Ansel,
If you want to get ' Really' good at any sort of archery competition you need to avoid squeezing the trigger with your finger.......If you can anticipate the release you are already on the road to bad habits.
" Cajunbowhntr" hit on th eproper way to fire a release and that' s with back tension.......this is a little more difficult to learn and force yourself to do over and over again with an index trigger release but it can be done.
You need to seperate the acts of aiming and releasing the arrow.......apply pressure to the trigger (The trigger should also sit in the groove of your first knuckle so that you can apply pressure straight backward...do not use the tip of your finger) and then start pulling with your back muscles the rest of the way. You' ll know that you did it right when the bow going off scares the bejeepers out of you, and the arrow just magically finds its mark.
You' ll need to embrace the surprise of the release and not fight it.
You let the pin float around the center, and concentrate on pulling THRU the shot with your back muscles. Its sort of a combination of the concious and the subconcious working together........you need to let the back of your mind trust that floating pin and concentrate on the mechanics of a good shot.

After a few rounds the shot going off will be less and less of a shock to your nerves and you will start to become comfortable with it.
You can do your blind bale shooting, but try to forget squeeeeezing the trigger with your finger....let the back muslces do the job.
The best thing I ever did to increase my accuracy on targets was to scrap the regular old index trigger release and switch to a thumb trigger " T" handle style. This style is much harder to punch (although you can), and is IMO much easier to fire with proper back tension.....