Last month we briefly talked about tournament pressure and our role in that pressure. As a sporting clays instructor, it's my job to find a solution to this pressure, so let's take a closer look at the problem.

It's natural to point our finger at the distractions around us and say, "there's the problem, right there." I believe – and countless studies have proven – the pressure and stress we feel in the tournament box is self-generated. Truth is, tournament stress comes more from what we're thinking and feeling and not from what we believe is distracting us. The reality is, the distraction isn't the noisy crowd behind us; the complaining shooter in front of us; the rain; the heat; or our shoot off at 3:30.

We basically have 2 choices when confronted by distractions and pressure. We can learn the skill of "acceptance," or we can "engage." Let's talk about engaging first.

Gary shoots a lot of Trap and found himself in a shoot off with the Big Dawg at the local club, Ed. Once underway, Trap shooting has a very noticeable cadence and this cadence was unbroken as both shooters ran the first 24 targets. Cadence ongoing, it was Ed's turn. Gary, head down, shell already in the chamber, anticipated the shot behind him. Silence. The pause continued. Gary turned to look at Ed who had opened his gun and was examining his shell. Gary thought, "What the heck is this about?" Apparently satisfied, Ed dropped the shell in the chamber, closed his gun, called pull and fired. X. Now Gary's turn, the gun was up and the target called for. 0. Ed turned, smiled mischievously and said "Sorry Gary."

Ed had paused intentionally, hoping to move Gary's attention and focus off his own target and onto the pause (distraction) Ed had created. Distraction successful. Gary took the bait and engaged the delay in shooting. This is exactly what we do when we consciously move our attention to what we believe is distracting us. By engaging it, by giving it our attention, we empower it. Now the distraction has our attention. And, right on schedule, we no longer have our full attention on the target in front of us.

For example, most of our attention is on the trap machine that refuses to throw anything but broken birds. And here's the key. The "refuses" part of that is our engagement of the trap machine breakdown. The trap breakdown is not the distraction. A machine is incapable of refusing anything. The "frustrating refusal" to throw birds is our emotion, a distraction we've created. We made it, we own it. So now we have to deal with our "frustration" from it refusing (?) to throw targets. It's the machine's fault?

No doubt, it won't be hard to find an example of our engaging something that upsets us in our daily life. In traffic; at the crowded store; in our office; people late for their appointments; packages that don't show up; constant interruptions, the list of stressful events is endless. Unfortunately, it is here that we engage these events – the same habit we bring with us to the shooting ground on match day. No chance of anything going wrong here. Right? And when it does, our engaging it will again "create" the same stress we always feel.

Next month we'll talk about acceptance skills. Thanks for stopping by the Paragon website and we hope to see you here next month.

Daniel Schindler

Paragon Sporting Clays Instructor