19/20 of doing it right

Yesterday at the range (50' indoor) came close to cleaning a 22 target.  4 strings of 5 rapid/timed pace, with only one 'not as good as I can do'.  What seems to work (for me):

1. As stated many times, timed/rapid is about focusing on and staying on the trigger.
2. After recoil jump, guide the dot back to aiming area while increasing trigger pressure - then shot lets off near center.  Rinse/repeat.

The smoothness of repeat shots near the center seems to come when not over-thinking or over-aiming, just "letting it flow" -almost subconsciously. The errant shot was (mostly in hindsight) snatching the trigger when the dot was near center, and forcing the trigger was like making the gun shoot when it didn't want to - in an unbalanced state - and it protested.

Hard learning but slowly seeing the light...

Nice target!

If you just could have refrained from giving such a detailed description (or any) of how to fail as your last thought... (Sigh!)

These types of reactions are ingrained in us: to describe things that are wrong or we didn't like.  But, expending energy "explaining" something other than what we seek, gives that failure extra reason to stick around for more attention.  Especially bad is that it includes others who can now visualize and think about their failures to be perfect.  Sometimes this even leads to a down-spiral of competitors trying to outdo each other with their tales of woe, all of which help the subconscious to focus on failure rather then success.

OTOH, I clearly remember "picking" on another competitor about Xs during a match, "How many Xs?"  "I got _!"  We both cleaned lots of targets that day.

"If you just could have refrained from giving such a detailed description (or any) of how to fail as your last thought... (Sigh!)"

Yes for sure (and thanks Ed for commenting), which is a hard thing to overcome.  Going through many years of 'higher' education, I have a deeply engrained reaction to performance measures: correct what's wrong / leave what's right alone.  And transitioning to subconscious (especially at advanced age) seems implausible - yet it works.

Here at the rancho I use a nice PCP air rifle for pest control (ground squirrels, etc).  The cocking mechanism / magazine can be cycled twice - loading two pellets, which when shot fall way short.  It's hard to remember if the gun was cocked and sometimes I would line up an easy shot but miss with a double.  I decided to cycle the action after every shot (and put it on safe), to ensure only one pellet in the chamber.  After doing this many times I now do it automatically, and even in the excited moments of a good hit it gets done automatically without having to think about it.

There are analogues in behavioral finance.  There are studies which show that losses are about 2X more painful than equivalent gains are pleasurable.  ie, if you lose $1000 it is about twice as upsetting (to the extent such things are quantifiable) as it is pleasurable to gain $1000.  Anyone who has traded or invested actively will attest to this.  Similarly it seems a thrown shot is more upsetting than a dead-center shot is joyful.

I suspect this psychology is there for a reason: evolution likely favored those who react strongly to negative things (danger, risk), and penalized those who didn't care about negatives (many of whom went on to die and not reproduce).  In a way a good shooter needs a narcissistic attitude, "MY good is great, and I don't believe I can do bad".

Of course the other part is not to overthink this, which some people seem to do