Instinctive "shooting"

[Earthdog]

As you can see I high lighted the "shooting" because this is not about aiming,,,it's about shooting.
I have a buddy I met 3 years ago when I changed jobs.
He walked into our smoko room one day carrying a compound bow he'd just got ripped off on,,,although he didn't know that at the time,he just wanted to get into bow hunting and a shop had sold him a seconud hand bow that didn't fit him,had the wrong arrows and was two weeks away from blowing up.
Anyway,the minite I was all this.I had a new friend to lend a guiding hand to.
He thought I was nuts for shooting an old recurve "hey the thing was brand new thank you very much"
Well he saw my collection of hunting pic's an then took to a property he had access to due to his family conections,which is about the only way you get on to most of the places in the area we live in.
While out there he saw me take a fallow doe at a distance he couldn't match with his soon to blow compound,an the penny dropped.
I helped him choose an buy an old Bear tigercat an gave him some very basic instruction.
I could see him turn off as soon as I started to get tech on him,so I just left it at that an started taking him to my club each Sunday.
It wasn't long before he was closing in on me at the sunday shoots and then last year he won our 3D masters competition.
Today if you asked him how he aimed,he couldn't tell you,if you asked him how he holds his bow,he would say "like this" an show you,if you asked why he shoots those arrows,he would point at me an say,ask him!
He doesn't want to know what constitutes a good release,he doesn't want to know the difference between instinctive aiming,gap shooting or any other form of aiming.
That man is an instinctive archer,he's a very good shot and he reminds me of what I was doing 40 years ago.
His name is Phillip Dickie,he's the current NZ 3D recurve masters champion,he's an instinctive archer,,,and he's my mate.

[T Folts]

Nice

[Maxximusgrind]

Its kind of funny how we overcomplicate things sometimes.As a kid,I never worried about aiming,but was confident in my shooting.somewhere along the way I grew up,started trying to Question everything and even myself.
 For a while I've been trying to get back to the fun of it.

[reddogge]

When the rabbit or pheasant flushes your mind should be on cruise control and you shoot automatically, no concious aiming involved

[zetabow]

Most people have to break down their shooting and build it into a repeatable shot sequence and some people dont.

I think the main difference is when the guy that just shoots by feel has a bad day (it happens to us all at some point) they will normally have a really bad day where the guy that has built a shot sequence can normally recover from a breakdown in focus/form within a few targets by falling back on their learned shot sequence.

When at the peak of shooting form and everything is working perfectly the person that shoots by instinctive feel and the person shooting with a learned shot sequence I doubt there is much difference in conscious thought process, it's automatic for both types of shooter at this high level, they just got to the same skill point from different directions.

Nice story Eathdog, always good to have friends you helped along to success, I Coached a few people who went on to National/International success and I felt like a winner too, it makes you proud to have helped.    

[reddogge]

I suppose I shoot a bow very similar to how I wingshoot birds with a shotgun.  I can't really describe how I do it, I just do it.  And similarly in wingshooting there are different styles of shooting like in archery.  Everyone must find one that fits them AND allows them to hit what they are intending.

[Yorktown5]

There was a long and contentious discussion on the other Trad site last week, which mostly proved we can be a cantankerous bunch.  I remember Nash Buckingham defining wingshooting style as the brain saying: "The last time I had a shot like this, I held here.  Bang."

As a competition skeet and sporting clay shooter, I'd find the bead (arrow tip) as a confirmation I had shouldered/cheeked the gun (anchor point) correctly, then shift focus to the target and when my brain said "yes" the shot just happens.  I called it "gapstinctive" and got a few chuckles.

[Earthdog]

Yorktown5,,yep that's me with a bow as well.
But the ducks are perfectly safe from me,I can't shoot a shotgun to save myself ;^)

[reddogge]

I never was into too much skeet, trap or sporting clays but I was always a deadly wingshot, whether it be quail, pheasants, pigeons, ducks or geese.  I got to thinking of how I actually shot and couldn't quite wrap my arms around it good enough to describe the visual or thought process.  If my feet were held to a fire I'd say my concentration was primarily on the bird as I tracked it and mounted the gun.  The barrel was in my peripheral vision and the lead was calculated by the brain.

I guess my archery shooting is similar, my focus is on the target and the arrow and bow is in my peripheral vision and the brain calculates the trajectory.

When you think on it shooting either is quite an amazing thing.

[Quinn]

My wife & I started shooting bows about a year and a half ago. We shoot 3-D with a bunch of guys, most of who've been involved in "trad archery" most of their lives. The wife refuses to shoot from the womens stake. Over the last year and a half she'll send maybe a dozen arrows downrange to warm up and off to the 3-D course, never practices in between, won't listen to anyones attempted suggestions and never even thinks about HOW she shoots.
I, on the other hand, have read the books, listened to the theory, watched the videos, spent a couple hundred hours practicing, grooving, experimenting with different arrows, gloves, tabs, cants, draws, etc, sending  literally tens of thousands of arrows down range.
I can usually out shoot her, but just barely... and for how much longer?

[zetabow]

Quinn the ladies have their own stakes???

IFAA everybody shoots from same stakes, my better half is regarded as the best female Field Archer in the world, 2 world and 3 European titles and holds all 6 IFAA world/European records, her National Field/Hunter records of 320/330 were higher than the Mens for a couple of years (all with a 35# Longbow) When she won the IFAA worlds in 2004 her last day Animal round score was the 2nd highest Longbow score in the tourney and higher than Larry Yiens (I still tease Larry about that) and if she was allowed to shoot against the Men she would have picked up 3rd place.

A couple of weeks ago we did a Indoor Flint tourney, she shot within 15 points of me, she only pick the bow up once in 4 weeks, I just cant do that, maybe its a woman thing. lol

[bolong]

Reddogge I couldn't have described myself any better than you did.