The Think Tank

My friend and ex-workmate Mike Vogel has completed his second feature length film Did You Kiss Anyone?, and it will be playing at the Bagdad Theater on February 7th, 2012!  Please go check it out!  The film is shot completely in Portland, Mike is an awesome guy, and his movies and videos are always well done and very funny.

Here is a link to the full details.

His last movie, The Waiting List, is available on YouTube as well.  I would highly recommend that you check it out too!

My jaw and ear were hurting very badly over night, and because of that I got very little sleep.  I was taking ibuprofen and pseudaphed every three hours to keep the pain and inflammation down.  By the time I started shooting I was also in quite a bit of pain from my neck muscles cramping.  It apparently showed in face, because several people asked mom if I was feeling alright.

My game plan for shooting was the same as it had been before:  Just keep shooting my form and trust that the arrows would find the middle.  I started out feeling pretty confident given how things had gone the day before in Bow.

My practice ends were pretty good, but as usual by the time I got to the scoring rounds I was getting tight and having a harder and harder time getting through my shots.  I started right off with a miss on the first end off of a really crummy shot, one of the ones where I aim pretty good and think it is there right up until the point of release, when my bow arm flies around and my release hand pops straight back.  That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day.  If half of my shots felt like good ones, I’d be surprised.

I finished with a 297 / 15x.  I was frustrated and disappointed because I really wanted to better my scores from the first two Shootups to help ensure a higher position at the Final, but instead I was worse.  No help at all.

I qualified in third and tried to stay positive for the eliminations, which in my heart I felt I would lose because every time things got a little bit tough, I shot bad shots and hit nines.  Still, I tried to keep my head together and kept telling myself to hit my form.  I went on to lose my elimination round and wound up in 4th place. As usual, the two guys shooting in the round immediately after mine shot a 58 and 57 respectively, which sucked because I shot a 59 in mine.

Upon later reflection I realized that while I had been telling myself to “hit your form,” I had not been holding that form after the shot.  When I made an effort to hold my form after the shot, I did a better job of getting into the correct post-shot form.

I also bought the Neat trainer thingy from Cory after the shoot.

Additional information: —————————————

Start date: Jan 8, 2012 10:48 AM Target: FITA Total score: 297

— Sent from my iPhone

We got to Wilderness Archery about an hour early, and I warmed up a little.  I was feeling a bit nervous but not too much.  I did a very good job of keeping my focus on pulling through my shots, and not thinking about my score.  Around the 6th end I started feeling a little bit nervous since I had not yet cleaned a whole half in a tournament or league this year.  It was mild, but there was a level of excitement and nervousness that continued to grow.  By the time I was in the 9th end, I was very nervous.  My heart rate was noticeably high, and I was bobbing all over the target when I was aiming.

I missed my second arrow on the 9th end, meaning that I cleaned my first 28 arrows, a new record for me.  My X’s were lower than I would have like, but I was satisfied with the 299.  I placed second, 2 X’s behind Rick.

When the Elims came around, I was still sort of nervous feeling but I held it together pretty well on the first end.  On the second I was fighting my release pretty bad, and I tried letting down several times, but finally I pushed a rough shot and hit a nine at 12 o’clock on my third arrow.  I figured that would be it for me, but Kitt missed his last arrow as well, which meant we tied.  I was irritated I had dropped the point and I was determined not to lose the shoot-off.  I let my first arrow down three times.  Kit was done with all three before I had fired my first shot.  I struggled through them all, but I came out with three good shots nonetheless, and finished with three X’s.  That was good enough to win.

I was still nervous and still struggling in the Final, and I shot another 9.  I figured that pretty much did it, and that assessment proved to be correct.  I stayed in in 2nd place and won $66 bucks.

Shannon and I went out to Chinook to shoot in their Wednesday night league tonight, since I was going to be at Blazer games on both Tuesday and Thursday.

We left late and arrived while they were scoring their second end.  I put my stuff together while they were shooting their third end, so I started cold on End 4.  I shot three pretty good shots to start, but my second target was barely in at 11 o’clock. The other two were X’s.

I struggled most of the evening to put together many good shots in a row.  The first several ends followed a very similar pattern: First shot good, second shot bad, third shot good.  I did that for the first 4-5 ends, dropping three points in the process.

Towards the end I really focused on hitting the second arrow, and I started getting some X’s on that target, but I was still having a hard time keeping things together.  My form was just off.  I kept feeling like I was pulling through strong, but when the shot went my release hand popped out and away instead of coming back to my shoulder like its supposed to.  Sometimes I think that I just tense my muscles instead of actually pulling.  I’ll have to investigate that in the future.

Ends 5-6 were six solid X’s on pretty good shots, although one of them I held a long time.  End 7 was a 2X with the third arrow just barely out left.  I was thinking about wanting to finish out with all X’s and that is probably where I went wrong.

I shot pretty well for the rest of the time until the last end.  I wanted to finish with a three X.  I always want to finish strong, I think it is important.  First arrow was a solid X, right in the hole I’d been in all day.  Two was inside out.  Three was tough.  I pulled up, tried to pull through but it wasn’t there so I let it down.  I came back up, kept telling myself to hit my form, to bring my hand back to my shoulder, but instead my release hand jumped straight out behind me and my bow arm shot straight up.  The arrow was middle nine at 9 o’clock.

The last arrow was very frustrating because the only reason I missed it was because I was nervous because it was the last arrow.  That’s a big fail in my book, and something that I always try to avoid.  I hate missing my last arrow more than anything else.  Even more upsetting, I was telling myself to hit my form, and in practice it was probably the worst shot of the whole night.

I finished up with a 296 and 21X.  The score was disappointing, but the X’s were OK.  My take away from today is that I need to keep working on my form and make sure that I always hit my form, that my hand comes back to my shoulder and the bow arm pops straight forward.  When I do that, I nail X’s all day.

After I got back I discovered a neat new program from arrow plotting and scoring called iArcheryScores.  It pretty much does everything that TargetMate does, but it has one feature that I really want: it tracks individual arrow performance.  Below you can see there are arrow plots for each of the arrows that I shot tonight.  I switched out Arrow 3 because it felt like it was going high, so that is why there is only one mark on that target.

So far it seems pretty neat.

Arrow Order: 4-(3)-6-5

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Sent from my iPhone

I got the official results from the Washington State Indoor FITA that I shot in last month, and it turns out that I won!  There wasn’t a huge turn out, only 10 people in the mens division which is pretty low, but I guess a win is a win.  I figured I was probably in the top 4-5, but I did not think that my score would be terribly competitive, so I was quite surprised when I saw the results tonight.

Full results are here.  My division is Senior Male Compound Release.