The Think Tank

We tried to shoot outside today, we even went out to Sylvan, but by the time we got there it was pouring rain so we went over to Archers Afield and shot there.

The first 4-5 arrows were pretty shaky on the aim and scattered a bit, but I got things under control by the time I started scoring. (I adjusted the left-side v-bar to stick out away from the bow a little more, offering some off-center balance to see how it felt. I think it may have steadied me up a little, but I’m not sure how much if really helped.)

I cleaned the first 5 ends, mostly shooting 2x’s and a pretty close miss, although I did have some legitimate fat-shafters in there too. All in all I felt I was shooting very well, and the v-bars were still helping to keep my aim under pretty good control. I do think I want to add a little additional weight to the v-bars though. Tonight I added 5 stabilizer weights on the bow behind the stabilizer, which helped to steady things down.

The first five ends were really easy, my aim was good and my shots were coming off clean and smooth. In fact, things were so smooth that I forgot to go through my mantra of focusing on form, feeling where the bow and release will end up. Instead I was just sort of blanked out. End six started with two almost perfect X’s, and when I was aiming the third one I distinctly remember thinking to myself “you cant miss”. Naturally, I proved myself wrong instantly by shooting a six O’clock 9.

Fortunately, that woke me up and I tried to focus on my form to finish up from there. It took a few arrows to get back in the swing and I was struggling just a bit, but everything was very solid 10 ring, but only 1x 30s on 7-9.

I knew I had a good round going, and I really wanted to stay clean the rest of the way, so each end I got a little more nervous/excited. By the last one I was fairly amped up. No butterflies or anything, just a level of excitement and a feeling that if I dropped a point here I would be very disappointed in myself.

I used that excitement as motivation. While I was aiming I made sure I was staying strong, doing my push-pull routine and going through my mental mantra of focusing on form. I literally told myself “shoot your form and you will hit x’s. All that matters is your ending form position”. The first two were solid shots,  both nearly inside-out x’s. That left me feeling very confident on the third and final shot. Although, not overly confident like before. Instead, while I was aiming I told myself “I don’t care where the shots goes, I am going to hit my final form position”. The shot went a second later and landed a dead center, inside-out, hair-splitter X.

Round 1: 299 19x

I still had an hour before the shop closed, so I decided to shoot another round. I really thought I could clean it and get the 300 I’ve been waiting for.

I started out OK, but I could tell I was getting tired, struggling a lot to get through my shots, and holding a long time, even though I was still going through my mantra of form first. On the second end I drilled the first arrow, fought through the second, let it down, and fought through it again, and shot a horrible, weak shot which went skirting out into the tomato patch. (As it turned out, it actually broke into the nine ring by about a millimeter, but it was still ugly.) I tried to recover on the third shot, fought it as well, let it down, and shot another horrible, ugly nine, though this one was inside-out gold at least.

I took a breather and drank some soda pop, then came back sort of fired up and shot 3 solid X’s, though I was still fighting through every shot. Ends 4 and 5 were both difficult again, and I dropped a nine on each one. At that point, I was very frustrated and contemplated going home, since I was struggling so hard, shooting bad shots (something I don’t really want to practice), but I really hate to end on a bad note, so I solidered on. I took a look at my trigger tension and discovered that the setscrew was loose again: instead of being 1/2 turn from firing on its own, it was 1.5 turns. I readjusted the tension to where I normally keep it, and started shooting again.

Now that the release was not so hard to pull through, I started coming through my shots pretty easily again. After a couple arrows, everything was feeling pretty natural again. Since I wasn’t holding each shot so long, my shoulders started to recover a bit and my aim settled down again to almost perfect, which in turn made it easier to concentrate on my form, which I did a good job of.

One thing to note: especially when I get tired, I have to make sure that my bow arm stays strong through the whole shot. Working a very subtle push-pull thing seems to work very well. Usually I envision a rod extending between the back of my bow hand and the knuckles on my release hand, and then I see that rod extending out a little bit, pushing my hands away from each other. I have no idea if that is at all representative of what actually happens, but when I think that my bow arm winds up with a little forward movement after the shot and the shots are solid. When I forget to do that, or lose track of my bow arm, it tends to stop the forward motion and things get ugly fast.

After that I shot 3x’s, 1x, 3x’s, 1x and then another 3 solid x’s to finish out the round. The arrows that missed the x were all solid tens, mostly just out at 3 O’clock but still solid 10. Except for one. I had one arrow sneak out a long way at 3 O’clock, barely fat-shafting through the line on target 2. I hung to the right on #2 all day, despite changing arrows.

I finished that round with a 296 18x, and a total of 595 37x for the pair.

I actually feel better about the shooting than the score makes it look. For the most part, I felt very solid and composed today, and even though I went through the one rough patch, I definitely feel I can build on this sort of shooting. I need to cement my mental process in place, watching myself to ensure that I am thinking about my form and feeling it in my mind before I actually release. One promising trend is that whenever I start to feel anxious at all, that mantra comes through loud and clear, and when that happens, I drill the x. That is very encouraging.

Technical note: I took the old chrome stabilizer weights off the riser and them on the V-bars after I got home today. This will put a little more weight down low on the bow, which I think will make the bow balance out a little better.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Mar 23, 2011 6:05 PM Target: FITA Total score: 595 37x

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