mentalcoach

For everyone following the Zone discussion, I have just submitted an article to Clay Shooting USA on the Zone. Your comments have been most helpful. If you will send me an email requesting a pdf copy and put ZONE ARTICLE in the subject I will have my staff send you one. Enjoy. Request it at info@mentalmanagement.com

I believe that people experence the Zone more often than they think they do. But, we only remember the experience when it lasts a while. When we Zone out for very short periods of time we do not realize that we have had the benefit of the Zone. In my experience as a coach beginners can Zone-Out but it occurrs more often with skilled shooters.

I have come to understand that the Self Image requires two nutrients to grow. Conformation from others that we are doing well and self praise or conformation from within. I encourage you to give yourself credit when you have performance you wish to repeat. You are probably doing that. Gallwey is a good read. He talks a lot about just letting it happen as I recall. WWIM, Lanny

Sharyn, Our office is 10 minutes north of the Dallas/ Ft. Worth Airport. You are correct. With Winning in Mind is only an introduction to Mental Management. I've been studying and teaching this for 28 years and I have a bit more to say than a 162 page book can contain. But, it is a good way to start. We find that individual and small group seminars are the best way to help shooters with application. WWIM, Lanny

Great question Sniper. OK, let’s see if I can clear up a few things for you all. First, I may not be able to completely answer all of your questions. I may not be able to check the forum daily and I have a responsibility to those who pay for my information not to give away on the Internet what they pay for in our product line. This is what I do for a living and I ask you to respect that. This being said I feel that I can at least share with you some of the same kind of information that I include in articles that I write for publications and I certainly do not want you to be confused by any concepts in my book. First, nowhere in my work do I suggest that you should ever lie to yourself. All reinforcement is imprinting and the self-image grows or shrinks by this process. If you have a bad performance it is indelibly imprinted on your self-image. This is called an environmental imprint. Now, you can create another imprint by thinking about or talking about the bad performance again and this causes your self-image to shrink. This is called beating yourself up and is a good way to retard your growth toward winning. The top 5% just do not do this. If they make a mistake they think about the solutions to correcting the error and imprint that they are able to do that. They think a lot about the good performances though. This causes the self-image to grow. Good thing, huh? Next, who said that the only way to win is to be the top name on the leader board? Everyone seems to be overly concerned with accomplishment. Accomplishment is easy to measure. It is first, second and third, gold silver and bronze, the grades of A, B, C, or F. But winning, by my way of thinking is much more than that. It is Attainment. Attainment = Becoming + Accomplishment. Accomplishment is how you measure the external and becoming is how you measure the internal. Have you ever won a class only to find that you did not learn much that day? Then you go to a competition and do poorly but grow a great deal in understanding. That’s becoming and it is very difficult to measure. A winner is someone who is just as concerned about who they become as to what they accomplish. You should goal set to become something worthwhile when you accomplish any step in your goal. Now that’s Attainment. I suggest that if you are more concerned about how well you execute your mental and technical systems than your place in the competition that you will virtually eliminate the concerns you are having about self-judgment. Someone once said that winning is the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal. You may be a long way from reaching that goal at present. It is not lying to imprint that you someday will reach it. If you say “I am national champion” and you are, in reality, a long way from that and that bothers you then try this. Transport yourself mentally to some day in the future when you are, in reality, the national champion and say, “I am the national champion”. The imprint will work just the same. It will be just as powerful. The self-image cannot tell the difference between past, present and future events. It thinks that every imprint is happening in the present and it becomes like you to do it. I won the Olympics thousands of times before they hung the real medal on me. It caused my self-image to accept that it was like me to be the champion. That’s not reality but this is not a reality show like TV. This is mental imprinting and it works. Finally, I have a word about shooting diaries. Don’t keep one. Keep a performance journal instead. A diary contains a record of everything you did, good and bad. That’s a lot of negative imprinting and your scores will be harmed more than keeping one helps them. But, if you keep a performance journal like the Performance Analysis Journal that we have on our web site you will only record what you did well, the solutions that you found and goals statements to help you positively move forward to your goals. It is a Performance Journal not a Lack of Performance Journal. I hope I haven’t missed your point and that this helps you. You are champion material until you start thinking you are not. With Winning in Mind, Lanny

If you prepare the mind properly before beginning to shoot things should become subconscious. Autopilot as you are calling it is how it seems to you. WWIM, Lanny

Thanks Brian. That's fine. LB

I noticed that. How can I change that? LB

Many thanks Derrick WWIM, Lanny

Brian, that is the best description of the Zone I have ever read. I could not agree more. We fall into the Zone much the same way that we fall asleep. You cannot make yourself go to sleep on command. You cannot cause the Zone experience, not the experience that Brian and I are talking about. The conscious mind must give up control while still doing its job. That is not its normal state and this is one reason it happens so infrequently. It is much easier to keep the Zone from happening than to create a situation where it will happen more often. Having coached elite athletes for three decades I have never seen a technique, pill to take, biofeedback system, hypnosis, mantra or anything that can cause this phenomenon to happen on command. Every year or so someone comes along and sells the secret to making the zone happen, but if their system really worked more athletes would use it and I would be the first one to refer clients to them. Could happen someday but I have not seen it yet. I do believe there are things we can do to improve the environment that the Zone likes to live in. One of the best ways is to not be looking for it or simply not need it to win. It is cool when it happens to us. I believe that it happens far more often than we think but because the duration is so short we do not notice it. When we do notice it is because we have had a longer duration and the minute we realize that we have been in it we are OUT of the Zone and you are not getting back in by trying to. Some of the forum discussion may be a bit cloudy if we are talking about good manual preparation such as pre-shot routine and controlled thought processes and referring to them as Zone. My system uses Preload and Mental Program as what we are doing mentally and using a defined pre-shot routine as what you are physically doing. These manual techniques are conscious in nature and are quite dependable in their repetition. The Zone phenomenon is subconscious in its nature and is not dependable. You are BLESSED by the Zone. WWIM, Lanny

It has been my experience that everything we do has an appropriate amout of mental effort to do it well. If we do not put out enough effort or try too hard our performance drops. I believe that almost all shooters overtry at least some time in a competition and I have written in artiicles that overtrying is perhaps the number one reason that good shooters do not shoot well in competition. So, what is the correct amount of effort to use? This certainly varies with sport and shooter but one constant appears to hold. The optimum level of mental effort and "Let's just have fun today!" are very close together. Learning to find your mental effort level is an important breakthrough for a shooter. Most of us overtry way too often and it takes it's toll. WWIM, Lanny

I appreciate all of the great comments on the Zone. I was curious about the effects of movement and speed on the Zone. I've experience in high power rifle and CISM competition where we are shooting rapid fire but I have little personal experience with moving while shooting. I think that a shooter Zones Out most often when they are process oriented and when the conscious mind is attentive but not overly engaged. This allows the left brain to quite and the subconscious to fully realize its potential. Great shooting normally results. But, the moment you realize you have been in the Zone, you are out and you are not getting back in by trying to make it happen. That's why shooters must have a practiced mental program to use. The Zone is not reliable. I had no Zone shots in the Gold Medal performance in the Olympics but I have experienced it in World Championships. It has been my experience that it come more often when you are not trying to win and never happens when you are trying to make it happen. With Winning in Mind, LB

Thanks. I would be interested to know if those of you that have shot both practical pistol as well as bulls-eye style if the zone phenom happens more often with practical shooters than with slow fire target?

Going back to the issue of the "Zone". If you are trying to get into the Zone you will find that it's very nature prohibits you from making it happen. In fact, the best way to promote the effects of the Zone is NOT TO NEED IT!