We have all seen it on the course, and perhaps done it ourselves! A shot is missed. The shooter opens the gun, catches the ejected shells aggressively, and forcefully throws them into the used hull bin.
Is this a bad thing? The answer is not so clear cut.
In my post “Foundational Reading in Sport Mental Skills Development (link below), I mentioned the book “ACT made simple”.
Russ Harris’s book is not your typical sport peak performance book. In fact, it doesn’t deal explicitly with sport performance at all! The purpose of the book is to make Acceptance and Commitment Therapy available to all types of practitioners that might work with patients to improve their lives through “value guided action”. Key to the theory is applying mindfulness skills to better handle thoughts and feelings in such a way that best helps to satisfy one’s goals though positive action.
One of the key concepts that underpins the ACT model is the idea of “workability”. He poses the question, “Is what you are doing working to make your life rich, full, and meaningful”? in our case, by throwing the shells, are you able to bleed off a little pent-up frustration that allows you to refocus and find your “chi” so that you are able to reset and break the next pair? If so, then there is no need to change anything.
On the other hand, if the frustration that results in throwing the shells creates a downward spiral that results in your missing the next pair, and maybe the one after that, and the one after that, you probably are not applying a workable solution and may want to rethink your approach! There are several interventions that may help you or a fellow shooter do this! This is where the book really shines. He introduces several sample intervention practices that might just provide the answers for each individual. If you think that you might benefit from a different approach, I would suggest picking up a copy of “ACT made simple” and see if anything speaks to you!
If you want to try a very basic mindfulness-based approach, check out my post “Hit the Reset Button”.
For those that are interested in Russ Harris’s book, here is the amazon link. It is a very easy to read primer on how to use ACT to make improvements in one’s life. I recommend it.