Controlling Target Panic

Hi Geoff
I repled to Rich's post by PM but I'm going to have to remember to do it here as well.

That feeling that Rich described is sheer tension mixed with anxiety, caused by a high level of adrenalin flow. As I mentioned to him, I used to coach International Target Pistol Shooting and the greatest problem beginners had was trying to hold a relatively heavy pistol in one hand at arms length as still as possible whilst trying to keep the sights aligned and aiming at the correct place on the target whilst trying to manipulate a relatively heavy trigger without upsetting any of this.

The truth is of course that when beginners are taught like this they develop exactly the reaction that Rich did. They can't keep anything still and as for keeping the sight picture aligned on the centre of the target (6 o'clock actually but I won't go into that now) - utterly impossible. So what they all do is to ignore what you told them and as the sights swing past the centre of the target they jerk the trigger to fire the pistol "on the fly" so to speak and because the trigger operation is totally without control they tend to flinch their hand holding the pistol at the same time.

So virtually from the very first moment, if you train pistol shooters like this you immediately start training them in a form of pistol shooting target panic and it never gets better.

You have to find a way for them to only think of one thing at a time, so what I used to do was to sit them down at the shooting bench, and rest their pistol on special rests we had made up which allowed the total weight of the pistol to be taken by the rest. All they had to do was hold the grip, aim and press the trigger. We even got around the aiming issue by getting them to align their sights on a blank target (all white) correctly and then close their eyes as they pressed the trigger. So right from the beginning all they had to worry about was how to manipulate the trigger without jerking it.

So it ought to be with archery. Make it so that the beginner has as little physicaland mental strain on his/her system as possible right from the start and get them doing little things correctly, one thing at a time as I described in my latest writing on this.

Beginners only ever hear half of what you say and remember virtually none of it. This gets worse if they are under any sort of strain. That's why I avoid letting them shoot at a target until they can get a few simple things going right.

My thoughts for what they are worth.

[geoffretired]

Thanks,Tom. So you are saying he had far too many things to try to do and in failing so many he actually brought on another problem of his own,TP.
That is very interesting. It sounds right too. I wonder if it would be worth clarifying,at what time in the shot ther panic sets in. Was it there at the start of the draw or before that even? Or did it stay quiet until the aiming began? In my case it was mild anxiety at the start, as I expected things to go wrong. then as the sight closed in on the red, the panic reached such intensity that all control was lost and off it went.

Sort of Geoff.

It is hard to get into someone else's mind and try to work out what is going on there. It's hard enough with ourselves. I truly believe that the sensation that some archers experience right away in terms of TP is the same as for other archers who take a while to develop the problem.

I suspect that the more perceptive one is, the greater the chances are that TP will kick in early, because the mind seems to recognise immediately the contradictory things that you are trying to do.

For example you are trying to hold back what seems to be a heavy draw weight (because your muscles have never had to do this sort of thing), and as a consequence your arms are starting to tremble with the effort. At the same time you are trying to keep your aim steady on the centre, when your body is telling you it can't.

In addition there is the discomfort of the string bearing onto your drawing fingers and it feels like it's going to slide off because it doesn't seem possible to hold it back by just using the end joints of your fingers. And you have this awful feeling that the arrow is going to come off the rest before you get a chance to fire it.

And sitting in the front of your mind is the desire to hit the target somewhere near the middle because you don't want to be embarrassed by missing the butt altogether, and we aren't even talking about whether it's blowing a gale or it's raining or it's hot or cold and you really aren't feeling physically comfortable by a long shot.

So there is this rapid build up of extreme tension and anxiety in your mind and your subconscious is saying "This is bloody ridiculous. Let it go!", your adrenalin is really pumping, which is starting to make you feel edgy and a bit lightheaded and so as your sight whizzes towards the centre you let the string go, hoping your arrow will land somewhere near the centre.

If it does your mind recognises that this worked so I'll do it the same way next shot and you have now started teaching yourself to shoot "on the fly", even though your subconscious is saying, "It isn't supposed to work like this".

Or you miss altogether and your mind thinks "How the hell am I ever going to do this. It's too hard!", and as you try again, your mind recognises straight away that everything is the same only you are feeling a bit more tired, so you let it go sooner to stop the discomfort sooner.

It is often a wonder to me that we ever get beginners to come back for more lessons. We need to make every thing as easy and simple as possible for them right from the beginning and try to let them experience a succession of tiny successes that will eventually build up into real confidence that they can do this thing well.
Does any of this resonate with you and others, because I'm not sure how else to explain it?

[Marcus26]

The psychology of target panic is very very simple. Lets use freestyle compound as an example

• The archer is instructed to squeeze the trigger. This is difficult to aim and squeeze and the result is that the arrow does not go into the middle.
• The archer activates the release when the sight is on the centre. The arrow hits the middle.
• The brain has now learnt it is easier to punch than it is to squeeze. It will never forget this lesson
• The archer continues this practise. Eventually anticipation occurs. This is where the archer tries to activate as the sight enters the 10 ring. Soon he freezes in the 9 as he is locked up anticipating. This will get worse untill he can not come next to the target without firing.

The solution is not so simple and requires retraining from day one. The success will depend on the willpower of the archer. Changing release aids can help, however they must still learn the corect process. For example I see many back tension users punch as well, thus a waste of time.
BTW it is never 'cured' only controlled.

[geoffretired]

There is much to think about here. Perhaps too much; I'm getting keyboard panic! It seems there is more agreement than anything else. Too much to do results in failure in one or more area and TP may result. Keeping things simple from the start seems to be the suggested way forward.Prevent rather than cure.
If I could run off at a tangent for a while, do we think it is possible to create panic in other areas by having "too many things to think about " Learning to drive for example;or cooking too many dishes at once or juggling with too many objects at the first try. For some it is easier to explain using these examples.

[Cakemeister]

Thanks guys for these posts. For me it reinforces the principle (with beginners) of starting on light poundage bows.

Marcus 26

Part of what you say I agree with. Part of what you say I have already said in my previous articles on the subject. But it isn't quite as simple as you present it. The greatest problem with target panic, particularly for newer shooters is that their minds become fixated on the need to try to keep the sights still on the centre of the target and while they do this, to try for a "surprise release".

This is exactly the same theory taught by International pistol shooting and rifle shooting coaches. The problem is worse with the pistol shooters for fairly obvious reasons. These coaching techniques actually exacerbate the problem rather than fix it. The only coaches that came up with a truly workable solution were the then Soviet shooters coaches and my views on the subject have been shaped in no small measure by this.

The difficulty for all shooters is that they are unable to come to terms with the fact that regardless of how hard they try, they will NEVER be able to keep their sights completely still on the target. Even the best shooters in the world can't keep their sights perfectly steady on the target. The better you become, the greater the effort that the shooter puts into trying to keep his/her sights absolutely still on target. Some rare shooters are able to accommodate this but for the majority, they find that as they get better their shooting tends to plateau because they are concentrating on something that is not really all that vitally important and is totally unachieveable, at the expense of other more important issues.

What shooters find difficult to come to terms with is to ignore the movement of the sights against the target and I really do mean IGNORE and concentrate instead on a clean release, whilst holding within what I call their "area of control" - this is the area in which the sights will tend to wander as a matter of course, regardless of what the shooter does.

Their minds simply cannot resist the idea of seeking a "perfect" sight picture and since they can't achieve it they soon learn to shoot "on the fly" ie as the sights swing into the centre of the target. It would be far better for them if these shots gave rise to a complete miss but more often than not, they will fluke a ten or something close too it and THEN their minds will decide that this is the way to go.

The trouble with this technique is that their minds are so fixated on this issue of stillness that it gives rise to an almost unbearable level of mental tension which will, after a short period of time, start forcing them to punch or jerk off their shot even when they are nowhere near the ten because they have taught themselves how unbearable the mental strain is in trying to get their sights centred and dead still and their subconscious can no longer cope with it. The release that the shooter seeks isn't the one that will hopefully land his shot in the ten, it is the one which will quickly relieve the unbearable tension he/she feels and this will occur further and further away from the ten ring as the shooters mind is progressively taught by its subconscious to seek relief from this tension sooner and sooner.

It is because this learning process has been subconscious that it becomes so difficult to undo. I believe it can be undone and it requires a totally different approach, as I have tried to describe in my previous writings. I know that what I have said is right becasue it has worked for me and sorry, Marcus, but it is possbile to eliminate the problem altogether - I feel none of it at all now. To really defeat target panic you have to train yourself to believe that you can in fact beat it altogether and not simply control it - because with the latter there will be tiimes when your mind, for some reason or other, will not be able to exercise the control necessary and you end up with a disastrous score.

I believe that you must seek to eliminate the problem altogether and it can be done but it takes a lot of thought and a lot of retraining, mentally. I also believe that one of the most insidious and destructive techniques that we teach shooters is to try to achieve a "surprise" release - which is, in reality, a subconscious release. When you hand over control to your subconscious, you are creating the conditions for your subconscious to do the other thing it wants to do unless it has been trained otherwise and that is to relieve the strain of trying to go for a perfect shot. A surprise release will eventaully, in most cases, lead to as bad a case of target panic you will find.

My solution to the problem, for me, was to come to terms with the idea of my having conscious control of when I fire. There is a school of thought that says that by doing it this way you will tend to punch your shot. If you do it properly you will not. I know this to be true because it is true for me and therefore it can be true for others as well.

I dare say that this wil be a cause of some dissention between us but I am not likely to change your mind and you will never change mine, so I guess we are both going to have to learn to live with that.

Cheers

[geoffretired]

As a recent sufferer, I can see so much truth in both Marcus' and Timujin's words and so much common ground. Some of the apparent disagreement, I feel, is more to do with use of words. "Surprise" release is one. I have worked daily on getting the surprise release. It is in my journal so I won't go over that, simply to say that the surprise, in my case, is not subconscious. My TP release was the subconscious one. I never knew that I was activating the trigger. I was so overcome with panic that everything was blotted out, and off it went.
Now, I am in the gold with the sight. It trembles a little, but I expect that. It trembles in the gold so I am delighted. While I look at the picture of sight in the gold, I am very aware that the pressure on the trigger is building slowly as I work to be patient with it. It is the most difficult thing for me, but well worth it in the end. I never know exactly when it will go, but I know that I am making it happen. I am not very good at building the pressure at the same rate on every shot so some take ten seconds, others take an age. This is lack of complete control but not a complete lack of control.I cannot prove this, but I suspect that Timujin's method of triggering the release is much the same as mine, perhaps he is more consistent and slightly faster than I am, but what is a second or so between friends?
I agree with Timujin about archers trying too hard to hold still in the gold. I see no point in struggling to keep the sight in the ten ring if at the end of the shot the arrows won't stay inside the blue. Better to float around the red/gold and keep the arrows inside the red, until such time as the technique improves. I never ask beginners to hit targets; I don't have tagets for them to hit.
I followed Marcus' advice to get rid of TP. I was helped by others too, I am still very grateful to all of those "friends". I am convinced that it works. It doesn't rely on "not doing those bad things". It works by giving me something completely different to do. This, I think is what Timujin says too.
I am better for reading both of their inputs. There is little or no conflict from where I'm sitting;just a different take on the surprise release. Take away the words and in practice they are much the same for both of us.

[Max]

Something in Tinujin's last post really struck a chord with me in terms of trying to keep a steady sight picture in the gold. That is the relative diameter of the sight ring (or the magnification of the scope) in relation to an archers ability to hold steady. Although this effect is by no means unknown, there tends to be more emphasis with small circles or dots on compound scopes, which either only just encircle the gold, or fall completely within it at certain distances. This can't be good if what Timujin suggets is correct (and I for one have no doubt that it is).

Coming from a recurve background, I used a relatively large sight ring. That combined with the lack of magnification gave me very good results. My recent conversion to compound has proven problematic in many ways, certainly in being able to hold as steady as I would have liked. So the answer may be to increase the sight ring diameter until I can comfortably maintain the gold within it, allowing for the fact that I may not be as steady as more experienced shooters. In that way I can let the subconscious release process progress at its own pace without creating undue anxiety, or tension.

[geoffretired]

I go along with Max on the sight device issue. Size and style is important. We are all different so the device really must match the individual in more ways than one. There are good reasons for using a simple ring. I like the simplicity of it and the way you are still able to see the rest of the surroundings while at full draw. I feel that helps with posture.
There are times when I prefer the dot, as it adds a certain reassurance that the aim is close to the centre. I am more aware that it is right than I am with an empty ring. With the compound, lenses and peeps can add more reassurance, so long as I am up to the challenge. I have recently removed the peep as it was making me too intense on the aim and not focussed enough on the squeeze on the trigger. Horses for courses, I guess. Choose with care and select what suits you, at the time. Be prepared to change when your technique improves.