What to do when it all goes wrong !

Recently I have been able to shoot consecutive weekends for about two months and during that time I have repeatedly gone to the first stand and straighted it, moved to the second stand and either straighted or shot a good 8 or 9 / 10 then on stand 3 had a disaster !This has then been followed by a host of 2,3,4 scores for the rest of the round.It seems that while its working all is well but as soon as a bad score comes all the confidence and technique goes resulting in trying too hard which clearly doesnt work !!So the question is "What to do when it all goes wrong ?"How to put the bad stand out of your mind and to carry on as per the first couple ?Any thoughts ?

it is about routine, and very much about mental training to shoot stands. In sporting I see people go to a stand and watch multiple shooters before them watching all the targets, that takes mental energy, so you can mentally have shot over 200 targets by the time you get to your second round - the key is to step onto the pre-stand (ie stand behind the person you are about to follow), then switch on. Plus in your description I can see that you are already accepting that from round 3 it is going to go wrong - to rectify this is not really about positive mental attitude, but more about you being in control and developing a pre-shot routine.

Yes I can vouch for the importance of not watching more than one or two people intently, much more and you're all fuzzed up when it's your turn to shoot. A simple trick might be to pick a gimme stand as your 3rd one of the day /wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-wink.gif, kind of hard to really mess it up then.

If you can have a walk around the shoot before you start and try to plan a few stand with which to start on that you think you can shoot well on.Then try to build your scores up and your confidence.Then you can take on the harder ones as you go.Also i try and leave a couple of easier stands to finish on as well.Good luck.

I prefer to shoot them in the order they are... my theory is that if I am shooting a bigger competition and I'm squadded, I won't have the choice - so I should get used that principle and find internal ways to build my concentration and confidence. Phil gives some good advice in his pdf handbook that can help get you focused at the right time, I'm just starting to use that and I have found it helps quite a bit.

shootclay admin said:

I prefer to shoot them in the order they are... my theory is that if I am shooting a bigger competition and I'm squadded, I won't have the choice - so I should get used that principle and find internal ways to build my concentration and confidence.Phil gives some good advice in his pdf handbook that can help get you focused at the right time, I'm just starting to use that and I have found it helps quite a bit. See your point Matt, but if you get hammered on the first few stands then most of us cant come back from that mentaly so the rest of the shoot gets harder to do. If you get a few good scores on your card first then confidence is up not down, then when the harder stands take a few off you its not as harsh also if you do well on the harder stands then your scores are even better.Whatever ability we may have , self belief is a big factor and its not over until you smash that last clay.

Click to expand...

All,Thanks for the thoughts - small club practise shoot this weekend so will have a re think to my approach.Have downloaded many of the articles etc from Phil's site which are very good so will review these again as well.Peter

I have also read Phils pdf and that coupled with Chris Bathas book has changed the way I approach a shoot. Cant remember if it was Phil or Chris that said (paraphrasing) " shoot a comp as a 100 bird comp not 12 stands or 7/5 stations" this has got me into thinking take them 1 at a time and what has gone before good or bad cant be changed, all that matters is the one I'm shooting.Exactly how I tried to bat when I was playing some serious cricket, another sport where you need to focus hard for the balls you are facing then try and switch off inbetween. 2-3 hours is far too long to try and stay at peak concentration continuously. Fuzrat

Think Phil just about Nails it, what can be happening is that you don't really know how you are shooting the targets, so when trying to hit them all creeps in around the third stand you loose it and without the routine and technique to fall back on you can't get it back

Half the problem is that far too many shooters will use just one technique.

One technique, say swing through will not suffice for every type of target.

You need to be able to use the three main techniques and use the best one for the job.

If you can't use all three well then you need to practice them so you can.

Certain targets lend themselves to certain techniques in order to take them consistently.

The trick is knowing which one. Of course the top shooters know which one and if they are mistaken will try another on the next pair .

Practice, practice, practice. That's what it's for.

.

Are you bored tonight Robert? Trawling back to November.

.

Yeah I am Nic.

I often do that to see if it gets any response from the original poster as to how they are getting on.

Yeap.......Blur was well out of tune

Always happy to see stuff bubbling back up in the forum...

I think that you are all thinking about it too much. It's only a game, it's a sport, a hobby, a pastime.

Adopt Maxum's stategy.

Walk round the course, find the stands that you believe you will shoot well on, and put the more difficult ones at about mid order.

Go back to the clubhouse and get hydrated and sugared up, then go and shoot the course.

Then like Maxum go round and shoot it another three or four times :smile: :smile: :smile: . If you are still struggling after all that, go back midweek and hire the ground and practice the difficult stands until you get it right.

Now THAT is positive thinking.

Only joking Daz, but upon reading it, it isn't a bad plan if you can afford to do it.

Oh you know me far toooooo well Sloppyone. )

Peter W-T,

In answer to your question, I think that when the wheels fall off it is very important to regain control as soon as possible.

Instantly when we miss we suffer a draining of confidence, literally as fast as an electric discharge. It is important that we instantly compose ourselves. Pause, analyse, rectify mentally and re-apply positive thoughts on how to break the clay.

When you step out of the cage I think it is only natural to then reflect what went wrong, but the important thing is, we cannot do anything about it now apart from re-enforce our resolve to succeed.DON'T do a calculation about what you score could end up with and how many stands left to shoot. DO, shrug, smile, or what ever to clear your brain of negatives and then re-group.

If you are suffering from a disastrous loss of form generally, try having a break from clayshooting or competition and/or build up the confidence and performance levels by going to shoot somewhere that throws easier targets or go and shoot some skeet. Skeet targets are not difficult apart from the easy ones we all miss.

Whenever I see a shooter come off a stand slumped because of what's gone before I'm always reminded of the expression

Self Esteem = Achievement divided by Expectation