Target Panic....that cancerous affliction, we will likely all have to deal with it at some point.Target Panic, will for this blog, be shortened to TP. TP for target panic and that your shot goes down the toilet.
My biggest bout came after some back and forth on a 3D forum that made me hyper self aware if anyone was watching me. I had been shooting well and felt like I had to make a perfect shot when I was on a GSB 3D course. This of course is the crux of TP, I became outcome based instead of process based. I started punching the wrist caliper very badly, with gyrations and spasms both before and during my punch.one of these flinches was so bad I missed a relatively easy shot by about 3 feet high and 11 feet left. the TP was just when people were around, then as I was trying to fix it, it insidiously infected every shot, no matter if I was alone or not.
I came very close to not shooting at all but decided to do some looking into how to fix this mental collapse. First I bought a 2 finger Stanislawski release, but at the time no one was shooting hinges in my circle . After a couple near face punches I bought a 2 finger Zenith Back Tension kit. the video was great and so was the release. Now I had 2 BT releases set at slightly different travels. This actually fixed the shot because I was hyper focused on getting it to fire. that 2 finger Stan won me my first and only MBO shoot off for first, not even a full year after almost quitting.
I got lucky, this does not fix TP for most and many who switch just cheat the hinge and actuate it on command like a trigger.
I was thinking about this sickness a couple days ago. over the years I have read and watched many items on the curing of TP, through all of them 2 recurring themes come up.
1. you have to learn to aim without shooting......
2. you have to learn to shoot without aiming......
I am actually working through a students TP this JOAD cycle, and my wife has it bad. Both need to commit to fixing it if this is going to work.It is frustrating to hear a student hadn't picked up their bow since last JOAD.
Anyways. how I will be working through Kim's ( my bestie and best half) issue is,
Step 1......
I am going to place a one inch circle on my rolling target stand and put her 3 feet away. I am going to have her go through the shot process steps until she gets to anchor. Then I will have her apply light pressure to the thumb trigger, hold until the hold gets unstable then let down. Right now as soon as she gets the pin in the yellow she jerks and flinches. so we need to retrain her subconscious to aim with out expectation of the shot being shot. I expect we will do this for 2 weeks or so, never shooting an arrow.
Setp 2..... I then will have her follow the steps until she gets her thumb contact, then shut here eyes and shoot with her eyes closed for another 2 weeks or so to retrain her subconscious to fire independently from what she is seeing,with extra focus on the feel of the expansion.by this time she should not be hammering the trigger but be conditioned to engage the peg and wait. so if she closes her eyes now she can just squeeze her rhomboids in and the shot should go.
Step 3. After this I will have her shoot 15 arrows with deliberate focus on each step of her shot process. AT A TARGET .In the 15 shots I will likely count her down, tell her to shoot or let down.If we back slide we will go back to aiming only, then back through blind bale.
This is not entirely my cure, it was distilled from many other approaches. Levi Morgan is a big believer in aiming without shooting as a cure. Others think blank bale is the biggest benefit to a cure. Reo Wilde suggests blank bale first, but as I said, I have reasons against this sequence.
I think both are equally important. I do ,however, feel that aiming without shooting should be done first. Most of the issue is in regards to aiming initiating a shot. So blank bale does not fix this. I have seen it time and again, people make a thousand good blank bale executions then as soon as that pin touches yellow BAM! the feel of the shot absent of a target should be done after learning not to jump on the trigger.It is very important to get this feel overall, but not as important in the cure.
Once you can get on target and let it sit ,you have programmed your mind to wait for the shot to go off, not make the shot go off.
I hope those ideas can help those afflicted .
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