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Trigger control, and flinching, with a handgun or rifle, at a non-moving target, may or may not apply to shotgun shooting.

 

I don't know who this guy is but he is full of crap if he thinks trigger freeze in clay target sports is a vision problem. What it is is the same thing as yips in golf and musicians who can no longer play their instruments. Neither of which require any great amount of vision. If you develop trigger freeze, you can screw around like thousands of others have until you get a release trigger or you can be smarter than them and get one the next week.

 

You been asleep? Jerry is a famous competition pistol shooter. He knows his stuff!

 

If you ever saw Jerry Miculek shoot you would not say he is full of it.

 

I also don't give a crap that he is a good shooter even if he is Annie Oakley reincarnated. That does not make him a nuero-specialist. Vision has nothing to do with trigger freeze.

Now, as soon as someone can explain how release triggers magically solve a vision processing problem, I'll listen. Until then, it's just people's butts talkin'.

 

I wonder if you could gain some of the same awareness without closing your eyes, but shifting them to the trigger itself or even just anywhere but the sights and target, as you focus on feeling the trigger break rather than trying to hit the targets.

 

It is more a visual processing issue IMO.

This would include visual reference, as in playing a musical instrument.

How our brains process vision is a complicated issue, that I think not many realize.

Let alone what the conscious part of our brains can process at the same time.

What Jerry is basically saying is, when closing your eyes, the target goes away along with the sights. Once you concentrate on the trigger pull, and that alone, the flinch goes away. From that point on, when the sights are aligned on the target, the processing of the conscious mind then goes to the trigger alone, instead of bouncing back and forth in very short amount of time. Because I don't believe our conscious mind can process two things at ounce, including our senses, and thought, it eliminates the apprehension and confusion. This of course, is at a stationary target. So processing the trigger pull would be easier.

Same thing with the yips, or target panic with the bow. Our conscious mind is switching focus back and forth so fast, because of doubt, including thought, alignment, timing, etc., that the trigger mechanism in our mind fails to send the signal to our motor-skills side to function. Or, at the perfect time.

Thus is why, I think a flinch in shotgun shooting, is an interruption of direct visual processing on the moving target. Simply because the trigger mechanism to the motor-skills part of our brain is short-circuited for even an instant, which is enough to cause the haywire reaction commonly know as a "Flinch". While our vision is being processed consciously, the sub-conscious processing is telling the brain, where our hands are. Being that they are aligned straight down the barrel, when the front hand crosses the target, and the visual processing is sending full uninterrupted signal, everything says, it's go time! That is called, "In the zone". Doing that 25 times in a row proves difficult. When we do, it seems effortless doesn't it.

 

Being a good shot doesn't qualify Mr. Miculek as an expert in physiology or neurology, or anything else. It just makes him a good shot.

 

Agreed! I see too many folks give credence to athletes just because they are great at their selected game. I know a fella at our gun club who is a world level 3p shooter. Doesn't know squirt about the guns he is shooting or ballistics or history of his sport but when he speaks, rookies listen and believe all he has to say since he shoots very well.

 

Well, my epileptic fit went away with the release. AND I shoot trap skeet and sporting clays. It used to be soooo frustrating to freeze and fall off of the skeet station because I couldn't pull the trigger

 

KS-5

Embouchure dystonia is a focal task-specific dystonia that affects the muscles (esp. lips and jaw muscles) used to play wind instruments. The musician is looking at the sheet music, or playing by memory.

Musician's focal dystonia is a task-specific disorder that mainly affects the upper extremity (especially the hands) esp. of violin and guitar players. The musician is looking at the sheet music, or playing by memory.

"Dartitis" affects the hands muscles (inability to release the dart), and the player is looking at a non-moving target.

Pitchers with throwing "yips" have an inability to release the ball, while looking at the catcher's glove.

How is visual processing involved?

 

Pitchers with throwing "yips" have an inability to release the ball, while looking at the catcher's glove.

Pitchers are also notorious for being unable to throw the ball to first base after fielding a grounder.

A couple of years ago, Baylor had a star softball catcher who could throw out a base stealer at second but couldn't throw the ball back to the pitcher after each pitch without standing up and taking a couple of steps towards the mound.

 

I've seen these little orange UFO's around lately, they get me all in a huff and I miss for fear they will disappear to the mothership and now we are all doomed!!! Where can I get a double release for my 1100?????

 

Lots of harrumphing in this thread which has nothing to do with anything Jerry said in the video.

Larry

 

I wasn't addressing the video. I was addressing the OP's summation.

 

I have no place to think I know more about shooting anything than Jerry Miculek lol

 

Let's argue Jerry's opinion but, don't try it because he may be right. People don't reach his level by blowing smoke.

 

The problem is everybody is different.. their neurological systems and ability to process identical information are therefor different... I think all of us understand that we trapshooters are round pegs standing on a square concrete pads 😄😄😄😄

 

For clarification -- when we talk about flinching, does that mean you are taking your finger off the trigger after calling pull, at some point? I'm fairly new at trap shooting and have a coach who seems pretty knowledgeable (he's shot registered 100's). He said that he sees me take my finger almost completely off the trigger and then put it back on while moving the gun. He said that that delay from not having my finger on the trigger the entire time is causing me to shoot over the target. Is this issue the exact same thing as flinching, or something else? If it's something else, does it have a name?

He told me to practice taking the slack out of the trigger as I mount and continuing to focus on not letting that slack out. This seems to work when I execute it, but I get anxious that I could accidentally discharge into the back of the trap house when I'm at my hold points before I call pull, or as I call pull. Any advice on this?

When I am practicing by myself and am able to 100% focus on not disconnecting from the trigger I usually miss 3 birds or less per game in singles and shoot 19-21 25y handicap. When this creeps in and unravels I can shoot a 17 in singles and as bad as a 15 or 14 handicap.

The anxiety/interference with doing this fix especially comes up during league when there are tons of people around and I'm super concerned about not accidentally shooting the back of the house. I have no issue with disconnecting when shooting skeet/sporting clays that I'm aware of. Any advice/insight?

 

Good shotguns do not have 'slack' in the trigger.

 

No, it's not a "flinch".

The Task-specific Focal Dystonia that we call a “flinch” is a 2-part event (though occurring almost instantaneously):
1st is the “trigger freeze” from involuntary and dysfunctional contraction of opposing small muscles in the hand and forearm, followed by
2nd an entertaining variety of bodily reactions; lunging, jerking, stumbling toward the trap house, etc. involving large muscles.
The reason we can't pull a pull trigger is because the extensor muscles (Extensor indicis and Extensor pollicis longus) are contracting rather than relaxing, and the flexor muscle (Flexor digitorum profundus) will not contract (that’s the short version and ignores the contribution of the Lumbricals and Interossei).

Recoil clearly contributes to flinching, but there is no recoil in putting or throwing a dart, and people still "yip" or have "dartitis"

Almost all of us push our bodies forward with recoil (obvious when we have a dud), but that is recoil compensation, not a flinch.

Recoil/noise avoidance flinching before the shot (ducking the head, closing the eyes, being unable to pull the trigger without jerking) is a physiologic response to an unpleasant stimulus, is not a task-specific focal dystonia, and one can become accustomed to the stimulus, and the response thereto attenuated.

There are visual flinches. If I'm not precise in placing the cursor arrow exactly where it needs to be, I flinch. If I cover the target with the barrel, I can flinch.

The dystonia in ‘dartitis’, archer's ‘trigger panic’, and throwing a baseball or cricket ball is failure to relax the muscles ie. inability to “let go”; the opposite of a shooter’s ‘trigger freeze’.

Moving the gun before the target appears has been called “forecasting the target” and is purposeful (though involuntary), rather than a dystonia.

I have no idea what you are doing with your trigger finger, but the cure is to become a trigger "slapper", NOT to "stage" the trigger.

 

Impossible, I've been told on here recoil flinch is not a thing and might have well called me stupid. Meanwhile I've seen kids at my former club develop horrible flinches from because of it, nope it's my imagination.

 

Drew,

Let me dig out some stuff, cogitate on t a wee bit and I'll try to address your queries.

 

We've had this conversation a few times but I do appreciate the research.

Blame it all on the “sensorimotor cortex along with its basal ganglia interconnections, but also the cerebellum and cerebello-thalamic pathway, have been related to dystonic pathophysiology…”
Nature Neuroscience, February 22, 2024
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01570-1
“Mapping dysfunctional circuits in the frontal cortex using deep brain stimulation”

 

Ok I absolutely agree with Drew learn to Slap the trigger!
I would go crazy trying to take up slack in the trigger and follow the target .
Lock on bird then slap the trigger I would forget people around you only you and the target .
If you can take a class with Phil Kiner or Nora Ross.

 

Don’t think just shoot

 

JBrooks, did you read the clarification under the video?

 

Is it flinching if a shooter can not set a release with the gun closed on their shoulder ready to call?

 

Not a flinch, just an extension of the dystonia that prevents pulling the trigger during the shot. Obviously, this dystonia also has nothing to do with unreconciled visual data.

 

I must be the one-off, because I am 100% convinced that the flinching I was dealing with was due to visual issues. In my case my left eye was taking over just as I approached the bird (I'm a right handed shooter). For a millisecond I would see the entire left side of the barrel and flinch, especially on left hand targets. EVERYONE I know that shoots a release told me to shoot a release. I tried one, hated it and dropped out of the game for a few years. Fast forward to this year, shooting one eye (and a pull trigger), I've changed my setup routine, changed my hold points and changed where I look before I call for the target. None of what I am doing is traditional for one-eye shooters, but it is working for me and getting me back in the game. My flinching is for the most part gone (knock on wood) and my scores are improving.

 

My flinching is for the most part gone

 

Jeff. Please read
"Sports Related Dystonia", 2021
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/11...fb6092fe6d8751ab.pdf?_ga=2.44963300.1790561666.1650285789-1692820118.1650285789

and explain why some focal dystonia are an inability to contract (shooter's trigger freeze), and many an inability to release (throwing flinch, "dartitis"), and some are a discoordination of flexion and contraction (golfer's "yips"), and why movement disorder neurologists and exercise physiologists and sports psychologists still don't know why we "flinch".

BTW Stan Utley cured Charley Barkley's swing "yips" somehow
Master Faculty Member Utley Helping Barkley With Swing - SwingU Clubhouse

 

I think we all know the background and qualifications of Jerry Muculek. Perhaps JBrooks would be so kind as to share his background and qualifications with us.

 

So world champion bull riders are experts in everything bovine related? That's the logic y'all are using regarding JM's expertise when it comes to flinching

 

I have no real knowledge about jerry except that hes an exceptional shooter, I watched him in person many years ago in an exhibition shoot, I've never been as impressed by anyone else's. I'm mediocre and know it, I'll entertain his thoughts though, you bet.

 

I have a flinch…. About once in every 50 targets. I don’t dwell on it, I’ve never considered a release trigger. I started shooting doubles and it has helped with my 16 yard singles flinch. For me it’s a focus issue. while shooting doubles I try to break the first target a lot quicker than I do when shooting singles. I know…. You always know where the first target is going! But I’ve found this to be good therapy for my flinch. I refuse to make an issue of my flinch, I don’t discuss it at the club while I’m there to shoot and have fun. I’ve seen others make a real big deal out of it and it can become very off putting to others at the club.
Jerry Miculek is a shooting god! If he ever picked up a trap gun and decided to be a trap shooter, every member on this site would soon know him. I believe he offered sound advice concerning “flinching”.
I used to shoot competitive archery and blank bail ( no target ) shooting is a training must.
Just my 2 cents….

 

I have a flinch…. About once in every 50 targets. I don’t dwell on it, I’ve never considered a release trigger. I started shooting doubles and it has helped with my 16 yard singles flinch. For me it’s a focus issue. while shooting doubles I try to break the first target a lot quicker than I do when shooting singles. I know…. You always know where the first target is going! But I’ve found this to be good therapy for my flinch. I refuse to make an issue of my flinch, I don’t discuss it at the club while I’m there to shoot and have fun. I’ve seen others make a real big deal out of it and it can become very off putting to others at the club.
Jerry Miculek is a shooting god! If he ever picked up a trap gun and decided to be a trap shooter, every member on this site would soon know him. I believe he offered sound advice concerning “flinching”.
I used to shoot competitive archery and blank bail ( no target ) shooting is a training must.
Just my 2 cents….

I have a flinch like you also. So far I haven’t let it bother me. I used to shoot tournament archery and developed target panic. It was a booger to correct. Strangely enough, I’m naturally left handed. I had to switch to right handed to be able to control it. I still had to constantly work on it to keep it from coming back. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t now. I will say this, if I shot at a blank bale, I had no problem holding and releasing. It has to be a visual thing. Now how it works in trap I have no idea.