Target panic is a

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...

—and perhaps

neurological Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...

—condition experienced by many

archer Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In mo ...

s, both competitive and recreational. The condition manifests in various ways, impacting an archer's ability to shoot confidently and accurately. Target panic has been discussed in archery circles since at least the 1970s. It was originally called "gold panic" because an archer would experience symptoms (panic) when the arrow was brought onto the

bullseye Bullseye or Bull's Eye may refer to: Symbols * ◎ (Unicode U+25CE BULLSEYE), in the Geometric Shapes Unicode block * (Unicode U+0298 LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK), the phonetic symbol for bilabial click Animals and plants * Bull's Eye, ''Euryo ...

(gold circle). The name later evolved into target panic because it was discovered that the symptoms could be experienced when aiming at any target.

Description

While target panic was originally blamed on high levels of

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...

and a "fear of failure", it is now understood to be caused by the way in which the brain learns at a neurological level. Treatments based on this new paradigm have been very effective at treating target panic in archers up to the

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

level. There are three primary symptoms of target panic. An archer suffering from target panic may experience a premature anchor, where the bow appears to become very heavy and it is difficult for the shooter to come to a full anchor position. A second symptom is referred to as a premature hold, where an archer "locks up" or "hits a wall" that they are unable to move past as they try to align their arrow with the target. The third symptom is referred to as a premature release and is characterized by an inability to come to full anchor without releasing the arrow.

In media

Target panic is extensively explored in the light novel and subsequent anime series ''

Tsurune is a Japanese light novel series written by Kotoko Ayano, with illustrations by Chinatsu Morimoto. The first novel won a Special Judge Award in the Kyoto Animation Award competition in 2016, and was published by the studio in December of that ...

'' about Japanese ''

Kyūdō ''Kyūdō'' ( ja, 弓道) is the Japanese martial art of archery. Kyūdō is based on '' kyūjutsu'' ("art of archery"), which originated with the samurai class of feudal Japan. In 1919, the name of kyūjutsu was officially changed to kyūdō, a ...

''.

References

Archery {{archery-stub

Description

In media

See also

References