Curtis Dunbar: Tournament Process and Self-Awareness

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the newest episode of The Journey podcast. It's been a little while since we've done a recorded episode, because we've been doing a lot of Live episodes has been a lot of fun. And unfortunately, I have to apologize a little bit for the lack of episodes on the YouTube live because of the tornadoes in Little Rock. I guess I should have thought of that when I decided to move to Arkansas. But that's the world we live in. And, yeah, so we're a little bit behind schedule. And of course, when things get a little bit behind schedule, I decide to go off the books in terms of what the schedule is on top of that. But I think it's worth it because I have a little bit of a cool opportunity. This past weekend, I shot a tournament at Rocky Creek outdoors is called the ArkLaTex open. And I it was just a lot I had a lot of students that were there I shot with a squad full of students. And I had a lot of people coming up to me talking to me about things asking me questions. And I had a lot of cool observations that don't normally get to be in the middle of in bigger tournaments. And it brought up some interesting things that I think really coincide with the topic of where everything is going for the Journey podcast right now. And so I figured, might as well just take the opportunity to do an episode on them. On top of that, I have a really unique opportunity. Well, honestly, it's not really that unique, it happens a lot. A good friend of mine, a student of mine for a little while. And the guy I shoot with a lot is in town because he came to the architects open. And so I just asked him if he would be willing to come to my house and record an episode, and be the first guest on The Journey podcast. A lot of you guys already know him once he gets introduced because he participates in the YouTube lives a lot and everything. But I thought it would be kind of interesting to give a different perspective on everything, instead of just me, regurgitating information and getting really deep into conversation about things in the educational sense. I wanted to kind of bring a third person perspective in a couple of categories, one, a third person's perspective of some of the things that I do while I'm shooting, and then also a third person's perspective, in terms of their understanding and explanation of things that I talk about in the podcast a lot too. Sometimes it's just really helpful to hear from another point of view, the same topic of information. So that's kind of what I wanted to do here. And I've split this episode into two parts. Because what I want to do is release two different episodes with slightly different topics. And I don't I don't want to give away what I'm going to be doing. But just know that this week is going to have basically like a bonus episode coming out multiple different recorded episodes on top of the YouTube lives. So that's the way that it's gonna go. That's the structure of it. Because this is a conversational thing and not a pre plan. Well, it is pre pre planned in terms of topics but it because it wasn't presented. Like speech so to speak, that I don't need to I'm not going to have timestamps on this episode. So it's just going to be conversationally, it's a lot easier to follow a lot less punches per second in terms of the information that you want to try to remember, which is nice because it's conversational flow to it and easy to follow along. So that's all that that is. I do want to make one announcement before I get into the fun conversation that I had with my friend. And that is that very shortly. I'm going to be releasing the first like fundraising event for the Journey podcast, where we're going to be trying to do some things to raise some money to invest into the podcast because some of the things I really want to do cost a insane amount of money that as a professional shooting instructor, I just don't have to be able to blow a podcast that makes me no money. So it's going to be a cool little sweepstakes fundraising event. Literally if you don't want to spend any money on it. You don't have to spend a single dollar I will never put any of the content behind a paywall for this podcast, everything will always be free. But I'm going to structure it in a way that if you want to support the podcast and be a sponsor of the podcast, you can do so. But if you do that, you get a lot of cool stuff, and a potential of winning some incredibly valuable things. You can literally donate $25 And when something worth $11,000, so the and I'm going to start this off, maybe like doing a new thing every three months. But eventually it's going to transition to a new thing every month. And the you can you can gain, you can enter these things for free, if you'd like to, you can buy entries to it, which goes directly towards the the investment for the podcast, things I'm going to be investing in are like some, well, I don't want to give it away yet, because it hasn't been announced yet. But when when it does get announced all of the information, every time that I put something up to raise money for the podcast, I'm always going to tell you what I'm raising money for. So you know that it's all going to benefit you and not to pay my Tesla charging bills to go to, you know, tournaments on the road, everything is always gonna stay in house for the Journey podcast. And that's all the way to that it's it will always be that way. But there's some really cool and exciting things that I have planned, that nobody's ever done before on a podcast, especially in shooting. And I'm just really looking forward to it. So again, look forward to that. Look, look forward to that being announced coming soon. And that's all I have for that. I'm just gonna give it a little teaser for now. And we will get into the episode. Cool. Thank you guys. So Curtis, give me a little bit of a background of in keeping it short, because both of our propensity to talk long. You put both of us on a podcast, it's gonna go a little while and I do want to get into the meat of the podcast, which is I'm actually going to be pulling a lot of information from you on that and your experience and everything for the for the podcast, but for this episode, but give me a little bit background of basically, the obvious stuff because I know you've interacted with a lot of people on the YouTube lives and things like that, and, but you know, like, name where you're from your background and shooting and kind of where you want to take it.

Okay, well, I'm right now and for the past past about 26 years, I've lived out in Washington near Seattle and places called foul city and worked for a construction company many years out there as a manager and got into shooting as it kind of transitioned into something else to do after doing you know, doing a lot of sports throughout life. And, you know, we've got to do a little bit of track shooting skeet shooting, found sporting clays ran a five stand at the club for many years. You know, I in life transition now, you know, I started getting serious about sporting clays years years back maybe about eight to 10 years ago, wanting to know more about it, enjoying it, you know, trying to find some instruction and coaching, stuff like that when so, you know, Saul Gill and Vicky ash when they came up into the area worked a little bit with Chuck and Matt dried out on their property that those were the probably the two for two people that I saw first. And, and I just loved the challenge. The fact that I never felt like I was even close to being done learning how to do it. You know, in every time I went out, it was it was, you know, felt like there was something I could learn and do better. And an older now. Yeah, even even now. And you know, I had a life transition. I started getting sick, really serious about you know, learning and getting better. And that's when I came to you David to the clinic with you and Tom. A couple years back and then I think that was 2019 Yeah, something something close to that two, three year, three years maybe before COVID. Yeah, and maybe 2018 Actually 2018 Yeah, that Cross Creek. And then and then I started doing the platinum program with you for a couple of years. And then made life transition. And I'm currently trying to now start doing some coaching and instruction on my own. And trying to kind of also get into the industry in some in some way. You know, David, as you and I have talked, you know, possibly about doing a training facility someplace or, or something like that still still open to that still working on, on the opportunity, you know, lands gotten a little crazy right now. But, you know, then last year, I was lucky enough to, I say lucky, but I paid for it. So I was lucky enough to have had a great career. So let

me tell you, even as a professional, you still, so you got that

I had a great career, they will say, you know, set some stuff aside, and so I can make some choices in last year, I spent a lot of time out on the road. Not not chasing punches or anything because I'm Master Master shooter, so the punches and punches in what you're chasing. But chasing experience is more what I was chasing, chasing different terrain different, trying to experience different clubs, trying to experience different target setters. Stuff that I wasn't exposed to by shooting a lot in Washington, Washington State, just because it's, you know, mostly the same style, right, in an area. And even at the state shoot or something like that, that only happens once a year. And in that, but you know, really kind of getting around the US and, and, you know, and experiencing the peak, you know, what I found was the great people that that's just a bonus, you know, you know, and then so I was out doing that took a little bit of time off in the winter after after nationals. And then you know, decided, and then here we are just finished up the Florida swing. Right. And then looking looking forward to doing it again this year. And, and, you know, seeing seeing where it takes me.

Yeah, cool. So what the what the reason why I wanted to talk about that a little bit with your background was because I kind of wanted to give people obviously you know who you are if they don't know you but on top of that, I kind of want to give them the background of the foundational experience that you have. For what I want to be pulling the topic of this podcast from which is that and honestly I had I had to complete different plans for this episode until after yesterday. And and what what made me think about wanting to do this episode was the tournament that we went to that we just got back from at Rocky Creek outdoors in Texarkana for the architects open and what hex and and so, and just some of the observational comments that I heard from people and the questions that I got from people really made me think about like, you know, this really actually would be a very valuable podcast to do and it and it fits perfectly in in the process of the content that I'm putting out right now for the whole podcast and the by the way sidebar because you can see my computer and I can't if that ever stops recording let me know. But anyways, the I wanted to give people kind of like the the foundational aspect of where I want to pull that episode information from with you. Because you're kind of like at the perfect place where you have all the experience that comes along with being a masterclass competitor that has gone to regional championships us opens World Championships. But never through a filter of being able to focus solely on that, you know, you were all you always had a job and other things at home and just kind of recently decided like, Hey, I'm going to make a live transition and see what I can do and shooting and put more time into this. And, and and you're you're basically you kind of started that last year but weren't really able to. And this year kind of is like the first real full attempt at that. And there's a lot of really complex, interesting, unassuming things that come along. Along with an approach like that to the game, that, that we've been also working on in the lessons together. And, and I, and I kind of want to talk a little bit about that, but not immediately right now, what I want to ask you about right now is, I think would be best prefaced, by me giving you some of the comments that I heard this weekend. And a lot of that is listening to some of my other students there, you know, number one, judging their performance based off of the number that they shoot, and saying, I mean, how many times you hear somebody say, like, Oh, I'm normally about a 75% shooter, I'm an 80%. shooter, and I either shot hot, better or worse than that today. And so it was a good day for me, or it was a bad day for me. And then the, like, judging and understanding what it is that they're actually trying to do on the course, in terms of their decision making throughout that course, and judging and grading their performance. But being completely oblivious to the fact that the way that you should grade your round is not necessarily really at all based on what the score you shot, but instead the actual effort and the process at which you use going through that round. And this gave very much

so yeah, that's, that's, we can talk more about that. That's something I've, I've learned, you know, I used to, I used to very much be like, Oh, okay, yeah, I actually got a 76 I shot an 84, I shot an 88 on courses set by people that I had shot many, many times against the same people that I had shot with, you know, all through a certain period. Yeah. Right. But that's all I was gauging it on was like whether or not I broke more targets or less targets. And, you know, going back to some things that I've learned from you, and things that I heard you say, and Tom say, say that I didn't understand at the time, you know, about, you know, why you shoot in your search for the perfect round? And you don't really care how many you miss? Or how many you break? How many did you do it perfect the way you planned? The way that you thought about the way that you dreamt it would be? You know, in your goal is 100 of though Yeah. And that is something very different than a score. Like if you shoot, you know, if if I shot you know, you made a comment this weekend. It was very funny. It was like, I think it was a six bird. Six bird station and something we'd worked on a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, was, you know, like, if I just like kind of chip a bird. Well, you only get you only get you only get a quarter point. Yeah, you know, point two five on that one. And I had ran, I had ran the station and I turned around. And your your first look at me was like, that's a 5.5 at best. And I was in I didn't get it at the moment. And then a couple of minutes later, I was like, I had two of those birds. I like just barely, just barely chipped. So you're Yeah. So I get I get five plus my two quarter points. Yeah. And you're right. And that's the thing, because those birds, I actually, you know, I shot a pattern that chipped him, you know, and I was close enough to chip them. But they that wasn't what I was looking for. Right? I was looking to be on them and correct.

Yeah, I think there's like two, there's two perspectives on this. And the one that I think matters the most, the end that I see the most often is I'll break it down like this. On one pathway, you have the rounds where you don't score a normal score for you, like you're lower than what you should be. But in all reality, your performance you should be very proud of and and it and it involves different quantifiers than what you normally would associate with around like that where you know, for example I'll bring up Dawson on our squad, another student of mine, awesome kid, and who I'll probably have on the podcast sometime soon, and actually I really want to talk about Got this round with him. But the don't worry about making noise on the it's a conversation people should understand. But the with Dawson, you know, he started the round off. In the first four stations, he was down 10 targets. And then the last 10 stations who dropped two targets, and completely flip the round around. And if you just at face value objectively look at that round up, like I should be really proud with that round, even though I know I could have shot a better score. I'm really proud for the fact that I, I turned around a bad round. You shouldn't be proud of that. But that's just literally face level of what I'm talking about. You know, what the kind of stuff that I'm talking about is, is what decisions are you making? How aware of yourself? Are you? How aware of the physical, emotional and visual states that you are in? And how those influence your abilities in that current moment? And then are you using that information to make decisions in real time to determine how you should take the pair that you're about to shoot? You know, are you using that to build a plan? And that kind of stuff? is really where I don't think a lot of people even ever think about and there's a lot of times, you know, I made the comment to you this morning on the phone about, you know, I was really proud about the way that you shot this weekend. Because, you know, I think that watching you shoot that round, you probably shot should have ended runner up in the tournament. And but you didn't. And it cost you about six or so targets. Because what you did was what we had been working on in our lessons, which is play the round by the book, you know, because you and I both have the tendency to overestimate our current ability in that moment based off of what we know we're capable of in the strategy book, but maybe the day that we show up, we just don't have the ability to do the things we know how to do that. Struggle. Yeah, you're notorious for thinking every day you have 150

a day. Every shot. Yeah, I can burn the diesel. No problem. Yeah. Turn on the Jets. You're shooting it off the will do alive. Oh, all day long. Yeah. tomorrow also. Yeah, I don't even know if I'm gonna get enough sleep tonight. I'm doing it tomorrow. Yes, yeah. And I blow up rounds because of it. Yeah. And it's, it's and it's becoming more aware of me and who I am and how I'm reacting. And what the day is going, like, is a big place on learning. You know, I only kind of found that, you know, through discussions with you, I only kind of found that it's time for me to, to have that be part of my game, sometime last year, and I started making some some pretty big changes on on how that affects my game and, and awareness, becoming much more aware. I don't know, maybe I wasn't ready to be aware of something of that before maybe my maybe I had to, I was too had to pay attention to the mechanics and the shot planning and, and the kind of that the book of of shooting too much. But I feel like I have a lot of that down. And then now I have to pay attention to whether or not I can do what I want to or whether or not it's time to, you know, shoot it conservative, because I don't know what's around the corner. And I might need the gas there. Yeah, you know, or a lot, a lot of different things influence.

Yeah, that's what you did this weekend, which was you really played by the standardized book. And it was more conservative. And you actually, from my observation, you know, you had more gas in the tank, so to speak than what you played the round as, but you you you played it based off of what we had talked so much about in lessons, which is that we need to develop a baseline for you to understand like, what you have to learn through failure in tournaments, when you have certain things accessible to you and when you don't, and the only way to do that is to make an assessment of I feel this way in terms of my vision this way in terms of my emotional state and this way in terms of my body and energy right now. And I think that that means I should do x y, z. So let me do that in the match. Let me To try and the match and either works or does not. And that gives us a data point for in the future. If when we feel that way, then we shouldn't do that in the future. And what you were doing was what we had discussed in, in, in lessons, which was that I kind of really want you to play more conservative, almost, you know, in sometimes when you, you may feel like you can do it, and based off of your overall intuitive tendencies, I still want you to play more conservative, because I need we need to get those data points in, in your, in your strategy book, so to speak. And you did do that, and it and it costs you, it costs you six birds in the match, but six birds in that match for the information that I was able to observe as your coach, and then hopefully, the information that you picked up on from yourself is so worth six targets in that tournament to learn

it's it takes to get to there, it takes a body of work, to start read to start realizing, you know, an attention to detail, looking at a shoot, you know, maybe you start weak and you drop a bunch of targets and your first couple of stands. Maybe another time you drove about drunk a bunch of targets because your energy peters out, and you drop a bunch of targets in the last part of of a shoot. Or maybe it's just onesie twosie. Throughout all of those mean different things in your consciousness of what is happening with you. It is important to understand it's not just okay. You aren't the same shooter every time you go out there. Right, you have to match the shooter that you were with that scorecard and with the results, not just the scorecard. But how did you shoot? Yeah, you know, did you have a consciousness of these things? You know, is it that you were a slow starter? It was it that you burn too much? Early, and you finished early. And there were still three, four scenes left to go. And you really didn't have the attention and focus left to do it. You know? Or were you the type of person that day that just, you know, went back to the cart before there was two birds left to shoot on every station. So you're, you know, you're kinda that'd be physically or mentally Yeah, your card looks like I missed. You know, there was I had I had a shoot couple of months back. And I was like, I cannot believe this. I was 13 stations. I missed 10 birds in the last pairs. Yeah. And I was like,

I have five pairs. Yeah, it was a two five pair station. What's that? Two, five pair stations?

No, no, I can't remember. I think it was all like threes and threes and fours. You know, and I mean, I just was like, 1313 stations, and I missed 10 birds in the last pairs. And a lot of those were the second bird or the last pair. You know, and I think I missed 15 I think I missed 15 birds that day, or something like that. 13 birds that day. And I was looking at that I was like, Okay, there's obviously a you know, I had a problem finishing Yeah, that day, you know, but it takes a body of work to start being able to recognize and analyze that. So that then when it's happening, you can make decisions that affect the outcome. Yeah, you know, mostly, you know, this is what, you know, people don't talk about this. And this is actually a huge influence on affecting your outcome. Yeah, huge. Because it's like, you can get to stations in slow start, whatever, and judge who you are. And the goal would be to judge before you even start shooting, how am I gonna be able, what do I feel like I can do today? And, and make your decisions based on that. You know, that's where ultimately you want you want to be, but that's a hard place to get to because you have to have an awareness of that. I mean, I shot for several years trying to learn the game and had no awareness of that. Yeah. Right. Like you know, deciding to go to shoots on Saturday morning. That a 45 minute drive to it and I decide an hour and a half before the shoot starts right then I'm gonna go shoot today. And I think I'm setting the world on fire probably. Yeah, now. 45 minutes I got I got actually I got 25 minutes to get everything in the truck. I got 45 minutes to get there. And then I have 20 minutes to get my stuff out of the truck and into the cart and upon sign up and up on the hill and sign up, right, what am I hoping for today? Yeah, I should just be hoping for 100 shots of fun. Right? I mean, because, you know, that's not a recipe for success. Yes.

Yeah. Going back to what the comment that you made about the awareness of that, that's always been something. And if whoever's listening to this right now has listened to other episodes of my podcast and other podcasts I've done. Awareness, self awareness, interceptive, awareness, extra receptive awareness, all these different types of awareness cease? Is that a word? I don't really know. awarenesses? I don't know. I'm not sure. But anyways, all this all this different type of awareness is something I always talk about. And you talk

about it, you talk about it. In your shot planning, you talk about it in your research phase of, of, you know, part of your research phase of okay, the trap, is there, the trap is there, the birds look like this, you know, you talk about it there. What am I feeling like?

rehearsing it? Yeah, with self awareness,

you know, do these shots, buildings, xiety, and me these, these awarenesses, you talk about all through everything, all the way up, you know, awareness of how you're taking the shot, how do you feel during the shot? How do you feel after the shot? You know, it's all you know, that's a big, big thing.

That so what I want to ask you about, because you're, you're you would be a great person to ask because you've gone through the transition. And also, if you if it's hard for you to answer this, that's totally fine. Because it's very hard to put into words. Unless you have to teach it and explain it. So if you stumble up that no problem, but my question is that because you've you've gone through the transition, and you're, and you're at the point now, where, you know, in some of the texts that you've had back and forth with some of the tournaments that you did in Florida, you know, like after we left, okay, corral. And what was the tournament you went to after that? The Florida challenge? Yeah, yeah. So you went to the Florida challenge. And we'll give you a new routine to use during the match your little updates in the text messages that you were sending me, you know, you were you were including some things that you had noted in, in the level of awareness of things that you've had in terms of the way your body felt, or the way your eyes felt, the emotional state that you were in, like, how, how ready you were, how much anticipatory anxiety that you had, and what have you. But basically, my question to you is, it's a multi part question. So I'll go with part one first. Have you noticed that there is like a, a trend, in terms of how aware you can be like the depth of your awareness, where when you first start trying to shoot and you don't really understand what this is yet, you're understanding standing of the depth of awareness that you can get to is very, very shallow. But then as you start to try to work on it more and more and more, you start to understand that you can be self aware about more and more things. And now all of a sudden, the depth gets moved deeper and deeper and deeper. And then eventually you hit this point that I think fairly recently that you've hit, where it's no longer a linear progression of increased awareness. And now it becomes an exponential progression of increased awareness where it's like from tournament that I just get that.

Yeah. Yeah, I think you do. That was

for those of you who can't see, I just grabbed a mosquito out of the air. Very proprioceptive ly.

Young. Yeah.

See, what I did was I used my smooth pursuit movement in my eyes to connect to it and then proprioceptive ly grabbed it, her stride did.

He just swatted up in closed his hand? Yeah.

You're gonna test was that my first attempt?

Yes, it was. Yeah. I think it must have been something with the mosquitoes radar that

Oh, man. But anyways, guys, so in terms of that, you know, like, you'll hit that exponential level of awareness. And then and then you start to understand that this is now 90% of the ganglia. And it could totally determines your decision making. And so part one is Have you noticed that change and have you noticed that it's gone from linear to now exponential?

Yes. Yes. The the journey and the linear It got better. And my learning increased when I quit caring, so much about score, by especially if I'm back home at a turnover, I've blown up some scores back there. After after meeting and starting to work on certain things and trying

things I gotta cut you off, because some people might think that means you've shot really, really well.

No, no, like, gone from shooting pretty well at, you know, someplace flown back home, been home for a couple of weeks, then gone to a standard monthly and just just shot like a 72. Yeah, or something because I was working on something. And I was using it completely. Well, not completely wrong, because I didn't shoot a 50. But I was using a pretty wrong. And I had gauged me completely wrong. I, you know, I had over, you know, I had kind of overburdened and thought I could do some things that I couldn't on that at that moment, in or throughout around and stuff like that, but learning that and, and walking away from it without a an emotional connection to like, you know, I just shot a 72. And I look like I suck. Yeah, you know, I let that goes, I let that go. Yeah, it's like if I'm there doing, I'm always shooting for purpose on either shooting because I want to shoot really well. Or I'm shooting because I want to shoot really well, a month from now, or two months from now. And I've got something in my game that isn't working that I don't understand. So I'm going to try stuff with it. And that stuff's not always going to work. It's going to cost me targets. I don't care anymore. You know, because now I'm learning now I'm learning I'm I shoot this I look at the scorecard. I see different things on the scorecard. I make notes about how I was feeling throughout the round. I make notes about how, what I was feeling like in the preparation for it, was it one of those shoots that I decided on Saturday morning, that I'm just going to see if I can make it in time to get signed up? Yeah, are wasn't one of those that on Tuesday, I started thinking about, you know what I'm, I'm I actually would really enjoy shooting on Saturday. And I think I want to try and do well. Yeah, you know, and I kind of built up to, you know, and being honest with myself about, you know, when I expect results, and when I expect to learn Yeah, and, but always always learning about, about myself, but separating that from, from the score, like sometimes you you text me, you know, down down here down in Florida, you know, and you'd be like, well how to go, I'd be like, well, Thursday went good, but, you know, Friday haul, what a what a shit show, you know? And it's like, let you know, whatever it was I didn't have it that day. I'm looking for it. You know, and I think it's a I've learned to be aware it's a rat, it's a rabbit hole when you first kind of start thinking about it. And you start thinking just outside of the physical performance of breaking place. Yeah. You know, if I were to take it back safe four years ago, before I had met you, and how I was breaking clays and how I was approaching things completely different. It was almost limited to you know, one well, because you shoot them in pairs. So it was almost limited to 58 second shots. Yeah. You know, eight second, you know, pills in a day that I was gauging and that's all it was made up of.

And all of it was was filtered around and understanding of something that was completely external. Yeah, whether that be without the break. Yeah, as a break not and not only that, but but about if it was about mechanics, the mechanics were filtered through a visual relationship of where things were, or or a visual if we're talking about a connection and harmony with the bird. It was never through the filter of how that harmony feels in your body. But instead how it looks.

Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was so much more about where it was the tip of the barrel in relationship to the word.

And when I'm saying that I'm not talking about, I'm not saying that, that your approach was all lead based. But what I'm saying is, and what I'm gonna eventually draw the conclusion to is, and I just will do it right now. But when in this is the moment when we start to get much more exponential instead of linear, which is where we start to understand with this heightened level of awareness, which can be positioned by conscious choice, when we start to understand that there is it is a two part equation for everything that we read, and I'm not now I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to everybody else listening, everything that we read in magazines, or watch on YouTube, about mechanics and technique and methods. That's one half of the equation. And that's the easiest way to explain it. In writing, or on a YouTube video, which is, you know, insert here, pull away, watch the gap may maintain itself, create harmony with the bird, but done all through seeing the relationship being unchanged. And we understand the other 50% of that equation, which is that we can feel a ratio of rotational speed in our body in terms of in relation to the target. And if you were to close your eyes, you could move at the same exact speed as the target without being able to see the target if you put your conscious attention on that. And understanding that harmonic relationship and this proprioceptive synchronicity between your movement in the birds movement is all an internally interoceptive based thing as opposed to an externally extra receptive based thing. And when we start to understand that, that accelerates the linear growth of your self awareness, but it's like, if you ever learned a new language, did you ever speak any other language? Hillbilly? Oh, that's when you lost hillbilly when you moved from, from Illinois to Washington. Yeah, but Okay, so you ever hear about people talking about how like, oh, you know, I'm an English speaker. But I'm fluent in Spanish, but they never actually think Spanish in their head, right? There always has to be a translation. Yeah, well, that process can flip in shooting in our learning, where, at first, when that linear learning curve of awareness of your body is, is growing, what's happening is we're increasing our understanding of that second half of the equation, but we still have to do the translation, we still have to look and see it not being changed. And then we can say, Oh, I know how that should feel. But when we hit the point where now the the way, the language that we hear in our head, when we dream, or when we have when we listen to our own conscious dialogue, when that language is now that second half of the equation, where it's based first and feel, and then we have to translate it to get a picture. That's when that learning curve starts to become exponential, because all of that is based in awareness, you have to have the awareness to have that be that translation foundation. So that's part two of the question, which is, have you noticed that that has happened?

Yes. If you were to watch me in, like, where you have left me, but you might not have, you might have seen it, but if somebody were to watch me and just have a camera on me, through an entire round that I'm serious about you you will maybe see me shoot, shoot a target. And I broke broke both. But maybe on the second target. After I got done, I opened the gun and I and I and I'll shake my head sometimes, you know, and not just shake it, you know, like, violently shake my head, like shake my head. Right? And that's me saying that's not I was not in harmony there. I broke that. But that wasn't what I wanted it to be. Yeah. And then sometimes you would see me close my eyes and maybe if I'm up first in in the rotation, and just seeing the view pairs, and you might see me just hold the gun and look up into the sky or look down on the ground and close my eyes and move just A little bit, and I might move kind of quickly, and I might shake my head. No. And then I might move real softly. In those are the moves that I want to feel that I'm trying to tell myself. You know, okay, I know what this target is. I know how fast it is, I know that what this targets like, what does this target feel? Like? What does this target make my body feel? Like? What will my body feel like, as I'm making the move to shoot, and being come becoming familiar with that, so that when I shoot, there's, I've already kind of pre programmed, what it is I want to do as a different thing. But but so that I mean, I'm fully aware to be in unison with the target, but not just because it's a gun and a target. But because it's me. Yeah. And having me be in charge of what's happening because of what the target is doing. And, yeah, so it's a, it's, it's a different, it's a different thing. It's like, you know, it's not just whipping the barrel out there, and pulling the trigger and getting the target to break. You know, I'm looking for the, you know, the the perfect feel for the target, you know, to feel one with the target to break it. You know, inhabit inhabit be just right. And sometimes you'll see me on the stand, I don't put all of that in all still break. And that's actually a lot of times when I'm in the I'm in a dangerous place. Not dangerous as in Watch out. Here he comes. Yeah, like, watch out here he crashes. Yeah. Because it's like, I won't be taking the targets, all that serious. All just, you know, maybe the two, maybe the both pairs, maybe the pair is boring, or so familiar to me, that I just take them completely for granted. And I will I'll just kind of put the gun up there, I'll go and I'll shoot. And sometimes it works. You know, and that's the way I used to shoot that, you know, like, if I take it back four or five years, that is how that's how I shot I shot completely. After the target came off the trap, is when I did everything, and didn't have a feel in my body or emotion about how that shot was to come together and how to go to the next shot in those kind of things. Now, I mean, I can break I can break targets and not feel good about it. Yeah. Because that wasn't what I that wasn't what I wanted it got the job done. Yeah. But I'm looking for more than just getting the job done. You know, I'm looking for I don't want I don't want to use this, you know, I'm looking for in my own mind. I'm looking for it to be beautiful. And it's a hard thing to describe what's you know, what's, what's beautiful to you is beautiful to me. And I don't mean roses and everything. Yeah, I just, it's the feeling of the way the shot comes together, the way that you're seeing the target, the way that you're moving the gun, where you're breaking it, the transition to the next target, the feel of that target the feel of the gun, the feel of how you're moving, and how you're breaking that, and your response to, to all of that, and then doing it again and again. And coming out of the stand. You know, feeling like that was that was it that was what I have for that. I didn't take anything for granted. I gave it everything. And I used everything that I have to do it and it was successful. You know, that's what you're I mean, that's what you're looking for. Yeah, you know, but there's a lot, there's a lot of rabbit holes in there, you know, that, that you have to be in all of them, you know, you have to be you have to be aware of all of them to get to that place. I think I think there's people that that just shoot, right. And they're and they're very good. Right. But I think I like I like what I have how I've learned to think about it, how I've learned to become more with it, because I feel like there's always a place that I can build. You know, that actually

leads me exactly into the next question. I want to ask about that. So this is part three of that awareness question. So part one was, do you notice the difference in the linear and the exponential? Part Two was what we just covered but part three is

Because on that, on that, yes. When when you first introduce me to thinking like this or we discuss, yes, it was slow, it was slow, and it's very linear. And it was somewhat tied to learning, better mechanics also learning how to better take the shot. And then as a lot of those things, so it's like, the mind was able to open up a little bit more and start appreciating, and thinking more about how I want a beautiful shot to come together. Yeah. And then it really starts rolling for you. Yeah. Because, you know, you take this shot and the next shot and the next shot. Now you're really compounding in your, in your awareness. It's awareness on top of awareness on top of awareness, building and building and building.

Yes, yeah. Yeah, that actually, if you go back to episode three of series, one about like optimizing learning, through the mental approach of practicing. All the reason why you experience it that way, and you summarized it perfectly is it has to do with the neuroplasticity of the way that your brain is cataloguing spikes in dopamine and of events, to overwrite the CPG. So that you're not unconsciously and proprioceptive ly controlling your body, using the mechanics that you learn. And only when those fully become converted in the mechanics that we're trying to get you to learn become controlled by that non conscious control system, those central pattern generators, only when that happens, can we open up the awareness to be able to sense other things? Because otherwise, our attention has to be queued on the control as opposed to the the observation, if that makes sense? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so part three of the question has to do with using that awareness. And one thing I was very proud of the way that you did this weekend, was, if you look at the progression of your rounds, and we can take score out of it. But even if we add score in and we look at the progression of your score, from day to day, to day, from prelim to Saturday, main to Sunday mean, obviously, they're different courses. This is why I don't care too much about looking at scores. But if we, if we actually look at your performances, I want you to, we haven't run it yet. But I kind of want you to live on the podcast to do although it's not live, it's recorded. But I want you to make an assessment in your in the efficiency of successful strategy choices. Using awareness to avoid mistakes from round to round to round. Because and tell me if I'm right or wrong, I noticed I'm having a hard time remembering the difference between Friday and Saturday. But I think that's probably because they were so different of courses. Yeah, but the your difference between Saturday to Sunday, I thought was really cool. Because, I mean, you had a little slip ups here and there where you were you chose the book approach as opposed to your approach, which would have netted you a better score. But what I noticed was, to me, it looked like your presence was better. It looked like you were able to control the time in which you were thinking, so to speak in your presence, it looked to me, like you were able to control the top end of your anticipatory anxiety, like you didn't let it get build too much throughout around you were very aware and sensing that which allowed you to have better control of your physical body, in the movements that you were trying to execute. To me it looked like there was a big improvement from Saturday to Sunday. And and if you can, I want you to talk a little bit about that in whatever way that you thought of it or tried to implement it or you can be like, Dude, it was total randomness.

Well, you know, we, we laugh a little bit about it, it was totally ravenous in some regards, and you and I have talked about this in some regards. Yes. Yeah. Always will have there is some an element of randomness that but there's, there's an effort to find. If it's not random, yeah, right. There's an element of randomness to it. But on on Friday, I can tell you, I was just a gunslinger. On Friday, wild west

Curtis,

I was just Cornelius coming. I'm shooting this one off the arm and I don't care how far away that trap is I'm shooting it off the arm also. And I was not going to wait for any target to you know gunslinger Dunbar I was just I was I was I'm here to shoot let's get her down. Yeah. And I wasn't I didn't control. I didn't control the game really? At all. I mean, I did a bit but no, not. Not at all. I wasn't really, we were having a lot of fun. We had a great group, we were just having a blast. That didn't really get in the way. But when it came time for me to shoot, you know, I, I thought that I was you know, I felt like I could do everything I wanted with the gun every time that I shot and I was wrong along on Friday. Yeah, right. Like there I can think that there's a few pairs that that that cost me and then there was a lot of like, onesie twosie type of stuff you know, a few pairs like I thought I was that I thought I was the right shooter to be able to do this plan and that plan is risky. If you're not right there for that, you know, it might have been the only way that I was could have shot and ate on that. But I tell you I could have shot a six or a seven it with with shooting it a lot of other ways. But I went for the eight every time I went for the eighth in the risky way every time and I ended up with like a four. Right? And I knew that could be the case but I didn't even think of the ramifications right on that day Saturday that came out and I was in a you know, I had burned off some I burn off some gas on on on Friday, which was good. And I came out I was making I was a lot I allowed myself to make a little better choice. Little better choices. i It's still got me a couple of times where because of what the pair showed me and what I've done in the past in and there's certain shots that I'm never going to tell anybody any target center you know if if I ever ended up being really good or something someday who knows? You know, I'm never going to tell what the shots are because you set this I'm shooting it like this and I don't care if it blows up the score. Right because this is these are this some shots or shots that I love to make and I'll go down all die I'll die you know, like die on the hill like you stack up hair for me. Oh, I'm

gonna take it as quick as I can throw you throw Curtis and income are starting in 200 yard. He's gonna pull the trigger at 180

Oh, yeah, I love it the tightest to get I can't just I've got to be like, watch this whole month. But no, you know, so on. On Saturday, I did a lot better job controlling it making the better choices, making sure that making sure that the plans matched up to the birds matched up to you know, the you know, the risk involved a little bit and then and then come Sunday. And I had a pretty successful day. I'd probably I probably gave up six targets I shouldn't have on on Saturday. But that wasn't because of planning conservative or by the book. Those six targets were because of choices I made to overcook. Those are what I call overcooking those targets Yeah. Which is

putting given it the Curtis plans the book plan Yeah,

given given the little Curtis flair, and it looks great if it works, but if it doesn't work, it kind of looks like you don't know what you're doing. And so there's there's about six targets, I did that. And then on Sunday, you know, I felt like I had shot pretty well on on Saturday. And I was like, you know, I want to shoot I want to shoot really well again today. And I think I want it to be a little cleaner. And so

this is this was a conscious choice you made? Yeah, I just thought

Yeah, I just kind of felt like you know, I'm not gonna make if I have the choice, and there's no reason to heat up the shot. When I say heat up the shot, like put the shot under pressure. Shoot it as soon as I can see it. Sometimes, you know, shoot it in a way that not many people can Not many people can get themselves to a point to see the bird that quickly or, or pull the trigger that on that. And I said, you know, I'm going to let things I'm going to look at things for what they are, I'm going to take some of the that the options to let the bird develop just a little bit more. And guarantee. Take a little more guarantee on some of my shots. Yeah. And, you know, it did increase, it increased my score versus Saturday, a few birds.

I thought I thought Sunday was score wise, if you run the numbers, it was a little harder than Sunday, or Sunday was harder than Saturday.

Yeah, I didn't feel that it was now because of the way that I shot it. Yeah. You know, I held myself back off the ledge of what I can do. And I only there was only a couple of stations that i i Really i that I that I shot the way that like, I would have first seen them. There was only a couple. And it didn't bite me on those. But that was maybe out of what was 14 stations. Yeah, I think I did it on three. Yeah. It bid me on two stations going the conservative route. And I dumped off a couple of targets, because it put me in, that can happen to me. When I when I feel a certain shot a certain pair to do it a certain way. And then I'm playing the conservative route. I learned this week, I need to be I need to move my my conscious confidence over to that conservative route, and not leave it at wishing that I could still go ahead and shoot it the other way.

Well, you know, the interesting thing that I want to add in here on that is that playing that normal conservative strategy, get builds the reserve tank of gas, the way that you like to talk about it, it builds it during the round, so that you have it to draw from at times when you can. But if you always are using that overcook method, you're starting at 100%. You're just going to continuously drain. Yeah. And I wanted to bring that up, because I was hoping that you noticed, like on the two to three stations where you could have gone full Curtis? Yeah, you had that available to you there. Oh, whereas if the whole round was that you would have not had that there. And, and it would have been a blow up.

Yeah. And the funny thing is, is like in at those two at those couple of stations, it was even easier to do than what I will then the energy I would have had to put in Yeah, to doing it. I mean, because it was there. It was there in the tank. It was there. It was there to be given. Yeah. You know. And, you know, the couple of stations that I shot more conservative that I maybe should have picked something in between or gone at. I don't really regret those. I learned something from those, you know, but yeah, it's Sunday was it was it was more of a conscious effort to control the entirety of the game, not just one single shot, but from the time that we started all the way through, you know, I got up I had a good morning. I was it was early, you know, we shot a nine o'clock rotation and I I'm always pretty fearful of of earlier morning rotations because I historically, I don't shoot well on early morning rotations or earlier morning rotations. And so I was worried about that, but I also wanted to see, I was excited to see after shooting pretty well the day before. You know, could I carry it over? Can I shoot Can I shoot a decent one in the morning and I think that also led me to be that little more conservative. Because I that's a something that I have trouble is controlling in the mornings. And so yeah, I mean it fit it fit in the plan and and I felt you know, as I look at the three days it was a Friday, Saturday Sunday. I felt more the most in control of the game. On Sunday. I felt pretty be in control of the game on Saturday. I felt like it was the game I had control. On Friday. Yeah, right. Like I literally like emotionally shooting my shots. You know how I was moving the gun? It was it was a carnival. Yeah, that's the only way I can. I can describe it,

which is a good way to describe it because it was fun. Yeah, it was,

it was a lot of fun. But we were laughing and you know, that's how I shot. That's how I moved the gun. That's how I put my plans together. You know, I put I put my plans together on Friday, based on which one would be the most fun. And which one, I would get the most gratify gratification out of out of doing? Well, I wonder if I can shoot this one fast. And that one fast? Yeah. Well, they both come off the drive at the same time. So it's, you know, well, maybe I'll see if I can get them together. Right, you know, and it was just that it was just a carnival in. And usually for me, as much fun as I have doing that. I'm usually not very satisfied at the end of it.

Well, that's the thing about that is that so often, you know, we give up, we give up the the, in a way, that's what procrastination is. Because you're you're doing the thing that's fun in the moment, but you don't think about the consequences. And so you kind of live a little bit too much in the present, you enjoy what you're doing in that round. But then as soon as the rounds over you're like, Why did I do that?

Yeah, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's just, and that's something else I've learned, too, is like, sacrifice some rounds. Every once in a while. Yeah, go out, go out with a buddy. Go out with your buddies. And don't care about trying to win this one. And just throw that throw the heat to it. Yeah. And, and just have fun pulling the trigger quicker than you normally do. Or later than you would shoot and shoot everything as a dropper, yeah, and not caring about that score, and do that on a shoot. So that you're not always you can't do it, you know,

I mean, the way I do that is not necessarily shooting everything, shooting things faster, but I just don't plan I don't do any planning or researching. Yeah, and I enjoy the people I'm shooting with, and I enjoy the social aspect of it. And that cost

a couple of that's for sure that's gonna cost you some targets is just realize that, okay, this day, this day, I'm going to put in 50% of the normal effort, I'm going to have 200% of the fun. Yeah, you know, but with 50% of the normal effort, I shouldn't be expecting 100%

Yeah. And that's very personality based like that. For you know, for someone, let's say like Mike Wilgus, who, you know, he probably would not find that fun, he would want to put 100% of the effort and because he finds the effort and the result of that the fun thing. And whereas for some people like you and me, you know the we enjoy our personnel, I'm very, very ADHD. So for me, it's all about the here and the now I don't think about the consequences of it. And so I want to have fun in the moment playing the game and with the people that I have, and sometimes and because I'm not someone that's motivated by winning, I don't at the you know, like, it's not sometimes worth it to me to do the work on every event that I need to do to win. I literally will do around like that every every shoot, if I have multiple rounds per day.

I've been with you in watched yet. Yeah. US Open. Yeah, what, two years ago, something like that. We shot the Supersport. You know, yeah, David, you shot 20% of supersport left handed you shot 10% of supersport with the gun like upside down, or something like that. I was kind of trying on the Supersport. But I mean, I knew what that it was. It was a super hot day. You know, we had done feet as the first day. You didn't have it. And you you know, if you would have burned it on supersport, the main would have been lost to you the following days. And because of the conditions that were in a long drive, super, super hot, really humid. You know, I totally understand what you I've totally seen you to Yeah, and I've done it. You know, there's there's been times when I've gone to shoot with guys. I've absolutely. When I say obliterated a score. I mean, I didn't shoot 100 That's for sure. Yeah, like, I got done and I was like, how did I shoot that bad? But because I was I was really burned in it and really, you know, really putting things under pressure. I had people come up to me, like, Man, how is it that you can shoot so fast? How is it that you can do that? How is it that you could shoot both of those birds like that? You know, and it's like, oh, okay, well, you know, I am doing some stuff, right. You know, but this was more of a, this is more of a show and see what I could do. Yeah. versus actually shoot a score, you know, and I, you know, and I shot the entire round that way, you know, so yes, it might look, you know, the way I've moved the gun and the way, the way that the targets break, and how things have it might look impressive, but if you're really paying attention, you know, a little bit of a train wreck, because it's a little erratic is too much. Yeah, I can't, you know, I can't completely keep control of it, you might see something amazing on one on one station that goes in that goes in your mind, you know, and then you didn't really watch me on the next station, completely, like, turn to trash can lids into a show of trash can lids? You know, because I didn't, I didn't break as many as what I showed, you know, and, and those were trashcan lids. Yeah, because I was just not in the right place to do it, you know, but awareness of that. I used to, I used to fumble back and forth through it, like, you know, not not really have any consciousness of it. And just totally, completely attached to the score good or bad. And that was the only thing that matters. That was that was mattering. I mean, now it's like us, I'm always learning something, even if I'm even even if it's not that round for me. And sometimes, sometimes I can tell now. Now, sometimes I can tell, I can be to three stations in and I can tell this, it's not happening. It's not really a matter what I do today, this isn't the day yeah, I'm not able to control what I need to control today, I can feel that I'll slip off targets, I'll make bad choices. So you know, what, today's the day to work on some stuff and make bad choices.

Yeah. And that's, you know, honestly, that's a lot where a lot of people don't recognize that that's happening for them. Because they're so focused on that external result of the score. And so they don't, all they use to judge the performance is just the number on the scorecard. And then they don't have the ability to assess why it was that way. And so that kind of pose into where I want to go with this a little bit, which is that with that level of awareness that is, is building and being used as the as our way to define our movement, and our approach to birds using self awareness physically, visually, emotionally, using those levels of self awareness to define how we're moving, that allows us to use our awareness to define the success and and probability of the outcome of the round that we either just did or are in the middle of, and which gives us even more information to decide to make adjustments from day to day today, in being able to actually learn something about specific individual things that we either don't have the ability to do right now, or are struggling with to change our game plan with to avoid specific approaches to pair pairs or target presentations, or just an overall influence and out in the emotional approach to the round, that you're going to take like how are you going to filter, you know, the way that you're interpreting what you're about to do this run is one that you feel like your best, your best possible chance of a high score is, or a good performance would be a very focused and, you know, dialed in approach or is it going to be a little bit on a lighter mood, but still, you know, like, the only way we can make these decisions is to have that filter to process our decision making through.

You have to have in the body of work, right.

Yeah, it's a stage coming my way

through shooting with you, I've watched you make these choices consciously, and then shot the round with you and seen the differences in how you shoot rounds. Yeah. And I mean, not many people don't realize I don't think like you know, they think that you know David Radulovich goes out there and he has a type of shooter no matter what course it is. No matter when it is, this is how he is. Yeah, they don't realize that there's there's a bunch of different David's that, that you're picking, almost picking from on that or that you're, you know, what is your intent for the day? And you're picking from those to be that today? Because that is where I think I am. Yeah. Today, I'm just learning some of that, you know, is it a day that I can, you know, take the riskier shot and have it be successful? Is that the day that I need to shoot? more conservative? On the flip side of that? Is it a day that shooting conservative will drive me absolutely nuts? Yeah. Because I don't get to have fun shooting, when I shoot super, super conservative and even Sunday wasn't super conservative. When I, when I shoot super, super conservative, I get lost a bit. Because it gets a little boring for me. The shots take too long in my, in my brain that's going faster. And you know, and I get frustrated. Yeah, you know, can I do that today? You know, do I have the patience today to have around like that, and I'm learning things like that about myself. So that I can make a choice, you know, and it changes it's different from day to day, you can't just say, Okay, I'm going to this shoot, and I'm going to be like this. Yeah, and a lot. I'd be what you say, on Wednesday. But then you got to check yourself come Friday, if that's when the shoot starts or something or Thursday when the shoot starts. We like you gotta check yourself after lunch. Yeah, you know, you gotta check yourself during the round.

Yeah, station, the stations on pounds pair to pair. Yeah. Um, that actually brings one of the questions I wanted to save for later on. But but you just brought you just brought the conversation there was was a question more in something that I'm just not able to do? Being the person that talks on the podcast and tries to teach because I can't offer a third person perspective of me in it. And I wanted to ask you, if were You were you just brought up there's multiple different me's that show up that day, obviously, you can probably categorize them into X different versions of me whether it be and it would be on a spectrum of a level of intensity of focus. And, and probably that would be observed by somebody as being seen as how interactive Am I with other people? And if am I light hearted and goofy? Or is it like if you were to talk to me, you wouldn't notice, like, I wouldn't even notice you were talking to me. You can think of it at that at that spectrum. And as an eye, you have shot with me enough to see when I make the assessment that today needs to be a little bit more towards the light hearted and goofy side. And I make that assessment incorrectly. And it costs me and you've also seen rounds where I make the assessment of I need to be very focused today. And I do it incorrectly and it costs me whereas if I was a little bit more lighthearted, Goofy, I may have shot better. And on days when I make the opposite mistake, if I was more focused, I may have shot better. But can you think of is there is there two performances that stand out to you that are on either end of the spectrum, one being very focused and intense. And another one being kind of goofy, where they didn't both netted in a very, very good result that you were able to see where you could kind of talk about a little bit of the difference of what you observed if anything.

Well, you know, I've seen you being be goofy or but you were pretty goofy at was at the south, where Providence Hill last year, south south central central, I believe. Yeah. So the South Central Providence Hill for the main. I mean, you ended up you ended up tying for niZi on the two day with what both had 198 or something or

I think I think 196 I think I shot 9898 98 Yeah, and he shot 96 100 or 100 Yeah, that's

what it was. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you You were pretty goofy those two days and you know, and you were shooting stuff really pretty fast and or you're shooting early. You know, we were squatted with Windows and Tom and You know, that was that was the weekend we use the use the show to, to, to jam open the the throttle on the golf cart. Oh yeah. Right. So I mean you're burning around the things poppin you know, and you never did take take the shell out. So you're going from stand to stand,

you know, wide open by?

You know, I mean a good a good time. Yeah. And you shot. You shot lights out both days. Yeah. You know, in in a good performance? Yeah, um, I've seen you. I can't remember where it was. I've seen you struggle in you know, struggled digging deep, and not really talking much at all. And, you know, just kind of going back to the golf cart and go into the next stand. And, you know, putting extra time into your planning. And it not really working as well for you. Yeah. I can't remember what it was that.

I feel like I remember around like that to me. I feel like that was at the US Open somewhere. Yeah. First day of the main event at Cross Creek Regional.

Yeah. First day of the mayor. And Cross Creek region. Yeah, I

was trying. I was never a matte, never negative. You never get negative, but

I wanted to do well. And there were some things there were some things in the way.

Yeah. And I was trying to force a focused round. Yeah. And it was not hitting.

Yeah. It wasn't in because partially because of what was going on with some of the lighting and some of the targets. Yeah. That's a whole different conversation there. You know, the horrendous pneus of our of our gets quartering targets. Yeah. And how surprising it is.

I'll just I'll probably say it. Don't let a guy that sets targets in the desert set targets in the woods.

Okay, yes. And, but yeah, that happened early in the round. You had to change around. You had to change to try and keep that round. Alive and stay alive in that round. Yeah. You know, and that was that was a tough one. That was a tough one for you. You know,

what was cool was the next the very next day of that on Sunday, I stayed focused, I ramped up the intensity. And I've put together a ridiculous a good round and came back I think, yeah, one or two off of winning.

Yeah. And, and you were, like, socially? You were in the middle? On Sunday. Oh, really? I think you were, you were kind of in the middle. But you knew, but you knew what you had to do. The targets were a lot better. So they were it was a lot you were a lot more engaged with? You know, it was easier to be engaged with those with those targets. You know, but yeah, I've seen I've shot enough with you that I've seen you know, I've seen rounds not go your way. And I've seen, you know, in in that I've seen you, you know, beat Uber serious. I've seen you play around and I've seen you being in the middle. Yeah. And then I've seen rounds, you know, where you've shot completely amazing. And that everything's going your way and I've seen you do it all three ways also. Yeah, you know, in a lot of where where I watch too, is I watch you in the stand because you have to Eve on any round you have a person that is in the stand from the time you step up until the time you throw the last shells into into the trash can. And then you have the person that goes from stand to stand Yeah. And I'm aware of each one of those what what type

you know when when I'm does the person in the stand ever change?

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah,

less so than the than outside the Stan?

Well, there's less change. There's less the spectrum nice about it. When when you have to be more serious about it, and you maybe are struggling. I don't know what you're struggling with necessarily. Yeah. But when the day is harder for you, maybe there will be more time between shots. You will tend to when you take the shells out of your gun, if they come out of your gun Have a you'll, you'll hold them in your hand longer, while you're thinking about the shots that you're taking. And then throw them away. And you will, you know, even on even on a simple pair, you will take extra time between between your shots to really get yourself to the place you want to get to. Yeah, and there are days when you never, you never go fast. So there's, there's a minimal, you know, there's a minimal and then there's kind of a maximum. And, and it's just not, there's not as much thinking going on. And it's a little more fluid. You're you're more willing to just take the shells out, throw them, throw them away. Think for a moment, check yourself, and then shoot the next pair. Yeah. Because it just, to me, it looks like it's just not as hard today. Yeah. Now it's hard to get yourself to the place where, you know, when people have to keep that in perspective to on Sunday, on Saturday, would you shoot? You shoot? Yeah. Yeah. 98 or 98? Okay, would you shoot on Sunday? 100, you shot 100. So we're not talking about somebody that's, that is, you know, necessarily working towards breaking six birds on his way to 74. Right? You're talking about somebody that's breaking these six birds at this station. Always trying to get to 100, right. Because that's in your business and, and in what you do, that's really what matters is, is getting some of those big wins, that keeps you at the status that keeps you relevant. Those things matter. Right. And so that's what, that's what you're searching for. So you got to find those in, in your person. Yeah, right. I'm not saying that that's what you're thinking about when you're in the stand? That's not no, that's

actually is what what's going on in my head that difference when that's why I wanted to have a third person perspective on this because I can't know I mean, I can look at videos but I a video is one time example of the 1000s of pairs you've ever seen this year. And so I don't have data points where I can put together what it looks like to see me shoot. And, and but I do know what's going on in my head. And I can explain that. And so like when you're looking at me and I'm taking longer and days where you I mean, you're you have obviously a very good observation of this because you're using the phrase of when it's harder for you, and it takes you harder work or whatever you were saying. I mean literally what it is, is that I am having on that spectrum of interoceptive versus extra receptive that I talked about a lot interoceptive being very focused internally on your awareness and extra receptive, meaning your attention and awareness on things all outside of you. On days where it looks like it's harder for me it's because my attention is on is stuck on things outside of me. So I hear golf carts more I hear people talking more i I'm looking and observing more and to get into dip inside to be internal about okay, what do I want to feel my body feel like when I shoot this pair? How do I what level of calmness or relaxation or emotional state? Do I need to be in to shoot this pair? What how do I want to feel my eyes move? And what do I want them to see when I should pair? My access to that is a longer path because I have to fight all the external distractions.

That's what I feel when I watched that. Yeah, that's what I feel. I feel like you know, there's a lot every year thinking about typical, you know, in between two shots in between two pairs. When when it's uh, I want to I'm just gonna say when it's a good day or a fluid day. Yeah. I feel like the thoughts that the thoughts that you come in the things that you're thinking about and the things that you're thinking about to make the shop better and to make this next shot good. All come very, very easily, and in a nice, organized order that you can fluidly move through. And when I feel like just viewing, watching, when it's a day that's harder for you. What I feel like is all of that happens slower, much slower. And it's because you're, it's almost like because you're having to encourage it a little more. And to be able to focus on it to be able to do it. And, you know, for whatever reason, but you know, when you get it done, you shooting it. Yeah, it's still the same stuff.

It's the same stuff. It's

the same stuff. It just comes to you to different road. Yes. And I mean, I can I can stand back and watch. Yeah, it's, it can be that way it can change during rounds. Mostly, it's the most recognizable on a day when, you know, you do it all day long. One way, you do it all day long, a different way. You know, I mean, in most people would never even see it. Yeah, I've just shot with you enough to know that there's, you know, I can see it in a stand different than other stands. But I can see it across a day. Yeah. You know, I've shot with you enough.

Yeah, it's, that's good. Yeah, the, what's happening is it, you're right, it's all the same stuff. Sometimes you need to take a different path to get there. When it's harder work for me, I can't compartmentalize my focus, because it's hard for me to get it back, once I lose it. Those are days where I'm very antisocial, when I'm shooting. Because if I turn on the sociability aspect, I can't, I can't walk away from that and get back into the focus, I need to stay in the focus for three hours straight. Whereas the days where it is very fluid, I'm able to access what I'm wanting to access prior to every pair so easily, I can just flip a switch and turn it off and on. And that's when I'm very, very social, and could be goofy, and my actual personality will come out more. But the interesting thing about that is you'd ask, somebody may ask like, well, what is it that you're trying to access? It's, I'm trying to access the awareness of what I'm trying to do. And my plan should be, I'm looking for the data points of internal awareness. And I'm trying to experience them through some people may call it visualization or whatever it is. Yeah. But it's, it's,

for lack of a better word. Yeah, it's in between those pairs. It's a visualization of, you know, a moment of what did not feel right. In the pair that I just shot. What do I want the next pair to feel right, feel like? Or be like, yeah, how am I going to do that? What do I need to change? set that up, and in and make it happen? But, you know, sometimes, sometimes you shoot that first pair, and you get done with the first pair. And it's easy, you can definitely feel like you have like, you know, you have a photographic memory of exactly what the last pair was like it was in it's like, Yes, right there. When I made the transition with the gun to the other bird. I had a little hitch and my giddy up. Yeah, I'm gonna get rid of that. That's gonna make this next pair smoother. Everything else about the plan is correct. Now I'm going to do it. And sometimes when you get done with the first pair, you're like, that wasn't right. That didn't feel right. I broke him. But what wasn't right about it? Yeah. And then there's a moment of searching of like, do I just go ahead and do it the way I did even? And that's what I mean. I'm talking about me I experienced, like, I can, I can feel sometimes a miss coming in the show. Now I don't, I don't have I don't focus I'm not focused on it's not happening. Because it's a predetermined destiny that I know about or something like that. But no, it's like, if I take the first pair, and something's not quite right about the plan, and, and I but I got both birds. And I may do it on I might do it again on the second pair. And it's feeling even a little less, right. Yeah.

I always related to a little bit more out of control.

Yes. And I go to the third pair. Now this isn't the point at which I say, oh, boy, I think I'll probably miss one of these. I don't say something like that to myself. But when I then when I take the third pair, and I do miss one of them. I mean people that have shot with making it. Test I'll turn around and I'll say I felt that one come in. Yeah. Well, I felt that one coming. After the first i After the first if I didn't get control of this, of whatever I can't find right now, it's going to cost me one because I'm going to slide one direction, because the shot that pair that I just made a plane for and shot was not stable enough to to have that plan hold up again. Yeah. Because it wasn't quite right. Yeah. And if I do it again, it's going to slough wonder if maybe it sloughs the direction to getting better. Oh, okay. Well, it got better. Yeah. And I put up my brain will probably recognize what it was that got it better. And I'll do that last pair, and it'll probably be in about ink ball. Yeah. Right. That doesn't happen. That's not as recognizable to me. When that happens, it happens as when it starts becoming more fragile. Yeah. You know, because that starts building a little more anxiety. And you can kind of feel that forming. And then, you know, if that sneaks, it's hard to it's hard. You taking that little bit of time in between the shots, it's all you have to get that reined back in. Yeah, if you can do it. You know, it's really

exciting for me to hear you talk about that. Because that's not a thing that you have accessible to you. If you're more extra receptively based in your attentiveness, you know, in your in the thing that you're choosing to consciously connect your attention to, if it's, if it's external, if it's extra receptive, you will not be able to feel that Miss coming, because you don't have the data available to you to even experience what the thing felt like. That's why for people that are listening, if you've ever had a lesson with me, or with somebody else, where after you shoot the pair, they turn or you turn around and they said did you feel how bla bla bla bla happened? And in in in you may say yes, but in your head, you're like, that felt exactly the same as every other shot? Yes. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yes. Yeah,

I totally felt the difference. Yes. In the back of your head, you're like, yeah, one broke one didn't. Exactly.

And, and, but what that is, it's just where your attention is. And most people go through the whole round of a tournament, and in practice, and in lessons with it assigned to the wrong thing, there's a time and place for when we need to have it on, on an external thing. And that's mainly in practice. Or, like, in certain parts of the shot and a tournament, but I would compartmentalize that to saying visually, and in a tournament, we want our attention to be on the target. But other than that, we want our proprioceptive feedback to be on internal movement,

we're going to clarify, during the actual shot, from, you know, my, my, my little pre shot to pull and the second barrel going off. I'm not consciously thinking about how I feel, yeah, I've pre programmed it, I've made a plan, I'm going to do this, we're going to move like this, it's the moment that this the second the shot of the second barrel goes off, that I log how I feel how things looked, how I moved and process that, yes, you know, that's, that's what we're and then taking that to my next to change or not change or things. It's not a consciousness in the shot. It's a consciousness of the Shah.

Yes. And, but that's where this gets so hard, because there will be a lot of people listening to this, that that won't understand or have any relation to what you are and I are talking about right now. Because going back to what I said earlier in this episode, which is the first part of of that, the way we define a shot and then the second part that includes the internal awareness if the way that most people shoot which is most people and a lot of people very are almost everybody early on in the game. If the way that you you are planning your shot revolves around being all visually based in terms of definitions of where to place the gun and how to see the connection. If your understanding of what you're wanting to do is how it should look in a bird barrel relationship. Then, you will be doing 50% of what Curtis just said which is correct which is that your his awareness is not on him. In the shot and how he feels his awareness is on the target. And then afterwards he he moves it to the to him to make an assessment of the shot. That's correct. But you only have that data available to you after the shot, if you're able to proprioceptive ly move by looking at the target, and and not driving your movement consciously, because if the way that you're making the shot happen is by increasing your visual peripheral awareness, and seeing synchronicity between your movement and the target, as opposed to looking at the bird, and allowing it to happen non consciously, appropriate, subjectively. That's that proprioceptive feedback that we get that we can then assess after we pull the trigger for the second time. But if we're doing it all based off a visual relationship, even if we're looking at the Burba, peripherally paying attention to the gun, and we're making a conscious decision to go faster, or slower or higher or lower. If that's how you're driving your movement, you won't be able to think about how you felt after the shot.

No, you because you're you're consciously stepping on something that only the subconscious does. Yeah,

you're you're pulling stuff that should be done non consciously, into the conscious aspect. And because it's conscious, now, it can only be one layer deep. Yeah.

And you can only have an awareness of one that consciousness. Right. So as I put in, we're taking a shot, if we are not fully, I don't want to say that we're not conscious of it, because we are but if you have turned a lot of the shot over to the subconscious now, and that, you know, and that's a lot of the proprioceptive movement of the arms in the hands in the body, driven by the bird, you know that the eyes are working? Well. You know, you have a consciousness of this shocked. Yeah, but mostly it's tied to the movement of the bird,

it's, uh, the best way to describe what you're saying is to is to predefine two things. Because really all it is that is hard. The reason why it's hard to say is just because as shooters we kind of use one word for two thing, two things. And that's conscious. If we say that you have to be conscious of something but not conscious of another thing, then that's where we get into a debate of somebody like me saying that I'm not consciously aware of the barrel. When I'm looking at the bird and someone like Ben Haas with being able to say, how can you tell me that if you look at the target, you can't see the gun? Because Him and I are both right. The difference is, we are conscious of the shot, but we're paying attention to the bird. And it's it's how much of the hard drive and the operating space of your conscious attention? Are you dedicating to a specific thing that you're trying to see? And, and because that's how you heighten proprioceptive

in there, there are no shots, there are shots that I will have a higher consciousness of where the barrel? Yeah, because I have to specifically place it. It's this certain styles of shots. I have to I have to more consciously, specifically place the barrel where I want it to be. Or I'll lose it. Yeah, in a way. Yeah. So I mean, don't think that there's not some level of consciousness to every aspect, but if you if you put it all 100% and then talk about, you know, lead and you're consciously and you're adjusting, yeah, that's in the middle of the shot, and you're adjusting, how can you tell? How can you then be able to pay attention to how you are feeling and how you are moving in? And that type of thing? That's why we turn that over to the subconscious then when we ask ourselves to be conscious about it. It's there for us to to to access Yeah,

yes. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. The it's all about attentiveness versus consciousness. Yeah. And awareness. You could add three things in there. Yeah, it's the same thing as when we talked about focal points. Focal Points are poorly defined by just using the word focal point, it should be the x y location of center ocular, like the central part of your vision is in is at what point but you can separate focal point and center ocular from attention. You can say my eyes are looking in one place, but I'm paying attention to a different part of my vision consciously. If you're looking, right now I'm looking at, you know, the string of a string on my guitar is where I'm looking. But I'm paying attention to the lower right part of my peripheral vision that has the microphone that Curtis is talking into. And I'm looking at and thinking about that microphone. But my attend the conscious part of my vision is on that part of my vision, so hard to describe. But I'm looking at another thing and that's, that's the difference. It's the same thing where the looking at a bird and paying attention to target but consciously being aware of the gun in peripheral is that and in the reverse, where the level of attention that you give the gun, the higher that attention goes up to the gun, the lower that proprioceptive feedback gets of your body because your body is now controlling is being controlled more by your consciousness. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's walking, walking and having a serious conversation. Yeah. Right. You're walking along with your friend on the sidewalk. And, well, of course, we all know that one friend that that still manages to run into the pole on the sidewalk, but that'd be you know, in this person's maybe not right for shooting sporting clays. But, you know, why is it that while you're while you're walking along, having a good conversation with your with your friend, and you step aside to miss the the pole that's on the sidewalk, you know, the light pole on the sidewalk, and you don't really miss a beat in the conversation. The conversation is conscious. But you're walking in awareness of what's around you is basically subconscious for a brief moment. It's conscious, that says to move, move to the side, you know, but that's what kind of what we're talking about is that, that difference between any and the whole time you've been walking, and you haven't had to tell yourself right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot? Yeah, you know, you can just, that's, that's, that's you, you've programmed yourself to go ahead and walk, you know, pick up your feet. You know, you don't have to remind yourself every time you have set up, set yourself a plan to walk at a certain pace. Right, and you can go ahead and do that. Yeah, you know, you see something out of the out of the corner of your eye it's so it's it's a light pole, you step to the side and it barely interrupts the conversation if at all. For me, it's a mosquito flying in the air. Yeah, yeah. It's for some people. It can just be you know, a little glimmer, like shiny things. Right. squeegee like I don't know. I don't see. I don't see rings on targets. barely ever. Yeah, what I see are, I see depending on lighting, I can see flashes, like off of the rings because of the way that the light is hitting the target. But I'll tell you what, the light was so bad last Friday. It was just a Milt just like a mud Raisa sky with all refracted light. You know, all the targets looked like, you know, they were 10 yards further than that. They weren't going 1010 miles an hour faster. If anybody says that they no matter well, I always do the rings on a target. They're foolish. Yeah, because that's just like, I see definition to tar I see the edge of the target I see the shape of the target. You know, I see the Delhomme I see the bottom I see I can tell you how much is showing in everything. And if the light hits it right. I can Yeah, and it's not very far away. Yes, I can see the rains but it has more to do with the light hitting it right yeah. than it does with my X ray Superman vision right and focus on on the target because for one I don't actually need I'm not shooting a ring. Right I'm shooting the front edge of the target. I only that's what I need to know where it is. Or I'm shooting the center of the target you know, that I need to know the location. You know, something that sometimes I don't even know sometimes I barely know whether I was black or orange. If you're colorblind know if the light if the light I know a certain way because

sometimes the orange looks so dark brown it looks black. For one.

It doesn't really matter. Yeah. Whether the targets orange or black is not really in the program. Have me shooting that target. It's not like oh, you know, orange targets. I use more lead on the blacktop. Yes. Or when the black targets are orange targets I shoot right at the orange targets way more. Yeah, black targets go faster than orange ones. No, it's nothing like that. It's like the front edge of the, the front edge of a black targets is same as the front edge of an orange target. Yeah,

for me that with the colorblindness is it's that gets very weird, but

that's exactly in a way that's exact proof. Right?

Well, do you remember what we did it? Okay crowd with your glasses.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's some that's some voodoo right there.

Let's do this. Because I need to, I need to let bail out. But we'll do that. And and then I want to come back. And I want to tell that story and talking about

it. Yeah, let's talk about it. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Okay, let's

do that. We'll pause and then cut and come back. Okay, so not to give you guys a cliffhanger, but I'm gonna give you guys a cliffhanger, because just a really good place to cut the episode, we're already at a good length. And the story that we tell is kind of really, really cool. And I guarantee you it goes against a lot of stuff that all of you have held. For talking about the mind getting ahead of the brain. The it goes against a lot of the stuff that all of you have heard and held as fact, from articles and shooting instruction and other professionals and and even myself information that I've disseminated over the years. And only recently, in the past one to three years have learned the the invalidity lack of validity, I don't know really what the right phrase is there. Because it's late, and I'm tired, and my brain isn't working. But anyways, it's really cool. And it's definitely a story that you guys want to hear. And if you have, a lot of you will have the ability to try this out. And I encourage you to because it's a really cool experience. But you're gonna have to tune in to part two, to listen to it. So for that for now, I'm just going to leave it as that. I will remind you that I always do one or two YouTube Live episodes every week where you can interact and engage with me on my YouTube channel. On top of that, we also have a merch store. So you can go on the journey podcast website and check that out. You can buy cool shirts and hats and sweatshirts and a bunch of neat stuff. And you can also if you have the ability to I encourage you guys to subscribe to the YouTube channel. That way you get notifications and can interact in the YouTube lives and participate. Because it's really valuable to be able to do so if you're just a passive observer. During these YouTube videos, you don't really get a chance to ask questions and interact and engage with me and other people on there. And I really love the community of all of you guys that is being built right now. And so I would encourage all of you to participate in that. So anyways, we'll leave it there. And look forward to part two of this interview coming out later on this week. Thank you so much guys. Enjoy the hopefully nice weather that you're having and the lack of tornadoes if you're in my area and I will here I'll see you guys on YouTube Live this Wednesday night. And you'll hear me on the next episode. Possibly even before that I might do two days back to back of release recorded episodes boy that's going to be way an overachieving over achieving my productivity levels for this podcast, so we'll see if we can do that. No promises man. I'm not gonna I'm not promising nothing. All right, thanks, guys. We will talk to you later. Adios

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