WHEN THE WHEELS COME OFF
Andrew Smith on pushing past plateaus
Beware the conscious mind We have all been there at the start of a shoot, feeling confident, the week’s training has gone well and even the weather is playing ball. We step up on the line and practice ends confirm that we are in for a good day. Practice over... and it all starts to go downhill.
Or perhaps we are on for a personal best, a top three placing and/or a new shiny badge, so all we have to do is shoot the last few arrows in the same way as the previous shots. But then it becomes hard to execute the shot and we find ourselves anxiously looking through our scope in the hope the arrow has landed in the right scoring zone.
Finally, by far the most common comment I hear is that practice scores are always higher than those achieved in competition. This is almost endemic among many average archers. One of the greatest target archers of all time, the USA'S Darrell Pace, invariably did the opposite. His scores in competition were always higher than scores he made in practice. He achieved this with an almost unparalleled sport psychology, that consciously enjoyed
the stimulus of pressure while letting his unconscious mind put the arrows in the gold.
IF YOU ARE STILL RELYING ON YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND TO SHOOT YOUR ARROWS THEN YOU ARE STILL A BEGINNER
Here we go again
A post-mortem of a desperately average shoot concludes that it must be your form that is at fault, so you start to convince yourself that just shooting more “good” practice arrows will solve the puzzle. With club/county level archers I see far too much time put into correcting very minor form issues. Others look to their equipment and think a re-tune or a slight adjustment to a grub screw will make all the difference. The truth is that if your practice scores are OK, you are not feeling under the weather, well-fed and watered, and your equipment is in good order then all these distractions are not the problem.
You already have the magic formula to fix this, and you probably use it every day. It is just that in an archery context you have not yet learnt how to benefit from it. So what should you be devoting your time to? The simple answer is a change in how you think and act during the shoot.
For many archers this is interpreted as acting more self-confident and 'talking themselves up'. Whilst believing and trusting in your own ability is an essential part of sports performance psychology (and a key part of mental training for Korean recurve archers) it is often interpreted as a kind of false positive thinking, which tends to create a state of mind that your brain does not believe, and thus ignores, so nothing changes. You cannot convince your brain you are a better archer than you are, but you can tell your brain to be the best archer it can be.
Two minds
To solve the puzzle, you need to understand how your mind works. You need to remember that you have two states of mind. These are commonly known as the conscious mind (cognitive) and a subconscious mind (noncognitive). It is the control of these two minds that is the key to controlling your performance.
The conscious mind is what we are actively thinking, and the sub-conscious mind works in the background. The conscious mind can only do one action at once; the subconscious can handle many tasks at the same time. So understanding and trusting your subconscious mind to shoot your arrows, and keeping your conscious mind under control is the key to better performances.
Are we still a beginner?
Archery might look like a simple process but there are many actions that need to be accomplished in fractions of a second. The many years and months of training you have done so far will have taught your subconscious mind how you shoot an arrow. It is why changes in
form or equipment require lots of arrows for you to see the benefits. If you are still relying on your conscious mind to shoot your arrows then you are still a beginner.
Beginner or trained archer, the problem we all have with the conscious mind is that it always thinks it is the better of the two minds and wants to be in total control. As a result it becomes a nuisance and gets in the way, affecting the smooth running of the shot process.
How many times after a good shot have you said to yourself great, I must keep focus and do the same again, or after a bad shot, I must try harder? However, the result is the same; you 'try harder' or consciously concentrate on doing it all correctly and the arrow lands in the wrong place.
On the flip side, in the familiar surroundings of your club range, on a relaxed afternoon everyone has shot six arrows seemingly without a care in the world, and there is no need to look through your scope to know they are all in the ten ring.
Clearly, the second scenario is the better of the two and the one you want to replicate in competition. It is a good example of the ability of your subconscious mind to shoot good arrows, with the clues being: “familiar surroundings” and “seemingly without a care”.
Fear of failure
The biggest contributing factor as to why we shoot poor shots in pressurised situations is a fear of failure; we have put the cart before the horse and find ourselves more concerned about the consequences of a poor result and what others might think, than just getting on with shooting arrows. When things start to go wrong we become unsure, our conscious mind instantly goes into a defensive/embarrassment mode, ready to defend or try and laugh off what we think others are thinking.
However, our actions always speak louder than words, not only to our competitors but also to our subconscious mind. How you walk off the shooting line tells everyone all they need to know about your day, negative actions are really trying to play to a gallery to say “I am not normally this bad”. It is much better to just accept what just happened and work on getting the subconscious ready for the next arrow. Attitude is one part of the solution, the hard bit is learning to control your conscious mind, in other words telling it to shut up and stop interfering during the shot execution.
Shutting up your conscious mind
I have already mentioned that the conscious mind can only do one thing at a time, so during the shoot cycle we need to give it something to do. This will stop it interfering with the real shot execution, but it still must believe it is doing a very important job. Even just getting it to repeat in your mind “strong shot” is enough. Thoughts like ”is my back engaged" or "is my shoulder staying down” are not helpful, as they lead to other conversations in the conscious mind like “this feels good/bad”, “oh it’s windy, I must aim off ” and disrupts the smooth running of the subconscious mind.
Some archers confuse shooting in the subconscious mind with just flinging arrows without a care in the world. This is not the case. Here is an everyday example: how often have you driven home safely, but had no real recollection of every aspect of the journey? At no point can you recall every gear change and how smooth it was, how far down you pressed the accelerator pedal or the pressure exerted on the brake pedal. Given you arrived home safely, somebody did it for you, and that was... you with the help of your subconscious mind, without your conscious mind interfering and analysing everything in real time.
Contrast that journey to one with a police car following you. All of a sudden you are trying to drive at your best. Yet despite this heightened level of concentration everything now feels difficult, you may even start to doubt your knowledge of road signs and the correct lane you should be in. This is an example of your conscious mind getting involved and interfering and turning you back in to a learner driver.
Get your subconscious mind ready to shoot
It is impossible to stay focussed and concentrated 100% for the entire day, so you will need to learn to switch on and off your subconscious mind. The decision as to when your subconscious mind takes over is an important one. There are a number of steps once you are astride the shooting line that need completing first - jobs for your conscious mind – i.e. same feet position, remember to stand tall, position of bow hand on the grip, fingers on the string and the correct pre draw position. Once these checks are complete the conscious mind can then get on with the pre-planned task such as repeating “strong shot” through the shot cycle, whilst the real business of the shot execution is handed over to the subconscious mind.
NOBODY IS INTERESTED IN YOUR EXCUSES – THEY ARE FAR TOO BUSY MAKING UP THEIR OWN