Mental Training

Norwayviking

poulo6.5 wrote: »

i can read to thanks sparks,

however i am trying to make the point that practising is very important. be it dry firing while lying on the ground at home or just putting rounds down range with out any pressure

becoming familiar with your rifle means you can operate it without having to think about it, there in freeing up your mind for more important things.

i am no expert, and by no means have as much experience as you in the world of competition shooting. but to dismiss practising as not that important is in my opinion bad advise.

Well i have to agree with Poulo65 on that one.
I am gone workin for a month at the time,and when i get home to shootin again,it takes a few rounds downrange before the confidence and the groups are back in place:D
I would say just to practice dryfire as well as triggercontrol is also important,but its all training at the end of the day,and i dont have the time unfortunately.:(

Sparks

y'all know that (a) Mr.Fibble and I aren't the same chap, and (b) you're saying exactly what I've already said above; right?

Norwayviking

Sparks wrote: »

y'all know that (a) Mr.Fibble and I aren't the same chap, and (b) you're saying exactly what I've already said above; right?

is it not great when everyone agrees on something:D:D:D:D

poulo6.5

Sparks wrote: »

y'all know that (a) Mr.Fibble and I aren't the same chap, and (b) you're saying exactly what I've already said above; right?

sorry perhaps i should have multi quoted. :eek:

having one silly name is bad enough i would never pin a second one on you like Mr.Fibble, no offence Mr.Fibble,

glad to hear we are all on the same page

MiGiD

What I said refers to what the OP asked

I want to see what way you guys train for the mental part of competition.

What do ye do to prepare/train to strengthen this part of shooting?

My advise is for the OP's issue of mental training for a competition. It's pretty useless for working on other parts of your routine be it trigger control or position because it's not the right type of practice/training for those issues. You have to practice right for the kind of thing you want to work on. Last night I trained only from the bench so I could do some work on trigger control. By not having to pay attention to my overall physical position I was able to focus purely on my index finger (also I was being a bit lazy as it was the last training session before Christmas and I ended up spending most of the session making adjustments to my rifle with Sugru )

@poulo6.5 I don't know if you were referring to me or not but just in case, I said nothing about 'not practicing'. In fact I said

Perfect practice makes perfect

It's something my gymnastics coach taught me when I was young. The idea being you'll never get good at back flips even if you practice them all day long if you're doing them wrong in the first place.

I do agree with Mr. Flibble

training will always be training, or at best a simulation

Which is why the buzz off a good training session is never as good as that off a good competition

bayliner

what book would you guys recommend for clay shooting in this aspect?

sikastag

Sparks wrote: »

* Deeny, Hillman, Janelle and Hatfield; Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2003, v.25, 188-204, Cortico-cortical communication and superior performance in skilled marksmen: An EEG coherence analysis, in case you're interested

Sparks,

Dont suppose you could post a link or direct me in the right path to find that article once the festivities are over? Tried the usual routes, Google Scholar etc.

P.S. Happy Christmas to you and yours, hope ye are enjoying the holidays.

Sparks

Will do sika, I'm at the family house at the moment but I'll post a copy of it when I get back.

dev110

I have just ordered What Every Rifle Shooter Should Know FIRST About the Mental Game.
It will be interesting to see how/if it will change my shooting

It wasn't me!

Best of luck with it Dev. Word to the wise though, don't look to the scoreboard to see the progress. That'll come in time but it's a much more fickle indicator. Much better is to look at the consistency of your own process and your ability to process information and work in fine detail automatically. Scores will come from that, but they'll be your best thing to watch.

dev110

I can work on the things that happen on the firing line like a shot routine but it is hard to keep other things consistent such as the wind which will take another routine to try and keep the bullet on paper

It wasn't me!

dev110 wrote: »

I can work on the things that happen on the firing line like a shot routine but it is hard to keep other things consistent such as the wind which will take another routine to try and keep the bullet on paper

That's why you should ignore the wind as an element of your mental training until you've got a much firmer grasp on it. Sounds like you're fairly solid on what you're at anyway though.

dev110

It is very hard not to take the wind into account as at 800 yards an increase/decrease of 5 mph and your outside the scoring rings.
I will have to work on my mental training from 100-300 yards where the wind will take less affect.
I just want to get started and start training and learning

It wasn't me!

dev110 wrote: »

It is very hard not to take the wind into account as at 800 yards an increase/decrease of 5 mph and your outside the scoring rings.
I will have to work on my mental training from 100-300 yards where the wind will take less affect.
I just want to get started and start training and learning

Oh I didn't mean ignore it while shooting, just in terms of your mental programme and your analysis of your shot routine. Train it in isolation, exactly the same way you'd train other component elements, and evaluate it in isolation too.

dev110

It will be easy to train one aspect of shooting at a time eg. wind calling, breathing, trigger control, mental, grip but where it gets difficult is when I have to bring them all together for a match.

It wasn't me!

dev110 wrote: »

It will be easy to train one aspect of shooting at a time eg. wind calling, breathing, trigger control, mental, grip but where it gets difficult is when I have to bring them all together for a match.

That's where the mental training and the development of the routine comes in. You'll be grand.

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Best of luck with it Dev. Word to the wise though, don't look to the scoreboard to see the progress. That'll come in time but it's a much more fickle indicator.

Not only that, it's not always accurate - I shot 568 in Intershoot on day one, and 567 on day two, but that's because qualification scores are all done as integers, ie. if you shoot a perfect 10.9 or a really sketchy 10.0, both count for the same score - 10. However, when you look at the decimal scores, I did better on the second day by 4.4 points - better shooting overall but with two bad shots out of sixty.

And that's the thing - if you want the score to go up, you can't focus on what's happening at the target end of the range; you have to focus on the end of the range you can do something about (ie. the end where you're standing/kneeling/sitting/prone).

Dewan

So that's what caused it! I once had 17 points coming off the 4th hole in Kinsale.. My mind was focussed on 'The Speech'. - I still had 17 points after 9!

packas

dev110 wrote: »

I want to see what way you guys train for the mental part of competition.

I know a big part of shooting is made up of mental ability and to be able to block out distractions around you.

I have found when I was doing a lot of sporting and skeet shooting during the autumn I was getting better and in the final competitions I did I got into shot off's and this is where I fell down big time as I knew I cleared the stand and could do it again but the pressure of people watching and the chance of winning got to me.

Also if I am shooting for a group with any rifle and am going for a 3 shot group after the the first 2 went in the same hole or very close I always pull the last shot as I start thinking to much about everything like trigger squeeze, hold, breathing, etc.

What do ye do to prepare/train to strengthen this part of shooting?

I found Lanny Bassham to be very good. His book "With winning in mind" is a short read but contains a lot of mental management practice.

http://mentalmanagement.ipower.com/content/shooting-sports

I know of one Irish successfull international shooter who has engaged Lanny for assitance with great results.