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Ask Bob T&F columnist Bob Palmer
Own the Zone |
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Desira Fesler asks: |
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Hi Desira,
Thank you for the question. Station 1, wherever you start on the trapline, can be difficult for anyone for the very reason that we typically go into the station cold. It is no different than the first pitch of a baseball game or the first swing on a golf course. Most sports have a crucial “first station” just as trap does.
But there is a solution, and I will compare it drag racing. Both cars start stock still until the light turns green and then they race to the finish line. Imagine a scenario where one dragster gets to start a quarter mile before the start line and is flying full tilt at the “start” line. There is no doubt which one will have the advantage.
So the key to any sport is to get so warmed up physically and mentally that you have that same kind of advantage. You want to be just as wired and on fire in your first post as you normally feel in your 26th or 51st post.
So, before your first round, go for a brisk walk (assuming that you are normally active). This does two things besides warming you up. It gets you away from other people and it clears you mind. Second, during you brisk walk mentally smoke 25 to 50 targets from all angles. And don’t just hit them; pulverize them. It should feel very good. At the end of your walk, put your gear on and maintain that good feeling from the walk. But keep your body moving and stay away from talking to people, or you’ll cool off again.
Now you are ready. That first post should feel like the first post in the second or third round and you’ll just smoke’em.
Thanks for the question Desira.
Have any other burning questions? Just ask Bob.
High Performance Trainer Bob Palmer’s video blog
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Hi Jim,
Great question and one that I help people with all the time. Panic in competition is caused by a number of things that don’t happen in practice. Here are a few:
· And more….
There is nothing you can do about any of these things to change them, so you’ll just have to change the one thing you can: yourself. There are a couple things you can do to change yourself for competition:
First, you can set up a daily practice of visualizing yourself as successful in competition. It only takes a minute a day. The key to any visualization is to be wired up with adrenaline—it’s my favorite drug because it so effective.
Visualization is neat because you can add all manner of situations (as mentioned above) and ensure you can limit how they affect you. If you want to go to my website you can find a number of free videos and one of them contains this visualization technique.
And second, you can practice differently by putting some pressure on yourself in practice. Former USA Olympic Shooting coach, BJ McDaniel, offers a number of strategies on his web page, one of which is to choose an amount of targets to be broken. Beginners can start with five. Later you can increase this to 10 or 15. Start on post one and using two shots for each target, break a target on post one, and then advance to post two. If a target is missed immediately start over at post one. Continue until the selected number of targets is hit in a row. When the goal is reached this becomes your personal best. How far can you push your personal best? Now, can you do this drill with only one shell in the gun?
The more pressure you put on yourself in practice and rise above it, the better.
Give it a try and if you need any more information, simply ask.
Bob Palmer SportExcel High Performance Trainer Bob Palmer’s video blog
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Duncan: |
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Bob Palmer, High Performance Trainer for SportExcel gives the answer. Well Duncan, there are a number of reasons it isn’t working and I can think of three good ones. 1) Taking advice at the beginning of your round or sometimes during your round or between rounds gives you no time to practice that piece of advice. In order to shoot well, you have to have no thoughts in your head, just a well-rehearsed pre-shot and shot routine… trying to follow a dozen pieces of advice keeps you thinking and is very disruptive to a smooth mount and accurate eye. 2) The advice is coming from very well-meaning people, probably respected members of your family or club. However, it is likely that few them are coaches who know how to translate their game and teach it. They suggest something with no step-by-step approach to learning it. Besides, if they were coaches, they would know that the practice session is the proper place to teach. 3) People love to give you advice, even when you don’t need it. I get advice like that in golf all the time—hey Bob watch the trees on the left or better add a club to get over the water. Up to that point, I hadn’t even noticed the trees or the water. If I listen, there is a good chance my ball will end up there and prove that I needed the advice. The better you get in your shooting game, the more you’ll realize that some people can only win by playing with your mind.
So Duncan, I have a couple of suggestions. First, find a
good coach you can trust and learn the game from one source, not many.
Second, should someone give you advice on the range, as good as it
sounds, thank them and let the information go in one ear and out the
other. Later, in practice, if you think it is valuable you can test it
out—but only in practice. Thanks for your question. Give me a call if you need more information.
Bob Palmer
705-720-2291 |
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Bob: Hi Sam,
Quite simply, a mental coach works alongside your regular coach and shows you how to make your training and competition fun and easy.
First of all Fun: I teach my athletes to get into the Zone. The Zone is very empowering and feels great. Immediately my athletes shoot better and enjoy the game more. In the process they learn how to
All these things reinforce the Zone and the fun of the game.
Second—mental coaches make the game easy. People will tell you that it takes a lot of hard work to be successful. However, great athletes know that that is simply incorrect. It is a statement from someone who has not done it. Great athletes love their sport so much that it isn’t work. They love to train.
So, Sam, mental coaches like me work alongside your regular coach to make your game fun and easy. Give me a call if you’d like more information.
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Bob: Yes Spencer, I do believe that the game of trap is 90% mental and there are a number of reasons why. There are many skillful athletes in many sports who go into a game and, when intimidated, they lose their skillfulness. Or they make a mistake and it affects them for the rest of the game and they seem to become less skillful after that. Or they lose a competition or two and the frustration carries over to the next competition. And, as the season goes on, their skill seems to completely disappear. I’ve seen it happen with a clay target shooter I was working with, who could break the world record in practice but ended up way down in the score when he competed. All it took was for him to pick up his mental game and he ended up not only winning a U.S. championship but also a world championship. It took some work on his mental game primarily, as his technical game was flawless. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend 90% of your training time on your mental game. Mental-game practice can be done quickly, because you can visualize a round of trap in one or two minutes. A more extreme example of this is the game of golf where it takes a long time to walk from shot to shot, but in your mental game you can eliminate the “walking” and be done very quickly. So your mental game can be practiced in a short period of time (5-10 minutes a day) and my suggestion to you is to learn some very good visualization strategies. I hope that answers your question. And now I’d like you to go out on the range and practice both your technical game and your mental game, and learn to own the Zone. |
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TRAP & FIELD Magazine, 1100 Waterway Blvd., Indianapolis IN 46202 (C) Copyright 02/10/2012, Trap & Field Magazine/Division of Servaas, Inc. |
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