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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780991761814 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Sportexcel Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/07/2013 |
| Pages: | 184 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
1
Learning to Win
The heights this book will take you, if you are willing to stop thinking and just shoot
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
—— Aristotle, Star Philosopher
Let's not mince words. The main goal of this book is to help you to win in your shooting game, whether that means winning competition HOAs, winning at the club level so that you can hold your head high or winning at the improvement game through on-going class punches. And although winning is the ultimate goal, enjoyment of your shooting sport is what is going to drive you to that perfect victory. The combined forces of winning and enjoyment are inseparable. It affects everything about your game, from the folks who you want to shoot with to the financial impact of earning a few payouts, from the type of shotguns you buy to your commitment to practice, attend competitions and put in your time.
Whether you are a novice or a professional, this book will help you create your own definition of high performance in order to win. From the get-go, I'll make no promises that this book will help you to win a world championship or even the club championship but you will have the tools and a system to do so. And I challenge you to see if you can apply them as effectively as the many champions I have worked with have done. Only you can dictate that along with how you read and apply this book to help you succeed in your goal.
The Starting Point
This book is the starting point where you will understand what you learned or didn't learn from all your competitive experience, from playing Little League baseball, football, hockey or other sports, to your latest attempts to win in clay target sports. High performance is the process of doing anything well. In shooting, it is staying sharp, target after target, and understanding the nature of the distractions that conspire to pull you out of that focus. Whether you are a novice shooter or a professional, feel free to dream and to strive for your dreams, as you read and apply the strategies in this book.
But this book is more than just reading, of course. It is a specially designed high performance system based on years of training hundreds of athletes to be successful at all levels of competition, in addition to my professional education — book learning and experience — that shaped my thinking.
Creation of a System
There was once a high performance expert who at age 10 knew there was more. Then, his target was a hockey net, and he played from sun up to sundown — full out — maniacally. It was wondrous. The outside world was nonexistent. Score seemed of no consequence but it meant everything to win the imagined cup. He enjoyed the euphoria, but never had a word for it.
But sadly, the organized version on an official ice rink — just like the organized version of any clay target discipline — threw this young expert into disarray. His game was lackluster and he could blame it on no one. Coaches, referees and opponents — who knew? But he knew the difference between his frustrating performances and his good ones, and he reveled in the rare moments — those moments of brilliance that stood out like a well-smoked target.
A fireball of energy might best have described him during those brief moments. He was skillful and unstoppable and, on a couple of occasions, there were unexpected moments where, at the end of the game, the opposing coach would pop into the locker room to praise his play. Ah, but his own coach would be rolling his eyes and sighing, as that kind of play was extremely rare for this budding high performance expert.
How had this young athlete achieved these moments of brilliance and incredible skill, endurance and awareness, when, as far as he knew then, he had done nothing different? Had he read a book on psychology? No. Had his coach suddenly turned into a grand motivator? No. Had the other team beaten up his smaller teammate and got him ripping mad? Well, yes, on one occasion. Even then the question of “how” left an indelible imprint on his brain — a mystery unsolved, a few nuggets of gold. But it was enough to start him on his quest for the mother lode.
That young man kept pursuing that dream, even at the age thirty-five — in karate. Surely, it was insight gained from maturity. He was older with an education, life experience and found himself surrounded by fabulous mentors, role models and coaches. But there he was again, the skillful athlete with no pizzazz. Something big was dragging him down, distracting him. He was being reacquainted with the “dragons” of his childhood — surely what had hampered his success as a young hockey player. He could have gone the psychology route and been assessed and talked at for hours at length. But he felt so messed up that he would have been in therapy for the rest of his life. There were tournaments around the corner and he needed a fix now.
On the verge of quitting, he began to unravel the mystery of high performance through a mix of his experience, education and luck, lots of luck. Slowly, but surely, this former perennial loser found himself using strategies that were working and helping him to win. He was succeeding in caging and/or training the dragons and, in doing so, developed a system that helped him to win a national championship in his karate organization.
A Repeatable System
That athlete was, of course, me. And the discovery that a simple, repeatable system could be so powerful and easy to implement was very exciting. Since that time I have fine-tuned and taught my system to amateur, Olympic and professional athletes around the world, from 11-year-old aspiring trap shooters to mature ATA, American skeet, sporting clay and Olympic champions. And now I'm teaching it to you in a book designed for any age and level.
Mind vs Target is designed to allow you to make sense of the system at your own shooting ability and level. As a beginner, almost everything in this book will be new and exciting and it will allow you to excel at a very rapid rate. As an advanced shooter and/or coach, you will fill in the gaps of your knowledge by understanding the tools you are already using, and, as with Paul Giambrone III, it will teach you how to use your tools much more effectively.
Six Steps to the Zone
The SportExcel System has Six Steps to winning that, in conjunction with learning solid shooting skills, will build your mental game in everything you do, not just shooting.
Step 1
Step 1 of the SportExcel System is the equivalent to the X Factor of television notoriety. I call it the Zone, the wonderful holy grail of sport (and life). Pick up any athlete's autobiography and you'll find a description of awesome feats of strength, playing with broken bones and uncanny anticipation, managing to slow down time, achieving perfect consistency round after round, seeing victory in the face of overwhelming odds and doing it all without thinking. The ZONE is our starting point, unlike other approaches to the mental game where the Zone is the endpoint. Making it the starting point, as you will see, makes the game a lot easier.
Step 2
Step 2 of the SportExcel System is the outcome, also known as the prize, or goal, or the win, etc. It represents where you want to go and is the means by which you'll know if you are making progress in your game. An outcome can be any number of things, from the ideal shotgun you want, to how many targets you'll break on average.
Unlike other approaches where you write down your outcomes and read them every day, Step 2 of the SportExcel System is more about making your outcome feel doable by creating passion and excitement for it, as well as adding a touch or two of adrenaline. My findings over a decade of working with shotgunners show that anyone can quickly transform their dreams into powerful, well-adrenalized parts of THEIR LIFE, where they become Déjà vu-like experiences. They simply feel DOABLE — and DONE — which makes them your OUTCOME!
Step 3
Step 3 of the SportExcel System is your guidance or feedback system, and since it is similar in nature to how a GPS system in your car keeps you on track as you move to your destination, we'll call this step GPS. It is all elements of your game that you are aware of — win, lose or draw — and how you handle those elements. You'll often hear, “You'll learn more from your mistakes and losses than from your wins.” Maybe; but it's unlikely. That will only happen if you learn the tools to help you to do that. You'll also be told to use the “think process” (the steps to making a great shot) rather than focus on the “outcome of winning,” because thinking about outcome will only get you distracted or panicky or discouraged or, even, overly optimistic. Wrong. Forget it all. Step 3 of the SportExcel System will teach you how to enjoy any and all guidance so you can get to your destination every time. And it is GPS — the good, bad and ugly scores, moods, squad mates and weather — that will teach you so much. Most importantly, you'll understand the role of score in your game. I mean, let's be realistic. As I said at the outset, score is the chief reason why are you competing in your game in the first place.
Step 4
Step 4 of the SportExcel System represents the strategies — the bulk of this book — that will help you to get back on track when distractions derail you. After so many years of being told to be confident (what is confidence?) and being told to park my bad memories (my parking lot became a piled up junk heap), I had to find another way.
Step 4 of the SportExcel System is the set of tools that will help you to forget mistakes, remove distractions, deal with difficult people, take leadership of your squad, etc. — all at the subconscious level without having to think on the stand, post, station, etc. When you have a problem, such as an agonizingly slow squad mate who is pulling you out of the Zone with his whiny voice, you'll learn to fix that problem and move on so you can shoot, not think!
Step 5
Step 5 of the SportExcel System pulls it all together. It allows the inner workings of your mind to stay inner and working, without your external interference—often called thinking. Your subconscious mind is very capable and, once trained, can smoke any target. Your subconscious mind, once trained, can deal with any distraction. Your subconscious mind, once trained, can fit your clay target sport/passion/job into your life. Quite often I'll have athletes whose problems on the post or in the station are unrelated to skill, equipment or ability to get in the Zone or weather. It's work, school and other personal distractions that pop into their heads at the wrong time. “P- [did I forget to send that project?]-ull.”
Step 5 of the SportExcel System will allow you to get your subconscious mind working for you to keep you focused on the task at hand.
Step 6
Step 6 of the SportExcel System is all about you, as it is YOU who has to stick to the program. I've been there, so have hundreds of my very successful and happy athletes. Now it's your turn.
Taking Action
So let's get started. You are about to learn the SportExcel system. It will take very little effort but lots of focused, consistent work. It will make all aspects of your game come to life — your short-term and long-term goals, your competition skills, your routines and the specific skills of your training such as gun mounts, hold points, stances, etc. This system to achieving a consistent high performance is akin to a map leading to the mother lode that prospectors dream about. As a clay target shooter, you can stop dreaming and start learning the skills required to strike it rich and win.
The SportExcel System is loaded with tools that, with consistent work, will assist you for the rest of your competitive shooting career and your life. Keep the book handy, because it is not just a one-time read. When you reach an impasse in your game or simply need a refresher, you can refer to the appropriate chapter and review the strategy. It is designed to be read — and reread.
So be prepared to ratchet up your game a notch or 20.
High performance: Power, focus, strength, agility, flexibility and acute perception.
High performance: Time slows; thoughts disappear; clay targets are predictable and larger than life; shotgun pellets find their targets by default; targets vaporize into a puff of smoke. Winning by achieving and maintaining this kind high performance is the mission of this book — your mission. Get ready, as the key to igniting the high performance Zone as a means to winning awaits you in the next chapter. So is all the new fun you'll begin having in your game.
What People are Saying About This
Masterfully written!! It should be on the must read list of every serious competitor in any sport. — Steve Brown, Certified NSCA Level III Instructor, Chief Instructor at Ark-La-Tex School of Wing Shooting
Your system was much easier to understand and apply to my game. Thank you!!!" — TOM TUCKER, ATA Trap
I found it! When I was a kid, I lived in this Zone that Bob Palmer perfectly describes in his book. Somewhere along the path, I lost it. As a gifted athlete, I found it tremendously frustrating, not ever being able to reach the potential that matched my full ability. I tried practicing harder...generally a waste of time and effort. I tried positive attitude...didn't work. I tried taking lessons from the Masters...got worse. I tried sports psychology...got MUCH worse. Now after practicing Bob's methods, I have it again and know how to keep it, or as he says, 'to stay in the Zone'. As a retired US Navy SEAL and athlete, who has been able to get to the highest levels that my physical ability could take me in many sports, I will tell you that what Bob has learned and is teaching in this book is what you have been seeking. Read it, learn it, practice it, become the Zone! IT'S A LOT OF FUN!! — Dr. Joe Lacaze, Retired US Navy Seal, Doctor of Chiropractic, Certified Neuromuscular Therapist, NASM Performance Enhancement Specialist, Flexibility Specialist, and College Biomechanics Instructor