Moving Towards an Automatic Routine

When you finally get to a level where you have a focus ratio of 90-10 or 95-5, your routine's automatic.

You look at a target and instead of saying “Oh, what am I going to do with that?” it’s “I’ve seen that 100 times and broken it 99; I know exactly what to do, let's roll.” Your whole attitude changes. The lead is the least part of the equation you need to get involved with.

When you have a focus ratio of 50-50 or even 75-25, it’s hard to realize that the lead will happen. First, when the gun wants to go any further than about three feet in front of the target, their shoulder angel says, “No, no, that's too far, come back.”

You've got to go through that. It’s kind of like an initiation, but you've got to get to the point where you can let that gun go as far out there where you want to and let it go but still match the speed.

Our job would be a lot easier and our results would be a lot quicker if there was a pill we could give you that would tell the shoulder angel “just shut the hell up, just let the gun go where it wants to go.”

It's the clutter in what you you're perceiving and you worrying more about the lead and letting the gun in the picture that keeps you back where you are. But even when you have some frustration, you have to get frustrated for the brain to learn what it couldn't do.

The better you get and the higher your focus ratio and the less you worry about lead and the more you concentrate on breakpoint and matching the speed in the breakpoint, the less the lead plays. The lead is just something that happens.