Beating Target Panic with Different Releases (Thumb, Hinge, Index, Tension)

So target panic is caused when, one, you can't aim, two, when you over-aim, when you anticipate the shot and when you force the shot so nothing is flowing. What is very important with a basic setup is make sure your drawing is correct, make sure your bow is balanced properly and the reason for that is that when you are starting to aim is that it is more balanced, it's more natural and it's easy to aim. You're not fighting your bow and you're not fighting equipment. The second thing that is very important to do is to stand very close to the target and just work on your process, work on your shooting technique and work on making sure that you anchor properly and that you just execute the shot properly. Without aiming you cannot aim and execute at the same time. The subconscious is going to focus on one thing at a time and the ideal thing for you to do is to focus on just executing a good shot. So blank bale shooting is very important and I'm going to show you the four different releases that I have available and what you need to work on to make sure you've got a good flow with each one of these releases. So when I talk about blank bale shooting I'm talking about a target that has got no target face on it, an empty butt. This one has been shot thousands of times so the idea is not to pick a spot and aim at it, the idea is to just focus on executing the shot, getting an anchor and just following the process and let the process become natural and making a muscle memory of the whole exercise. So you're going to stand close and make sure you do not miss your target. So the release that most people use is the index finger release, the wrist release. The idea is that you get into a comfortable anchor position and I am assuming that you're already familiar and comfortable with finding an anchor and being solid with your anchor. What is very important to do this practicing is make sure you stand close to the target and that you're not going to miss the butt completely. So when you get to full draw get into anchor, make sure that you do not aim at something on the target, put your finger on the trigger and put pre-tension on the trigger and then just start pulling the trigger. Your finger is not supposed to get stuck on this release and on the trigger itself, just make sure that you follow the process and your flow and you execute a good shot. So many people are afraid of putting their finger on the actual trigger itself and if you touch it and the shot goes off it means your trigger is too fine and too sensitive. When you put your finger on the trigger you should be able to get good solid pressure on the trigger itself and once you've got this pre-tension going all you need to do is to lift your elbow up, don't focus on aiming at anything, just focus on the flow and the process and the shot will go off and get fired. What is important for me with an index finger release is most intermediate to high-end releases do not have much travel, so that's very important to get a release that does not have travel. The leading cause with a lot of people getting target panic with this is wanting to control the shot and if you do want to control the shot make sure that your finger is at least on the trigger itself, but a lot of people actually come in from the back and they bring their finger around and they slap the trigger, so that is a lot of movement at the back and that'll definitely affect your accuracy and your consistency and like I mentioned the whole idea for you is to put your finger on the trigger, make sure you've got some tension on it and letting the back tension muscles pull the finger onto the trigger itself, adding more pressure and letting the shot fire. So there's many ways shooting the index finger trigger, for me the most ideal way is to put your finger around and when you have the tension going to the back your finger is actually just pulling into the trigger and it's not sliding off and it's actually causing the trigger to fire. A lot of people that are punching the trigger put their tips of the tip of their finger on the trigger and they end up touching, touching and they end up punching it, so for me you'll have a more controlled shot when you wrap it around and then when you have the back tension when you lift your elbow up pull into the shot and let the trigger fire in that way, so that in my opinion is the ideal way shooting an index finger trigger. The next release is the thumb release, I've got a few ways of setting this off and in essence you're going to use the same principle in wrapping your thumb around the trigger itself and by lifting up your elbow and using your back muscles opening up the palm is going to end up adding more pressure on the button and that will cause the release to fire. Very important is to focus and make sure you've got a nice anchor position on the side of your face, I've got even pressure on all my fingers and when I put my thumb on the trigger I add a little bit of pre-tension and from here I'm going to lift my elbow and this is going to cause my thumb to add more pressure on the button making the release to fire. You can see my arm is going backwards and my hand's going backwards and that is based off of the actual pressure that I'm putting on my back and the rotation of the elbow, so the whole idea of this exercise is obviously not to punch, not to be anxious and when you are doing this exercise and you close your eyes and you focus purely on the execution you will not get anxious, you can just stand here and focus on the rotation thumb on the trigger and just making sure you execute a good shot. So I've always liked the shape of this specific release, there are so many nice handheld releases out there, Truville Scott's making some really nice releases, this being the Carter Just Cause and the way I have this set up and the way I enjoy shooting this release is I want to set my hand up that it is the most repeatable every single time, so I want to get in a position where my knuckles is flat in line with my palm and the idea and how I'm explaining this to people is if you're gonna hang on to something and with your fingers this is basically what you're gonna what it's gonna look like and this is in my opinion the most repeatable. Once you start closing your fist that is going to be very inconsistent and that is going to cause you not to be really in line because you are going to end up moving away from your face and not necessarily being in line with your face when you execute the shot. The other thing that I'm looking for when setting up my release is my thumb position, I do not want to be on the tip of my thumb, I want to make sure that I can wrap around my thumb and this button of mine has been 3D printed, it's got nice solid knobs here that I can get good contact on my actual thumb post itself and the whole thing when I am at full draw and in anchor is to actually get my palm to open up, so I'm over emphasizing what I'm doing now but when I start drawing is I want to make sure this is open and relaxed and when I execute this actually slides on the side of my face and it ends up behind my ear. So the next release a lot of people are going to is a hinge release and a lot of people are very afraid of this and if not shown how to use this properly I would also be afraid, so get to someone that can actually show you how to set this up properly and how to train with this and if you are starting to shoot this make sure it is set up the way it needs to be. So in essence and to explain it to you quickly, the whole idea with the index finger with the hinge release is exactly the same as the thumb. I want to be, this is my most natural hand position, so I want to make sure when I get at full draw and when I get to the side of my jaw I actually have to set up that I go into a click and when I am in this click I actually just lift my elbow and it actually causes my palm to open up a little bit more, my hand to relax a little bit more and that causes the shot to go off. For guys starting out I believe put on a clicker then you know the shot is close and you can do your alignment, you've got a consistency in your anchor position and you can start from there. This Scott Ascent with the two sears in the middle here you can actually micro adjust your click length, so if you want to make the click longer or shorter this is the ideal release and one that I really do enjoy. There are a lot of similar releases also on the market so but this is the one I am currently enjoying a lot. So the whole idea with this is when you get to full draw it's always safe when you keep your thumb here on the post making sure that it is going to be safe to get there and like I said when I get to full draw and when I get into the natural position of my hand where I feel the most comfortable that's in click and from here I end up just lifting my elbow getting into my back muscles causing my palm to open up and it will make the shot fire. You can see the nice alignment after the shot's been fired it's in line with the arrow and that's going to give me a lot of consistency and eliminate a lot of the left and right movements. So to give you another angle and I'm just going to give this to the guys that hasn't shot a hinge like this before is this post is your safety post so you always want to have pressure on that post there that when you draw it that the shot doesn't fire and this release typically will obviously fire on rotation. So these fingers are completely relaxed at the moment but when I get into my neutral position with my hand closed you'll hear the click so that for me is the most repeatable all the time and when I get to my anchor in my aiming position and we are doing blank bale shooting now so you don't want to aim at something specific you're going to lift your elbow causing my palm to open up and I'm going to over emphasize this a little bit that movement of my palm opening up and my palm actually relaxing is causing the shot to fire and execute. A lot of people when they get to full draw with an hinge like this is they end up flicking this release. If you do it like that might as well put it down and either start with something completely different or if you can't shoot any of the index releases thumb releases or hinge releases the release I recommend is a resistance activated trigger. So this for most people will be the best release to cure your target panic and how this actually works is you've got a tension spring that's set inside this release and you can set this by screwing a screw in and out making it go off easier or harder and based off of the let off that you shoot on your bow when you get to full draw you are going to do the various settings that when you let go of the thumb post the idea is not to release to fire but then with proper resistance and back tension for the shot to fire so there's actually no rotation or no trigger that'll cause this release to fire purely resistance going backwards so here you've got no choice but to keep on pulling to make the shot go off so your ideal shot will look like this you're going to keep your thumb on the on the post get to a full anchor position and once you've taken the post your finger off the post you're so this is a definite release to help you keep on pulling with back tension help you with good form and with good execution and once you've shot this a couple of times on a blank bail when you get back to your index finger to your thumb trigger the idea would be is to wrap it around and have the same process of keeping on to pull with your back muscles until the shot is executed there are a couple of options available in these knock-on's got a really nice one the silverback this one's the stan onyx trubel's got an amazing trigger that you can shoot either with resistance or thumb so there are a couple of really nice ones out there and I know Colt Evolution the one of the first so I'm just going to give you a another another example make sure your thumb is on the post otherwise it is going to go off get your anchor let go of the post and now you work on the back tension and the resistance and make sure you're keeping it nice in line that the release goes back in line with the arrow behind your face the idea with this and with your palm being open is to get the alignment in line with the arrow once you start closing your palm and your fist you're going to move away from your face causing you to miss left and right so to give you a good angle from the back the idea would be for any release that you're going to shoot is when you get at full doors to get into an anchor to have your elbow in line with the arrow itself and for the release to slide in line with your jaw line in line with the arrow making sure that everything is nice and in line we're not aiming at anything in the front there we are just focusing on good form and execution that was a my opinion a nicely executed shot nice and in line I've had some good proper back tension and when you want to do training with some of these releases and just forcing yourself to pull hard you can set the tension on these releases and the resistance if you want a little bit lighter or harder and obviously this is blank bale shooting we are focusing on shooting form to eliminate any possible target panic so let's wrap up what we've just seen target panic is the reason why a lot of archers stop shooting or do not enjoy their archery so knowing how to shoot the various different releases will hopefully get you back on the line practice on executing the shots properly and making sure that you follow the process and in conjunction with knowing how to shoot and execute these releases it is also important to make sure like I said at the start of this video knowing that you're is indeed set up the right way but even more importantly is make sure you take some time and you spend some time on the range practicing how to aim it's very important that you can sort of program your mind that you can actually keep your pin or your dot in the middle in the gold and when you get to that realization that oh it's not that difficult to actually keep your pin on target that is when your muscle memory will kick in and you can actually just you know follow the process that you've trained so hard on a blank bale and if you are getting to a position that you always fall back a little bit and getting a little bit anxious when you are shooting go to a closer distance put up a bigger target face go do more blank bale shooting and make sure you just follow the process and focus on aiming focus on staying in the goal do not concentrate on your pin floating all over the show stay relaxed in the shot and just follow the process and trust yourself and just keep on aiming I hope you guys like the video I hope you like the contents of this video hit the like button subscribe give me some comments what you would like to see more of