The mental side of archery

[bear bowman]

Another thread I read today has prompted me to start this thread.
When I am on, there is absolutely no thought process. I'm pretty much picking a spot and sending an arrow. But, when I'm having an off day I start to think about everything and it all goes downhill from there.
So whether you are in your backyard, the range or in the middle of a 3-d course, how do you get back to where you need to be mentally? It's easy if I'm in my yard, I just hang the bow up and come back to it later but if I'm in the middle of a 3-d course, I want to fight through it and finish. So how do you get yourself back on track?

[crazynate]

Typically what happens to me if I'm off is I notice I am concentrating less on a simple task like my anchor. Or holding my bow arm steady. When I shoot a lot I notice I sometimes don't "dig deep" in a way to my anchor. Not saying I don't hit my anchor but just don't get a real solid connection with it. If I really concentrate on getting a dead solid anchor my shooting improves again. Sometimes it's as simple as that.  If I get real off I step back go inside  and video myself in slow motion to help pinpoint the issue. But I have to say 8 times out of ten it's a weak anchor. And I do use a double anchor too. But no matter what it has to be strong.  Another thing I struggle with is collapsing when I am tired. Sometimes when I shoot to much I get sloppy and it does more hurt than good. Learning to put the bow down and walk away has helped to be one of the biggest things I can do to improve my shooting. When I have off days and I still want to shoot I'll go and shoot 20-30 arrows with great form then quit. That also helps in the long run. Our minds are powerful

I have thought about this a lot over the years.  For me, there are two distinctly different modes.  One is very analytical and the other is when I am experiencing what i call casual accuracy.   They do not exist at the same time, but the one can not happen if the other does not precede it.  When I work on form issues, I try to concentrate on one aspect at a time until it becomes automatic.  When all of the elements become automatic, then the aiming aspects can be reliably sorted out.  I believe that everyone that is a good shot aims, some are mechanical aimers and some are intuitive aimers that intuition is a product of confidence gained through reliable repeatable actions.I aim with acknowledgement of the arrow, that becomes an automatic part of the process.  I can draw an example from my musician side to explain casual accuracy.  When me or another musician play something new, the action is tight, the mind is full of many quick and analytical thoughts.   The playing attack is tight, sometimes hesitant, often reserved and delayed.  Then down the road when with even large difficult pieces for me like Britten's  'Nocturnal' or the Bach 'Chaconne' I can be zipping along with the only thing on my mind is the mood of the next phrase, all of the mechanics are happening with minimal thought.  Two summers back shooting only one bow with one style arrow I reached that plane.  I was accurate out to point on, my shot flow was fluid and smooth and the only thing on my mind was the aiming decision, the minor distraction of momentarily acknowledging the arrow's attitude, latitude and general position without looking at it in direct vision before the release.  The highest shot to hit ratio for the hunting season that i ever had.  The bow was a duo shooter Berry and I was shooting good both left and right handed.  I am a firm believer in sticking to one setup to reach the optimum free thought fluid potentials. Once that is achieved with one setup it is not so difficult to perhaps change bows around, but there needs to be a point in the process where the shot goes beyond the mechanical and analytical step by step process.

[Draven]

I know why I missed and I recover next shot. If I am not in the session, all goes South. And it stays there unless something is happening. That can be something you say to yourself - ego related. It works 70% of the time.

[KeganM]

I practice Joel Turner's methods, using a mantra and a trigger. Every shot is the same, be it practice, targets, or hunting.

It's helped me become more consistent and keeps TP at bay. Before that I was pretty inconsistent, shot to shot, or day to day.

[nhbuck1]

hey kegan where cna i find joels mantra info out?

[akdd]

http://thepushpodcast.libsyn.com   This podcast Episode 11 has Joel Turner as a guest very informative

[McDave]

Assuming you have a reasonably good grasp of the fundamentals, whenever you make a shooting error, it's because something in your shooting form has stopped working the way it should.  When it becomes a repetitive error, or a series of different errors, it's because you have lost awareness (or maybe never had good awareness) with what your body is doing, and therefore can't self correct.  Sure, a coach could look at you shoot and say "do this" and you could correct that particular error, but that's something your body should be doing for you on a non-verbal level every time you make a shooting error.

Awareness is the key to sustained good shooting.  It is a two-pronged goal:  getting it, and keeping it.  Increasing awareness can be a life-long study that goes way beyond archery.  However, a start toward increasing awareness is to realize that your body is constantly sending non-verbal signals to your brain about everything that is happening in your body.  Mostly, we ignore these signals on a conscious level unless something really bad starts happening.  But we can learn to feel these things on a more subtle level if we want to.  For example, we normally ignore back tension, because in everyday life, it pretty much takes care of itself.  But we can train ourselves to be aware of back tension if we want to, as we can with torquing the string, raising our heads, and a variety of other things that are helpful to archers.

Once we become aware of a particular subtle body function, we can correct errors before they become repetitive.  However, it doesn't take much to block our awareness of these signals.  It is impossible to feel these signals while having cognitive thoughts, i.e. thoughts expressed in words.  Feelings of judgement or doubt also block awareness.  So to be able to self-correct errors, we need to shoot without cognitive thoughts and feelings of judgement or doubt.  I have never talked with a good shooter who hasn't mastered this.

So if you get in a slump in the middle of a tournament, ask yourself what's going on in your mind.  If your mind is full of thoughts about how to correct the problem, or feelings of judgement or doubt, then you have identified what you need to correct to get out of the slump.

[Dan Jones]

Bear bowman: Several weeks ago there was an article in the New York Times entitled "How to Throw a Baseball." (You can probably find it by Googling that title.) You might find the article very relevant to your situation. The gist of it is that when you start thinking about how to throw a baseball, you're in trouble. Is that also true of shooting an arrow?  I think so. But how to stop your mind from thinking about how to shoot the arrow?  I wish I had the answer to that question. If I did, I might be able to escape the damn target panic that has marred my years with the sport.

[BWallace10327]

Great point Dan Jones, I couldn't agree more.. I'll raise you one unconscious activity; walk across a room and then walk back trying to focus on every muscle in each leg, each to and how the perfect gain can be obtained.  I'd wager just walking without overthinking each motion of each step leads to a smoother stride.

[Dan Jones]

The article I mentioned above is "How to Throw a Baseball" by Mark Kingwell.  It appeared in the NY Times on March 31, 2017. Some of the many comments posted about the article by readers are also right up the alley for archers.

[Rough Run]

When things go awry for me, I find that I am either thinking too much about things other than archery, or not thinking at all, simply going through the motions.  I have found the key for me is to focus on engaging my back more correctly.  I focus on the feeling around my right shoulder blade and lat.  For me, that sets in motion the other aspects of proper form and helps my shooting very noticeably.  And when shooting, I always make sure I finish with a good/improving series, whether in the back yard or on the course.  That has helped a great deal, also.

[Sam McMichael]

As Yogi once said, "90% of this game is half mental". He was talking about baseball, but it likewise applies to archery. However, it is possible to overthink the game.

Form, in particular, is very much a mental process. We learn each stage of the shot process in a very practiced and deliberate manner. We think about each individual step as we learn to put the shot together.

Once we learn each technique, we practice until the muscle memory allows us to then perform the shot smoothly without the step by step conscious concentration each time we pull the string. Instead, we can then concentrate on picking a specific spot to put the arrow into.

In a way, the mental aspect is very much a part of all we do with a bow, but the focus is moved from the mechanics of the shot to concentration on point of impact. It is all far more complex than this simple illustration, but once we reach the point of only needing to fixate on "the spot", and, assuming we can filter out work, household chores, etc., we can enjoy accuracy and a sense of plain old fun.

[bear bowman]

While at a shoot this weekend, something very funny happened. We had a group of five. A group of slow wheelie guys let us pass through. We were all shooting well. When those guys let us pass, they were all standing behind us, watching us shoot. Every single one of us missed that target. Talk about mental:)

[riivioristo]

Too simply perhaps, but to me it goes like this: Sometimes I just enjoy watching the arrow fly so much, that I begin to be just a spectator of my own shots  
...no concetration to the shooting itself = resulting poor shots - the cure:
Getting my mental attitude back on track - wrestling the anchor in its Place and wanting to shoot the arrow in its Place By picking a spot in the target...kinda agressive attitude...heck, Im gonna make this shot count...