When he was a boy my dad was taught “Instinct Shooting.” The first thing they did was remove the sights from the gun. Then instead of concentrating on aiming, you just blast away – winging it (more or less.) It worked. He was able to shoot down a BB the instructor tossed in the air.
The same phenomenon happens in other things. Tim Gallwey taught people to play tennis in twenty minutes [cool video at time 10:40.] Instead of concentrating on hitting the ball, he distracted their cognitive minds — he would have them say “bounce” when the ball bounced, and “hit” when they would try to hit the ball, and this occupied their thoughts. Meanwhile their reflexes were learning to hit the ball. Reflexes are a lot better at learning tennis than cognition.
Also. My basement has scary steps. I used to gingerly and cautiously step down, but now I run instead of thinking about it. I think it’s a lot safer this way.
Interesting things 