# Execution: Making a transition to the subconscious



## possum trapper (Nov 24, 2005)

to turn something on you will need to turn something else off and vice versa


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## Mahly (Dec 18, 2002)

For me, and I'm not a top shooter, but getting there, much of it is repetition first, then some of it simply becomes sub-conscious.
Other things I do have to put effort in to make sub-conscious...though it sounds contradictory to the process... Thinking about how not to think about something.
The only "technique" I can really say I use for that purpose is occupying my mind with some other aspect of shooting.
My go to mind purging technique is simply repeating "X X X" while shooting. It tells me focus on your target, ignore the float, ignore the movement of the hinge and/or elbow (the engine is running without thought). There is no brain power left to wonder if I left a cake in the oven, or closed the garage door.
Conscious thought is a finite thing, you can only think about so much at one time. Filling it with something good, doesn't leave room for something bad.
When there is no more room for conscious thought, the subconscious is left to run what it has been trained to do.

In racing, we eliminate as much as possible, the need to calculate where to brake, start turning, exit the corner, get on the gas, and where to set up for the next corner. This leaves the brain to focus on traction, and strategy. If we had to think about all the other stuff, the amount of brain power left for traction would go down considerably.
We assign reference points for all of those other thoughts.
I think that may be why I like shooting a click on my hinge. It's a reference point that says "the engine has started, now just focus". At where I am in my shooting, I prefer that solid reference point.

Long story short, you have some things that are good to keep conscious, FILL your conscious mind with them (or it) and the rest can become automatic.


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## PSE Archer (Oct 26, 2014)

After I have reached "Holding" and the shot is a "Go" - The start of aiming begins and the mind goes to the target. If the mind comes back to "me" - shot is now a "No Go"..


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

This was my first attempt at a 100% subconscious execution process. It's only 10 arrows from 20 yards and I didn't exactly kill the X but the only one that missed the 10 ring was the last shot which I took back control. While this is only the beginning, I fully expect that my shooting will improve more and more as I get more comfortable with letting go of conscious control.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

The brain is a marvelous thing. It just doesn't turn off. We train and something becomes automatic. Aiming takes thinking. If we didn't think how would we know to let down if we didn't realize the pin way off or us falling apart? I forget who said it, but the brain can split, give orders and remain fixed on something else. Examples was us "telling" back tension to engage where back tension goes automatic and we still are seeing/aiming.

Don't know if it applies, but heavy weight boxing Champion Rocky Marciano made the decision to retire when he saw the hit instead of making the hit first. So not just conscious on unconscious, but also reflexes? Off topic trivia; Show...Jonny Carson? Military Officer fires a .45 acp at this pressure plate thing. I think 600 registered. Rocky then plowed that pressure plate and registered 600.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

I think that may be why I like shooting a click on my hinge. It's a reference point that says "the engine has started, now just focus". At where I am in my shooting, I prefer that solid reference point.

that is precisely, what the click is intended to be for. and is also the source of many a shooters' problems when using one. they don't understand this and the click, becomes a distraction.


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## PSE Archer (Oct 26, 2014)

ron w said:


> I think that may be why I like shooting a click on my hinge. It's a reference point that says "the engine has started, now just focus". At where I am in my shooting, I prefer that solid reference point.
> 
> that is precisely, what the click is intended to be for. and is also the source of many a shooters' problems when using one. they don't understand this and the click, becomes a distraction.


That's exactly how I do it. As I come to anchor my hand rotates slightly, but I do not set the click. After reaching anchor I immediately set the click with the tightening of the rhomboid - click - back is engaged. Everything is steady - float is minimal - go to target. Back tension keeps increasing - within a few seconds and a slightly more BT the shot is gone. Been working on this for quite some time. Today was a 54x -300. BHFS. Started vacation this week so I get to really work on it.


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## unclejane (Jul 22, 2012)

In my experience, it happens naturally most of the time. Repetitive skills with reasonably limited complexities tend to be the ones that become automated/subconscious and my body/mind tends to cull those out without that much active intervention on my part. 
An example from flying is the application of control pressures when executing a cross-wind landing. Maintaining the ground track down the centerline of the runway is a largely conscious activity, but the application of rudder pressure and opposite stick pressure to keep the fuselage aligned straight ahead is almost entirely subconscious. From my musical instrument training, the fingering patterns for certain scales are mostly subconscious, but the choice of which to use artistically is mostly conscious.

I can describe what I do in each case, though I can't recall making conscious decisions about which of those skills I practiced to automation and which are still largely conscious activities.

So in my case, the repetitive/circumscribed nature of a skill is a determining factor in whether it will become automatic/subconsciously executed. It's not a hard, clear line, but a general kind of characteristic. Then the process of making that happen is simple, rote practice/repetition.

LS


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

SonnyThomas said:


> The brain is a marvelous thing. It just doesn't turn off. We train and something becomes automatic. Aiming takes thinking. If we didn't think how would we know to let down if we didn't realize the pin way off or us falling apart? I forget who said it, but the brain can split, give orders and remain fixed on something else. Examples was us "telling" back tension to engage where back tension goes automatic and we still are seeing/aiming.
> 
> Don't know if it applies, but heavy weight boxing Champion Rocky Marciano made the decision to retire when he saw the hit instead of making the hit first. So not just conscious on unconscious, but also reflexes? Off topic trivia; Show...Jonny Carson? Military Officer fires a .45 acp at this pressure plate thing. I think 600 registered. Rocky then plowed that pressure plate and registered 600.


Nope the brain doesn't turn off, what needs to be refocused is the conscious mind so that the subconscious process can run uninterrupted. Executing an arrow from a bow is not a singular activity, it is an activity that requires aiming and execution in coordination. The conscious mind is incapable of multitasking and coordinating simultaneous activity. The ability to perform this refocus is probably the biggest separator between most of us and the truly skilled archer.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

EPLC said:


> Nope the brain doesn't turn off, what needs to be refocused is the conscious mind so that the subconscious process can run uninterrupted. Executing an arrow from a bow is not a singular activity, it is an activity that requires aiming and execution in coordination. The conscious mind is incapable of multitasking and coordinating simultaneous activity. The ability to perform this refocus is probably the biggest separator between most of us and the truly skilled archer.


Lack of true desire/lack of commitment and no real fault of the archer....Some people just aren't built that way.


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## N7709K (Dec 17, 2008)

I see the hang up revolving around trying to see the shot as a multi step process that you need to "walk" the shooter through. 

Which to a degree while LEARNING the shot it does contain multiple steps, but once the shot has been learned and has been "handed off" its now a single step thing. The final refinement of the shot is a one step process- shoot the damn bow; when you address the target during setting up the shot the conscious is now tasked with aiming.... the shot is gonna run itself when it is allowed to and is unobstructed.

At the level we are talking there are only two things happening: aiming and running the shot. I see it as aiming is a task which requires active attention due to the inherent movement in the dot AND it is the overall governing factor of the shot. If the sight picture doesn't look correct when i hit anchor, i let down... if the float is too tight and things aren't moving, i'll let down... etc etc and so on... In MY shot i don't have a start; the process will run itself UNLESS I stop it. I trust my shot; it will get its job done 100% of the time when i let it run itself. Couple that with me doing MY part and arrows go in the middle each and every time. 

last thing i'm going to say is this: 

Trust your shot or learn to trust your shot; at some point you will need to let go. Be letting the shot happen so you can aim or letting the shot happen so you can focus on shooting "form" and detaching the conscious from the situation at hand..... it all takes trusting the shot.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

Jacob is 100% right in his last post and fortunately I have done all of the training over the last three years so that I can actually experience what he was referring to in his post. You have got to do the appropriate training and learn the lessons that go along with hinge shooting and floating and aiming and executing but once you have built those foundations into your shot then you can enjoy and reap the rewards.

I know that many times during my last three years I tried to just let go and let things happen but now that I look back I really hadn't earned the right to do so, I had overlooked or ignored some of the lessons that have to be learned.

Now I will admit that I did have some short term success winning some local tournaments and getting on the podium at asa tournaments by committing to my current shooting that week but it was always short lived but I always got back on the range and progressed through my training and building on my foundations.

Sooner or later once you have covered all the bases you will move on to new levels of shooting but if you ignore things and refuse to address them or listen to guys like Jacob you will simply end up being your own worst enemy.


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## xavier102772 (Sep 2, 2010)

N7709K said:


> I see the hang up revolving around trying to see the shot as a multi step process that you need to "walk" the shooter through.
> 
> Which to a degree while LEARNING the shot it does contain multiple steps, but once the shot has been learned and has been "handed off" its now a single step thing. The final refinement of the shot is a one step process- shoot the damn bow; when you address the target during setting up the shot the conscious is now tasked with aiming.... the shot is gonna run itself when it is allowed to and is unobstructed.
> 
> ...


100% agree on trusting the shot N7709K. The more I trust my shot and let the shot process just run, the better the shot is. It usually takes me about 15-20 practice shots to get to running on automatic and fully into trusting my shot though. With some work, I hope to get to that automatic, trusting point sooner and sooner. Funny thing is that even when my sight picture gets blurred or some double vision in the scope and peep happens, because I'm trusting my shot and my subconscious to put the arrow in the center (essentially running on automatic or mainly subconscious), more often than not it hits dead center.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

Bingo! This is all about trust. In my case I have to retrain to shoot 100% subconscious due to a lack of trust. If you can let everything happen, they still go in the middle, thus building trust. The key is to distract the conscious mind with an unrelated task at the point of commitment.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

Question for Padgett? If you are using different firing engines how can you possibly be executing subconsciously?


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

the conscious mind has to be taught to stay out of the way. we teach it that at the short bale when we do let down drills and in general "quality practice" drills.
again, the fundamentals, cannot be ignored. not spending enough time or enough quality effort in this stage of learning will come back to bite you in the long run.
there doesn't have to be any distraction for the conscious mind if it is correctly taught what it should be doing, during a shot.


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## unclejane (Jul 22, 2012)

N7709K said:


> Trust your shot or learn to trust your shot; at some point you will need to let go. Be letting the shot happen so you can aim or letting the shot happen so you can focus on shooting "form" and detaching the conscious from the situation at hand..... it all takes trusting the shot.


Agree. For me, trust is the diagnostic for truly automated/subconsciously executed skills. Trust is always earned and never simply provided on demand - accordingly, a skill is trusted only once it becomes trustworthy. For example, skills that your life depends on have to earn a certain level of trust before you actually take the jump and put your life on top of them. Again I'm thinking of skills I have developed to a trustworthy level, such as flying an airplane or driving a car - only once the minima are met will the instructor hop out and let you have a go on your own.

For skills that I haven't yet developed to the point of trustworthiness, such as my current shot routine, I am ok with not trusting them for the time being. Again, trust is primarily a measurement tool for me (as well as a goal) - it mainly means a) more learning and practice is required and b) if I'm diligent about it, trust in the skills will eventually develop also. 

Crucially, however, there is a c) as well. Namely, that I may be learning the skill incorrectly or incompletely. Trust can be a yardstick for this too - if I just slap can't develop trust in what I'm doing, I have to consider the possibility of c). Recognizing c) is a little bit of an art, since self-diagnosis can easily fail. Also, normal progress and abnormal progress can be a little bit of an art to distinguish too. At that point, there are more mundane measures to take here too, such as consulting a coach etc.

So I agree that trust is a critical part of learning any motor skill...

LS


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

trust is an analytical quality that is earned through successful repeated execution of a task. we can't learn to trust the shot or the float or anything else, until it has been learned to be trusted. the way you teach your shot process, has a lot to do with the security with which you trust it. the better it is taught and learned, the easier it is to be trusted. 
once again, it boils down to the fundimentals,.... teaching the shot process to work in a "trustful manor" happens when the time and efforts are taken to be thorough about learning those fundamental elements of a good shot. if that fundamental learning experience is strong, the shot has a trustful foundation that is reliable, consistent and worthy of being trusted. 
that foundation has to be taught with the time and effort it requires. skipping steps or ignoring "little issues" during that learning process, that you might think, "will work itself out", is a mistake that many people make, that will only work to reinforce the source of that "little issue" and make it a permanent, more difficult problem to eliminate down the road.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

Trust is like the chicken or the egg... which comes first. In order to trust anything it has to work within trustworthy boundaries. If I am honest with myself, with rare exceptions, I really don't trust my shot enough to just shoot it without conscious intervention. Since I learned this all wrong and practiced it all wrong and drilled it into my brain all wrong, I ended up with an untrustworthy shot... or at lease that's what my conscious mind thinks. Apparently my subconscious has another view of this and has built a pretty good firing engine along the way. It comes out now and then but goes back into hiding when my conscious mind gets involved. I've come to the conclusion that my process, firing engine, sight picture and float is sufficient enough to shoot at a reasonably high level. I know this because I've done it off and on throughout my shooting life. Because of this internal conflict I have had to take steps to force my conscious mind away from the entire execution. By doing this and seeing the success it brings I will be building trust along the way. The process has already started.


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## possum trapper (Nov 24, 2005)

if you want to read up on some subconscious mind go buy the inner game of tennis book.....its a cheap read


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

N7709K said:


> I see the hang up revolving around trying to see the shot as a multi step process that you need to "walk" the shooter through.
> 
> Which to a degree while LEARNING the shot it does contain multiple steps, but once the shot has been learned and has been "handed off" its now a single step thing. The final refinement of the shot is a one step process- shoot the damn bow; when you address the target during setting up the shot the conscious is now tasked with aiming.... the shot is gonna run itself when it is allowed to and is unobstructed.
> 
> ...


While I can't disagree, I do see some contradiction from what you said below... and that last sentence is probably closer to what's actually happening than you think. I'm at the point where I may have gotten everything right with the exception of letting it go.



N7709K said:


> I don't have a list of steps I go through, not a cognitive list anyway. I've done enough cycles of the same shot that it just runs itself, all I need to do is aim- due to only needing to aim and how my personality works regarding aiming my shot won't start until the dot is in the middle.... There is ZERO point for to shoot a shot where my dot isn't in the middle because it will miss, and shooting a miss purposefully doesn't get you very far.
> 
> More or less I put my dot in the middle and then screw off until the shot breaks- I dont need to think about the shot to any degree to make it happen.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Look up Subconscious. More stuff and on different levels than you can absorb. We train/practice and all within gets "filed" away and used as it is needed, call it subconscious or automation.

It seems we in here shoot 60 some arrows and call it day. Why is it that Pros are said to shoot between 300 and 500 shots per day? At my best, maybe Field days of the past, I shot from the time I got breakfast down my throat until I had to leave for work. So 3 to 4 hours daily. How many shots I don't know. 

Shooting. The more you shoot the more things you become aware of. Say at one time you shot and weren't aware of the shot being bad until you saw the arrow/target. The more you shot you became aware of the bad shot before the arrow hit the target. At this point you have to step back and find out why the shot was bad, form, anchor, bow arm, bow hand and so on. Find the correction and you practice it until it's part of you, stored in the subconscious. 

The conscious mind is at work all throughout, but drawing from the subconscious as needed. Automation of the learned shot comes forth. "Safety switches" are within the brain that can turn off Automation. Something not right and (if learned) you let down. 

I don't know how many articles I've read of late, but all point to the mind (consciousness) drawing from the unconscious when needed and being different within each individual....


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

not at all "chicken or egg".....
you can't trust something that doesn't exist. we assign trust to processes we learn to be trusted. if we don't learn the process to a trustful level, we don't and won't trust that process. the process has to taught in a way that will produce trustworthy performance. if don't teach it in a way that produces that quality, we won't trust t....it's all about how we teach the process we want to trust.
tennis was mentioned, I played tennis competitively in high school and a few years after I graduated. the same issues exist in tennis as are in archery. it s the fundamental elements that need to be taught and learned well, in order to develop a trustworthy execution. without that trust, confidence will never develop. 
as in archery, so is it in tennis. we develop a subconscious execution of the racket's swing, but the conscious activity of seeing the ball hit the racket, is absolutely necessary to execute a good shot. if you don't focus 100% on the ball, right up to it hitting the racket, you cannot execute a reliable return, or volley. the swing is subconscious, the quality of ball contact is conscious sight. in tennis, this eye contact, is called, "hitting through the ball". you actually train your tracking the ball so that your eyes actually continue the path of the ball, after the racket makes contact, it is the follow through of tracking the ball, that sets up the swing that produces the contact's reliability. you are 100%, consciously focused on the ball, and the swing, which is subconsciously produced, suddenly takes the ball away from the concentrated focus, so the eyes and head keep progressing for an instant, on the same path that the ball was traveling. this conscious focus has to be so intense that even at the speed the ball is traveling, you can see which way the ball is spinning as it meets the racket. with out this learned fundamental element in the shot, the execution of a good swing will not become trustworthy, no matter how well your swing is subconsciously executed.
there are drills that are done to train our sight, so that good contact is made with the ball, if we skip those drills or don't spend enough time on them fundamentally, our game suffers in reliability and trust.


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## xavier102772 (Sep 2, 2010)

ron w said:


> not at all "chicken or egg".....
> you can't trust something that doesn't exist. we assign trust to processes we learn to be trusted. if we don't learn the process to a trustful level, we don't and won't trust that process. the process has to taught in a way that will produce trustworthy performance. if don't teach it in a way that produces that quality, we won't trust t....it's all about how we teach the process we want to trust.
> tennis was mentioned, I played tennis competitively in high school and a few years after I graduated. the same issues exist in tennis as are in archery. it s the fundamental elements that need to be taught and learned well, in order to develop a trustworthy execution. without that trust, confidence will never develop.
> as in archery, so is it in tennis. we develop a subconscious execution of the racket's swing, but the conscious activity of seeing the ball hit the racket, is absolutely necessary to execute a good shot. if you don't focus 100% on the ball, right up to it hitting the racket, you cannot execute a reliable return, or volley. the swing is subconscious, the quality of ball contact is conscious sight. in tennis, this eye contact, is called, "hitting through the ball". you actually train your tracking the ball so that your eyes actually continue the path of the ball, after the racket makes contact, it is the follow through of tracking the ball, that sets up the swing that produces the contact's reliability. you are 100%, consciously focused on the ball, and the swing, which is subconsciously produced, suddenly takes the ball away from the concentrated focus, so the eyes and head keep progressing for an instant, on the same path that the ball was traveling. this conscious focus has to be so intense that even at the speed the ball is traveling, you can see which way the ball is spinning as it meets the racket. with out this learned fundamental element in the shot, the execution of a good swing will not become trustworthy, no matter how well your swing is subconsciously executed.
> there are drills that are done to train our sight, so that good contact is made with the ball, if we skip those drills or don't spend enough time on them fundamentally, our game suffers in reliability and trust.


Great analogy ron. I play tennis too and your description of how the conscious and subconscious really interact in tennis is right on. It really does translate well over to the archery shot process. After the skill is learned and becomes automatic, then all that's left is watching the ball in tennis and aiming at the target in archery.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

exactly.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

I've already said that I don't have enough trust in my shot and textbook solutions haven't helped. I'm simply trying something a little different... and yes, I'm going to need a lot of work in this area. See you at Wimbledon


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