Hypnosis and one archer's scores: Robazza 1995

This is a three-page report on a single archer: a 31-year-old man with 17 years of shooting and experience at junior national level, who trained three times a week and asked a sport psychologist for help to improve. For 20 weeks they met once a week, for two and a half to three hours each time. During practice, active-alert hypnosis was used, with exercises in body awareness and imagery during the stance and in concentration during the draw and aim; after practice, in a quiet room, traditional relaxation hypnosis.

What came out of it was a personal routine. In the stance: a short body check, eyes on the target, imagining the whole shot with all the senses and the word "calm" repeated silently. During draw and aim: a by then automatic check of sight alignment on the target, string contact on the face and the position of the bow and arm. After the release: an assessment of the shot and the strategy. Once automated, it took only a few seconds.

The archer shot eight tests of 30 arrows at 25 metres, two before the intervention and six during it, at least two weeks apart. According to the authors, compared with the start his score rose and his errors fell.

The first two sessions were used to set goals and clear up doubts and misconceptions about hypnosis; one of the early sessions explained the link between the two kinds of hypnosis, which were experienced repeatedly one after the other. After that the programme was adapted step by step to his needs, focusing on body perception, imagery, concentration and a state in which the movement was meant to flow without apparent conscious control. The routine was used in training and in competition.

For each test the authors calculated the total score, the variable error (how scattered the arrows were) and the total error. The results are shown only in a chart of the means of the eight tests, with no values in the text and no statistical analysis.

A single archer, no control group, only two baseline tests and results shown only in a chart. Over 20 weeks an archer who works with a psychologist and builds a routine can improve for many reasons: the extra practice, the attention received, expectations, the routine itself. Hypnosis cannot be separated from the rest of the programme. The test was at 25 metres, and competition results are not reported. The authors themselves call for more controlled studies. The level stated is experience at junior national level, and the discipline is not given.

For anyone who shoots, the most concrete content is not the hypnosis but the routine that came out of it: a short body check, the whole shot imagined, a cue word, a few checkpoints during draw and aim and a judgement after the release. These are much like the elements the Italian Olympic archers describe in the same authors' 1998 study. Whether hypnosis is needed to build it, or works better than other approaches, this case cannot say.