Trigger defrost - How to solve shooting trigger freeze with Sports Hypnosis.
Steve Mycoe is a sports psychologist and author, specialising in Sports Hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming (the study of  excellence). He has come across this phenomena on several occasions within shooting, but also in other sports have had similar problems.

"Trigger Freeze is a common problem based in the emotional right side of the brain (the side hypnosis has its main effect), and is a fear based response," he says. "The unconscious mind is where our behaviours are based."

"There are several varieties of trigger freeze all of which are unconscious in nature. Some experience a random freeze that seems to have no real pattern, some only get the freeze on the second barrel of a shot and some people are completely disabled from shooting all together."
"In the case of trigger freeze an unconscious anchor has been setup and fires automatically the freezing response behaviour when a particular stimulus occurs during or before shooting. The way I usually address this situation is to consider the physical differences and the arousal levels or states that the shooter accesses both when trigger freeze occurs and when it doesn't. There will be a marked difference between the two."

"Total trigger freeze when one is unable to shoot at all is where the response has developed into a phobia much like any other irrational fear. Phobias can be removed quite quickly with NLP techniques which often train the athlete in visiting and revisiting the phobic situation as visualisation (usually in-trance as it's much more vivid) and switching from associating into the scene until the activity is completed successfully. It is similar to cognitive behavioural techniques used in psychotherapy."

CDs to help your shooting.
Steve has two hypnotic CDs available from his website, http://www.sportshypnosis.co.uk/ One is developed to program clay shooting success and the other addresses specifically Trigger Freeze.

Pull Magazine - the official Journal of The National Governing Body for Clay Target Shooting. (Formerly the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association.)
www.CPSA.co.uk