Dealing with pressure

Luckysasha

Any hints or tips to deal with the pressure of a final. Made it in to the top 10 in my local club after a spring league but when shooting the final today missed 9 of the easiest targets I have been shooting all through the 10 week league.

Grizzly 45

Chill out and pretend that it is nothing special. Mike Tyson always used to say he went into the ring thinking his most vital fights were just a sparring session with an overly aggressive sparring partner...Worked for him I guess.

Walter Mittys Brother

It's not life or death so .............. what pressure

Sparks

The three secrets to doing well are the same as they are for a few other pursuits: Practice, Practice, and Practice.
If you have trouble shooting finals, shoot more finals. Shoot them till you're sick of them. Shoot them till you know what's coming up instinctively. Shoot them until you can finally get back to shooting one-shot-matches through the finals as well as you shoot them through qualifying.

Wadi14

lots of articles online about dealing with the mental side of shooting,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgT7XXClERWQrhg630OLsfQ
Have a listen to the relevant ones here, they might point you in the right direction.

Also check out relaxation and visualisation techniques, and stop thinking about the final.

yubabill

Not strictly about pressure, but I always liked Jack Nicklaus' advice on golfing: He imagined the shot as a mini movie in his head and then, before any thinking whatsoever, went ahead and did it.

I found this great for archery, especially when I visualised the arrow hitting the target and what would happen at that precise moment.

Not saying it works every time, but the immense feeling of reward when it does can keep you up there for another shot or so.

Sportsmen call it being "in the zone" but my own thoughts revolve around everyone's innate, subconscious ability to judge distance, wind etc probably stemming back to the time we needed to swing from branch-to-branch.