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The Self Talk of the Shooter - Part One

The Self Talk ...

- What do the shooters talk to themselves about when they shoot?
... they will almost certainly say that they never talk to themselves
- Then you can ask them what when they take a bad shot

This is a kind of internal dialog.

Surely everyone is able to recognize the satisfaction when you shoot well and the disappointment when you shoot badly. The ideal should focus exclusively on the pattern of movements that need to be performed.

A second type of internal dialogue should be one's own state of mind and psychological conditions. It is therefore necessary to be able to realize that you are calm, cold, agitated, excited, etc. With the dialogue with oneself it is possible to regulate mental processes, technique, movements, mood, emotions, the sensations and perceptions that everyone has of himself.

Athletes must be able to observe from within, look within and be aware of this. What happens inside them; only through the inner speech it is possible to control the mental processes and the sensations.

If, for example, we take shooters for a cross-country run (not to check their physical state but their thought processes) we will realize that an internal dialogue will immediately begin and how the thoughts will cease when the run stops: this means that the mental activity was either a support or a disturbance to the race! This happens in all other training and shooting competitions (obviously also in sports). So it's important to check mental activity.
The inner talk, it can collapse... Example: the shooter is shooting very well. Surely in his mind the mechanism "I have to pull 5 more shots and then it's done..." can be triggered and continues to do 10, then an 8 escapes. The mechanism has jammed and the action has changed.
The action always changes and only after the inner talk has changed.

The thinking that Americans call "positive thinking" is not always a useful strategy (just "thinking positive" to make things go well?)

I find it more interesting to try to continue continuously, through the inner discourse, each and the goals that are set for each of them (situations). At all times I must always regulate my mental processes in such a way that they support my actions, in view of the goal I am trying to achieve.
In America you always train for a single shot and not for a whole series.
The athlete must be able to develop the belief that he is able to do what he is able to do.

In competition it is not that the athlete loses the technical ability to shoot, but rather that he loses the conviction of his mental capacity to shoot.
There is a big difference between the athlete's ability and the awareness that he has of his ability of him. If he is still 10 shots away, he must feel able to shoot 10 well done shots, and his inner dialogue must lead him to tell himself that he has already done these things innumerable times and therefore he is able to do them, controlling himself and the technique.

To improve, it is necessary to shoot in training with the same mental attitude of the competition, therefore without the possibility of repetition of shots. This is what I am referring to when I say that if you are unable to shoot in competition like training, it is important to at least start training as if you were in competition.

Usually you train without results and with the freedom to try again the bad shots: prediction this training is not able to provide the athlete with the right degree of awareness of his abilities.

(Go to part two)

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The contents of this site have the sole purpose of illustrating my experiences as an Olympic Shooting Coach. The information contained therein does not intend to constitute a "manifesto" or even a new "theorem" on Target Shooting.

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