Irish Practical Shooting Association - IPSA

Mental Management in IPSC shooting
The wonder tonic now taken by many IPSC athletes worldwide!!
Prof. Stovepipe of the Double Dog academy J

There is a lot more to successful IPSC shooting than technique. But some of us tend to focus a lot on the practice and technique side of the sport and we tend to ignore the very important mental side of the game. Training for big matches, understanding the rules, interacting with other competitors and range officials all contribute to your performance. You could have spent hours at perfect practice but on the day of the “big match” you could be let down by not having prepared yourself mentally for the challenge. The purpose of this article is to help you understand the importance of implementing an effective mental management program, which if used in parallel with you shooting training is sure to take your game to a new exciting level. As you read on you’ll quickly realise that you cannot have one without the other.

Principles of mental management

You can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Make sure you picture positive actions

What you say is not important. What you cause yourself or others to picture is crucial. Always give yourself commands in a positive manner e.g. never say “don’t miss the popper,” instead say “hit the popper cleanly with one shot”

The subconscious mind is the source of all power. You perform at your best when you allow your subconscious to do the work. However when the conscious mind overrides the subconscious mind performance deteriorates. You must allow your subconscious mind to do its work. You need to trust in your training and ability (see self image)

The subconscious moves you to do whatever the conscious mind is picturing. Not unlike the advice given to Peter Pan “think happy thoughts” to make him fly, you have to think positive thoughts to make you shoot to the best of your current ability. You can control what you picture and what you want to see happen

Self Image – Self image and performance are always equal. To change your performance you must change your self-image. For example if you’ve a long difficult partial target to shoot and you tell yourself that you’re not good enough to make the shot. Guess what?…. you’ll miss or even worse, miss & hit a no shoot. What’s just as bad on the other hand is if you tell yourself that you are good enough to take the shot but your performance level isn’t up to the task naturally enough you will also miss

When conscious (thoughts), subconscious (source of your skills i.e. training) & self-image are all in balance with each other good performance is easy. This is called the Balance of power. Think of them as a triad state of intersecting circles. To improve your overall performance it’s vital to improve each of the 3 circles together

Building skills

Goal setting

• Decide what you want
• Decide when you want it
• Determine the obstacles in your way
• What’s your plan to achieving your goal?
• Ask yourself some important questions- is the prize worth the sacrifice? Do I believe the plan will work?
• Schedule plan
• Start now
• Never reach a goal without setting another.
• Don’t quit

Principles of reinforcement
The more we think about, talk about and write about something happening we improve the probability that it will happen

Rehearsal
Picture what you want to see happening before you actually perform e.g. as you step up to shoot a COF picture yourself shooting the stage perfectly. This rehearsal helps control pressure & restores relaxation

Running a mental Program
This in my view is a very powerful tool in helping you to focus & be calm prior to shooting.

• Point of initiation- starting point obviously! For example R.O. calls “next shooter”
• Point of attitude- Positive mental attitude about your shooting game.
• Point of direction- Run stage through you mind
• Point of Control- Think perfect sight alignment & that being smooth is fast
• Point of focus- Wait for the “B” of the beep signal i.e. try be quick to respond to start signal

Skills Factory
To improve your shooting skills consider the following points:-

• Catch yourself doing something right. When you shoot well take note of what you’re doing
• Wherever you are-be all there. Remember practice makes permanent. If you practice sloppy technique it will get you nowhere. You need to practice techniques correctly.
• Rehearse the match day within your training session. Then on match day you can tell yourself to “relax I’ve been through this. It’s nothing new to me!”
• When you’re shooting well shoot a lot. Also when you’re not shooting well don’t get frustrated and keep shooting.
• Shoot with people who are better than you. Their performance will motivate you to progress.

Performance Analysis
Have a training schedule & try to keep to it
Keep a diary of your training sessions. Put down your thoughts of how you got on. Write this soon after the session when your thoughts are fresh. It will help you focus your next session
Solution Analysis- Write down any solutions to challenges you’ve discovered. For example you might have improved your stance for weak hand shooting

Putting it all into practice on the day
Stage Preparation & mental program example

Below I have described a way to help you prepare for a stage. Try it out in the form it’s written or customise it to suit yourself. It can help you a great deal. You will be surprised at how well it can work for you in helping you improve your IPSC shooting.

1st walkthrough
On the first walkthrough with the RO don't plan anything. Just check target placements and do a round count to ensure you have all targets located (rounds). Be mindful of any special instructions for the stage also e.g. targets T1-T3 only require one shot each.

2nd walkthrough
Take visual references on foot placements, reloads, target acquisition, eye & head movement and positioning. Some people even count their steps between positions. Do all this at walking speed & not match speed. While standing in line to walkthrough again all the visual titbits are made into a movie and played back in your head in slow motion.

3rd walkthrough
Make this walkthrough as match like as possible. You sometimes don’t get enough time to do more than 3 walkthroughs. Ensure you’ve enough room before you start. Ideally you’d like to run the complete stage as if it’s for real this time. When you’re waiting for your turn to shoot the stage play the movie over and over and over until it comes all on its own, without thinking of the next step. You should be able to do this now without looking at the stage at all. When you can achieve this you’re ready to shoot the stage.

Watch other shooters shoot the stage & pretend that they are you. As they move, you predetermine their moves and correct them if they did not do what you planned. It’s best to watch a shooter who is at the same level as you are or a little better. It’s probably not a good idea to watch the shooter just ahead of you. If he does something that you decided against you may begin to doubt your own tactics. You need to keep a positive mental image & if the shooter ahead of you makes a mistake like missing plate after plate after plate. That’s the last thing you want to have remembered as you step up to the line.

When called to the line by the R.O. now is the time to run your mental program. This is one that I find very useful:

• Think- "Calm - Smooth - wait for sights "
• Run mental ''movie" of stage
• At LAMR prepare gun & holster as per stage briefing
• See perfect sight picture, double alphas & shooting stage perfectly
• At "Are you ready" Think-"Calm - Smooth - wait for sights"
• Listen for "B" of Beep i.e. try to react the very moment you hear the shot timer. Don’t wait for the entire beep before you move.

Some final thoughts:

• Make every shot count. Shooting more shots takes time.
• Stay in control of every shot. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
• Focus on your sights and take the stage one shot at a time.
• Think of your front sight as your speedometer. If you can’t see them clearly you are going too fast.
• Aim small, miss small (You are not shooting at the target, you are aiming in the centre of the available target area). Remember that this may not always be the alpha zone
• If your gun always runs and if you move quickly from one position to the next and are ready to shoot as soon as you get there, you can shoot slower and more accurately, and beat a lot of people. Come into position ready to shoot i.e. have your gun up in front of your face & push it out to pick up the sights as you slow down while coming into your shooting position.

A lot of what you’ve just read was inspired from the following books. If you’re serious about improving your IPSC skills you can’t afford not to check them out: -

Thinking Practical Shooting by Saul Kirsch. www.doublealpha.biz

With winning in mind by Lanny Bassham. www.lannybassham.com

Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos. www.brianenos.com

For technique & training exercises please check out the following publication: -

Perfect Practice by Saul Kirsch.

Refinement & Repetition by Steve Anderson

Principles of Performance by Steve Anderson

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