Episode 6 [Audio] | Aiming (Part 2)

the second of 2 parts on aiming
transcript of episode

Transcript:

Welcome back for the Aiming Part 2. Aiming Part 1 which was meant to be that will be end all of aiming overran and I was not even really close to half way through it. So, let’s get straight back into it.

Everything that we went through in Aiming Part 1 - this idea of a non-cognitive and trust based, using experience to allow execution, is why everybody can shoot blank bale / bare boss (whatever you want to call it) really well. When there is no target there to get in the way of the execution we all make great shot. Now, many people stop at that point in their understanding and go 'but there is more to deal with when you go to target there' - actually [there is] not. With the target there, you must trust to your skill. Jay Barrs pointed out that wherever you look, that sight pin has to follow. So, all you have to do is look where you’re trying to hit and expect (and get) the picture that you’re looking for.

So, we touch on again this idea of cue attenuation. What am I looking for? I am looking for an internal focus during set up which allows me to say that I’ve put all the bits together correctly, and then I am just going to externally focus - I am going to focus on the target. We’ve heard it said so many times. I am going to look at the target, I don’t really care about the sight pin, I don’t care where it goes, don’t want to watch it and get stuck below the target - that favorite of all compound shooters ailments. I don’t want to be desperately worried and trying to hold it like a rock solid dot in the middle of the gold and then find that I can’t make the bow go click - for the re-curve archer the ultimate nightmare. I want to just look at the target. I want to look at the target like it's a blank boss and just let the execution happen. So, you’re going to be looking for the right things.

I am going to sidetrack for a second because this is probably one of my favorite stories in psychology and it is about cue attenuation. It’s called the Fangio syndrome. Fangio, the Formula I multiple World Champion was driving at Monte Carlo and came around a blind corner. He was leading and he had been driving brilliantly for several laps in the lead and then he came around a blind corner and on entering the corner, he stood on the brakes and drove off line. The film footage of that time shows that he looked unhappy about this, as if he did not know why he was doing what he was doing. And right enough, the other side of this blind corner was a huge crash and if he had taken his normal line he would have gone through this crash and straight into danger and harm. And after he won - he went around this (on an odd line, he went around the crash that he couldn’t see - after he won, he was interviewed and they asked 'how did you know?' and he went [replied], 'I don’t know - I made a set of movements that I had no control over', and for a while he was again quoted as a magician. And a few months afterwards he phoned up one of the journalists who had been involved and he went 'I know why I avoided that crash' and he went 'because I didn’t see pink' and the journalist was suitably confused and Fangio explained this, for several laps he had been leading and wherever he went he was first, and everywhere he went people watched, so the crowds were a wash of pink, and there has been this big crash and all he could see were the backs of peoples’ heads and he couldn’t see pink. And so with his great experience - not looking for that particular cue - his experience took over and said 'we have a problem'. A lesser driver would have been concentrating so hard on what he was doing that he would never have seen this. We’re capable of processing so much information if we let the body do it. We’re capable of allowing for movements of the sights, you will often see some of the best archers in the world, re-curve and compound as the Americans put it 'goose the bow'. This means that they are really not aiming, in that last fraction of a second the brain goes 'yeah, we are pointing here' and they make the movement and sometimes it looks hugely ungainly, but it can only be done by somebody who is trusting their skill - Chris White, Allan Wills, to name but two who are always a joy to watch doing this.

And so it is that once you have set the shot up, you are opening a window of opportunity. If you consciously aim, you are closing that window of opportunity for the click to go / for the trigger to fire. It is a matter of trust. To cognitively chase the sight pins [or] the dot is to cause poor execution. And you will hear many, many different people talk in different ways, but they are only putting their 'homely spin' on the actual psychophysiological truth. Aiming is done below a cognitive level. It is actually the movement for a picture that experienced tells us that we want, and that will happen, and your body will only shoot the shot when that happens - so you may as well just wait and let it happen. Look at the target and trust the skill that you have worked on.