The Think Tank

I worked late today, and Shannon picked me up around 5:30 to head out to Broken Arrow.  We did not shoot league tonight, so shot a score and finished up around 7:30.  I was very tired all evening and had to keep my focus on pulling through because I kept hedging toward creeping a little bit.

I felt really solid all evening, aside from the fatigue.  I wasn’t aiming quite as steady as yesterday, but still felt really solid.  I shot the 38″ front rod and 15″ back rod (4oz/12oz) again tonight.  I was down only one X after the first five ends.  When I switched targets, I realized that I was almost clean to that point and I woke up a little bit, got just a little bit excited.  I dropped one point on the 7th End (3rd arrow).  I pulled up, settled into my anchor, and came down on the target.  I had held my first two shots a little longer than I liked, so I was trying to pull through a little harder.  The dot came down through the bullseye and out the bottom a little bit, started to come back up, and bam!  The release went off, and the arrow hit low.  Yesterday I tossed a few of those in, but today I think  was just a bit fatigued both mentally and physically, and that didn’t happen.

Dropping the point did sort of wake me up though.  I was still sitting on a very high X count, and I wanted to do well, so I was a bit excited/nervous moving forward.  But that helped to keep my strong.  I dropped a couple other X, one close, one liner, and then I cleaned the last end.

All in all I felt really good again tonight.  My confidence is pretty high after the last couple of nights.  I still get a bit excited and a little nervous, but I’m really starting to get used to the idea that I am a 25+ X per night shooter when everything is setup and working correctly.

Mark Eaves loaned me a 38″ B-Stinger front rod and a 15″ sidebar along with weights for me to try out tonight. I shot about 75 arrows playing around with the weights and what not, trying to get it to feel comfortable.  I felt like I was paying too much attention to thinking about the weight and balance, and whether it was aiming better this way or that way to really do much “good” shooting.

After I got things feeling a little better, I decided to start actually keeping track.  I really like the stabilizers.  I was holding really well.  In fact, in the beginning I was holding so still and consistently on the spot that it sort of freaked me out.  I’m not used to that.

But, in the end I got used used to and by the time I started scoring, I felt I was shooting really well.  Again, the Shootoff release felt really nice, and after I calmed down and started paying attention to pulling though, telling myself to “hit and hold” – meaning to hit my form and hold it after the shot – I was really rolling and hitting well.  Solid X’s.  On the sixth end I pulled up, aimed rock solid right in the middle (on my second target) and right in the middle, I very clearly thought to myself “You can’t miss when you hold this solid…” and boom.  A nine at 12.  That “You can’t miss” idea has always been deadly for me.  I miss almost every single time I think that.

That pissed me off, but not in a bad way.  I decided that I needed to turn that weakness (missing when I think “You can’t miss”) into a strength.  So I made it a point to say “You can’t miss” EVERY SINGLE ARROW after that.  I also made sure that I was pulling through with my form when I said it, and that I ended up in the proper post-shot form.

By the 10th end, I was feeling a little nervous/excited.  I had completely forgotten about shooting that nine, so in my head I was clean and shooting the 10th end for a 300.  I was feeling it a bit, but I also felt that all I had to do was hit my form, hold it like I should, and I would get X’s.  That made me feel pretty confident, but I hadn’t actually done it yet while I was thinking about it, so still nervous.  I always am when facing firsts.

I let my first shot down quickly because I heard a voice saying “You are going to miss.”  Lately I have been feeling that voice in my head is more of a warning that something is wrong, a subconscious alert that some part of my form is out of line that I am not noticing.  Historically I always interpreted this sort of thing as self-sabotage, but I’m not so sure any more.  All those shots where I think everything is fine, but as soon as the shot breaks my form falls apart and goes crazy, it leads me to believe that something is wrong that I’m not noticing, and I think this voice is a warning that something is off.  In any event, I let the shot down, took a breath, pulled up and tried to pull through strong.  The shot broke right on time, and as soon as it went I knew it was X.  It was.  Second shot was dead nuts right from the start, and hit another almost inside-out X.

I let the third arrow down because I held a long time and started to bounce my sight.  I came back up, tired to be aggressive with my back tension, and BANG!  A perfect, inside-out X.  I was very excited, thinking that I had shot a 300, until Mom said I had finished with 299 and 26 x’s.  (When I was transferring my information into my phone, I realized that she had misread one of the scores and I actually shot 25 x’s.)

That X count is the highest I have put up so far this year, and is bumping against my best of all time.

All in all I feel really confident about this setup.

During the week between the last NW Shootup and this one, I had creep-tuned my bow and managed to take out all of the unexplained up and down misses by removing one half twist from the control cable.

I had ordered a new release, a Stanislawksi Shootoff, and it arrived on Friday morning just before we went down to meet Debbie in Lebanon.  We got there around 3:30 and I started shooting the new release.  It felt really nice in my hand and after I got everything adjusted, it felt like I was much more consistent for time and hand position.  I also felt like I was aiming better.  The only thing that bothered me was that I kept hitting the right side of the target, just in the 10, over and over again, especially on my second arrow.  There was a big hole there, so I just thought I was being pulled into as sometimes happens.

I decided to shoot it on Saturday.  In the end, that turns out to be a mistake.  I felt that I shot pretty well as far as form went, but I kept getting side to side misses that I could not explain.  I dropped three points in four ends, and my X’s were sucking.  I was very frustrated and disappointed and started to lose my mind a little bit.  I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking, but I kept trying to nail my form, and the arrows kept edging out side to side.  By the 8th or 9th end, I was more or less resigned to the fact that this score was in the toilet, and I calmed down and started really analyzing my shots, and even under critical examination, I thought I was shooting pretty well.

The eliminations went much the same, with me missing three arrows out of my six, all sprayed left and right, the last of which was off of what I really thought was a dead perfect shot.  The frustration and disappointment were back in spades, I went outside and shot in the rain for 45 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong.  Then I came back inside and shot another several hours, until my shoulder was just dead.  In the end, I figured out that the new release just dropped arrows out the right.

After dinner, I went out into the garage and discovered that the new released had a pretty big left-high tear.  The old release was almost perfect, but it too had a high-left tear.  I did some work on the rest and go the left/right taken care of, and it even looked better on the Shootoff release, but I didn’t trust it and decided to shoot the Avenger, even though I tend to struggle with that release as the day wears on.

Qualified 8, finish 9.