TargetTalk

http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_m ... tchID=7831

590 AP....Damn! That's playing with the big boys!

I was asked yesterday why I wasn't there competing. I said I didn't want to spend that much money getting my butt whipped. Oweee!

Daryl is working hard and it shows. I hope he medals in London, he deserves it and has earned it.

I am glad to see Daryl doing so well. He has been working harder than anyone else and it shows. In addition, I am glad to see him break the old record of 589 because I heard that record was established under questionable circumstances. I told Daryl that his record would likely stand forever, unless he broke it. He is now in a very elite group of shooters who have broken 570 in FP and 590 in AP. Good going Daryl!

I agree that Daryl shot very well and the 590 is awesome. But I doubt it will stand as long as the previous record did. Daryl is in his 40's and the junior record is now at 585.
Great shooting Daryl!

dand

What does age have to do with it?

585 is one heck of a score for sure, especially for a junior. However, it is a huge jump from there to 590. It isn't like going from 575 to 580. He is the first American to break 590 and it demostrates that he has reached the top tier of mental control. You seldom see anyone in the world perform to this level and I admire him for it. I expect this record will stand for many years.

+1 BEA, that will stand for a long time given that you have to shoot it in a controlled match not in your backyard.

Whilst its obviously a great score, it will interesting to see if he can carry that forward to the world cups and the Olympics.

Rob.

You never know if you can shoot a great score in a great match, but shooting it once at least shows you have the ability to do it again.

The trip from 575 to 580 is a performance increase of .87 %, while the move from 585 to 590 is only .85%. Actually a smaller increase.

I use this only to spotlight one of the big differences in "mental training" being used by the top shooters the past few years. Turning a supposed negative into a positive (something the aforementioned junior has already accomplished) to set the stage for the next jump.

In 3P Air (precision) the first few years scores in the low 570s were tops in the nation, now it takes 590 or so. Most of this due not to improved equipment, but the improvement in mental training.

Daryl is doing a great job, but probably related in no small way to his building upon prior successes.

The percentage of increase isn't a factor. The better you get, the harder it is to get better. When shooting 575, there are more areas where you can easily find opportunities to improve...turn a couple 8's into 10's...bam...4 easy points added by improving 2 shots. However, when moving from 585 (for instance) to 590, there are not as many places to easily find points because there have been no gross errors commited. To find 4 points, you might have to improve 4 shots, not 2. "Perfection" is being approached at these high levels and the mental challenge increases disproporsionately.

Pat McCoy wrote:The trip from 575 to 580 is a performance increase of .87 %, while the move from 585 to 590 is only .85%. Actually a smaller increase.

I use this only to spotlight one of the big differences in "mental training" being used by the top shooters the past few years. Turning a supposed negative into a positive (something the aforementioned junior has already accomplished) to set the stage for the next jump.

As BEA says, if you want to use percentages like that, you should calculate on points dropped - not on points scored.
Scores tell us it is easier to go from 575 to 580 than 590 to 595. We know this because more people are capable of regularly shooting 580s than 595s.

The curve that your formula creates suggests that as you get better, it is easier to get even better. However if that were true, then everyone who had fought their way up to 580 would climb to shooting 595s even quicker and more easily, and clearly that's not the case.

By using points dropped, going from 575 from 580 is a 20% improvement - 20% of the shots you were dropping are now going in. 590 to 595 is thus a 50% improvement because you're picking up half the shots you were dropping. It's an exponential curve where each additional point becomes harder and harder to obtain.

I say all this just to correct the manner in which you'd applied statistics because clearly your model did not accurately reflect how people improve. Such analysis of course is not particularly good mental training and not particularly useful anyway. Coaches know that technique and equipment will take you so far and once you are easily capable of shooting tens, you need mental coaching to help you shoot 60 tens in a row (and physical stamina training!). A coach might track this indicator to monitor performance, but a shooter shouldn't be focusing on points dropped. Not aside from analysing technical errors anyway.

I understand your point, but my point is that if you can find something to use as a positive in mental training, like needing a percentage increase less than one that you have already accomplished, you give yourself a mental advantage in making the next step up.

Looking at how hard it is to make the move you need to make, will only increase the difficulty. Looking at it from a different perspective helps set up another increase in performance "just like you've done before".

None of this was considered at any level of shooting, much less junior levels until the past 12-15 years, but since it has come into play the kids are making great performance strides at a faster pace than any shooters did before.

Keep looking on the positive side.

No one is being negative here. We are just talking about 2 entirely different levels of shooters. At the 580+ level, the only thing in mind is proper shot execution, not score. At the beginning levels, the mental processes are different and trying to teach them the 580 mentality at that point will only bore them to death, so your approach at improving scores is fine for them.

My comment is meant as a training device: Keep everything on the positive side. Not as a comment on this discussion, as it has been (as usual here) a positive one.

At every level proper execution is the goal. The score on the paper is just a result.

You keep telling yourself how hard it is to continue having proper execution for five more shots, and I'll keep my thinking about how many times I've already demonstrated proper execution.

Your sub(un)conscious will move you toward what you keep in your conscious mind, the great difficulty to be overcome, or the great things already accomplished allowing more great things to follow.

My best matches have been approached as 60 one shot strings. No thought was given to the level of difficulty. I did not score as I went along but simply checked what shot I was on occasionally to make sure I was okay on time. Shot value was checked every now and then to make sure I was reading things correctly. Perfect shot exection was the positive reinforcement.

I don't disagree about the positive reinforcement aspect, I'm just suggesting that trying to twist a statistic to show that going from 590 to 595 is easier than 575 to 580 is blatantly not a true reflection of reality, and as many shooters seem to come (for some reason) from a science and engineering background, they are not going to be susceptible to a statistical lie in order to progress their mental training.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Best just leaving that bit out altogether as far as training is concerned. Death by unnecessary statistics. Far more useful for the coach to be tracking raw scores, where they drop points - just after breaks, at the end of strings - are there fatigue issues after x-shots? Don't attach positive reinforcement to scores or improvements (because if you have an off-day, where does that leave you mentally?), just the process of a good shot. As you say, 60 1-shot competitions.


I've used the negative version quite a bit for a "Most Improved Novices" league. By using % of dropped points, someone going from 80 to 90 has no inherent advantage over someone going from 92 to 96. I four used raw point averages, the second person could not physically improve by 10 points when each card is ex100. When you're normally dropping 8, a 4-point increase is harder to find than when you're normally dropping 20.

Similarly, the math on a points-scored system doesn't really give a sensible result for competition purposes.

590 is a brilliant result. Well done!