minds. And your mind talk or inner monologue might need some improvement.

Same caveat about bourbon and typing as my other post, mostly hammered and waiting for Uber to Sunset Terrace for dinner. Y'all have a great 4th.
CR