How to beat TARGET PANIC with Levi Morgan

Hey guys, if you want to become a better archer, better bow hunter, you came to the right place. I'm Levi Morgan, this is Bow Life Boot Camp and we're about to dive into all things archery. Hey guys, Levi Morgan, this is the Bow Life boot camp here. and this is a four part series on

target

panic

, this is series number one, lesson number one, except movement, this is something that I have struggled with above all other forms of

target

panic

and I've struggled with all of them, target panic has a ton of causes and cures, however, we're going to go over this four part series and really try to break down what the cause of your target panic could be and some possible cures for that.

Some exercises to do will really dig deep and try to figure out how. to become a better archer archery is a fun and enjoyable sport but when you are dealing with target panic it can take all the fun out of it and we are going to try to make it fun for everyone again now target panic It's not something I dealt with when I was younger shooting in the amateur divisions. I face it to this day. I fight demons all the time. It never goes away. Now there are many things I have learned to do to combat all of those. feelings, all those triggers when I'm in full swing and that's what I'm going to share with you over the next four weeks.

The first is to focus on the middle, below accepting the movement, the problem is that you cannot stop the movement. Nobody in the world, including me, aims in the middle all the time, it just doesn't happen now in my backyard, on the field, when I'm practicing, I sure can aim very, very well, I can aim up, you know, an inch . circle and I rarely get 20 yards out of it, but when things are on the line, tournaments are on the line, I shake like I just drank a gallon of Red Bull and one of the things I learned a long time ago is that I just have You have to accept that now that doesn't mean you've learned it and that it's written in stone.

I still have to learn it over and over again. A guy named Joe Turner with a sky-high IQ really helped me recently get back to basics. accept a move so focus on the middle even though your pin is not in the middle your focus should be on the middle at all times and what does that do although I'm going to use a little laser pointer here even though your pin Sit down or your focus is in the middle, your pin may be doing this right here. I mean, it may be a terrible looking image, but if your focus is in the middle, you'll notice that that pin always comes back to the middle and that's another point here. is to focus on the middle and not stop executing what I mean by not stopping executing is one of the problems I have in this lesson in accepting the movement is that my pin would go so that it would go down and sit and my movement is a little slower than that, it's not really erratic movement, but when my pin would leave that point, I would stop, I would stop, okay, here we go, we stop, here we go, we stop and what that causes is a ton of anxiety in your mind that stops and goes.

Freeze and make a huge system and then when it gets more erratic things happen that aren't great, so once you start that movement your focus goes to the middle, you want to keep a constant movement, a constant pull no matter what. who are making your pins. until it triggers and that's a big part of accepting movement, easier said than done, but your movement shouldn't determine what happens back here, that's fine, movement comes back if your focus is in the middle, even without no matter how badly the pin moves. The target always comes back to the middle and this is something I remember when I went to our National several years ago, we just came out of the Las Vegas shooting.

Hi, I'm a nervous wreck inside every time I go into the shot with a very long shot. The 900 became a national jump off a lot but when I get in that high pressure situation I shake and my pin is everywhere and that's something I don't see when I practice so it was new for me and in that situation. I started freezing and freezing and going. I was at the Las Vegas shooting and I thought, I'm the only one up here who's nervous. That is. I'm the only one and I lost the Las Vegas shootout almost a year, but I lost and went to the Endor Nationals that year and I remember standing on the line with the best guys in the world, Jesse Broadwater, really wild chants, boba, there were five of us left , I think on the line and in the jump-off, and I remember looking down.

I won't call him by his name and I'm sitting there saying, I'm the only one up here that's nervous and shaking, how can I

beat

these guys? I remember looking at the guy who had just won in Vegas and wanted several times and his arrows were literally shaking in his quiver and that calmed me down just letting me know hey, everyone gets nervous, everyone shakes and I continued to execute the move and that's the first time I learned that if you just keep focusing on the middle, the air will find its place, so I want you to work on a few of the exercises or two.

There are several exercises you can do. Two of the best are to just shoot a huge point, so grab a lock target or whatever. aim and draw a huge dot on it, something your pins will never leave, just stand back and focus on the middle, let your pin move on that point and just run and you will find that your groups will be really very very solid in the middle from that point as long as you keep your focus in the middle will teach you that it will take that anxiety off your pin leaving the point is a good exercise to calm your mind another that is on Another spectrum of this is shooting with one foot and this is something that Joel Turner taught me not long ago.

If you have trouble executing with a little movement, you stand on one foot, it's catastrophic to look at the target and it really teaches you to just keep shooting no matter what your pins do and that will surprise you how well you can shoot with the pin moving in a two foot circle, but this is kind of lesson number one of a four part series we're going to try to look at all the different forms of target panic how to cure them how to make yourself a better marksman but you have to accept the movement nothing you can do about it when you get nervous the pins are going to move you shouldn't control what you're doing with your let go of your hand