The mental game of archery

[katman]

I ordered the book, knowledge is priceless. I took Mr. Jenkin's class and have vastly improved my form, now looking to take it to the next level. Lots of good info in previous posts. What stands out to me is you have to find what works for YOU, no cookie cutter die fits everyone. so the journey continues.

[Keb]

For me it was one thing to pound paper and foam, I did well at them.

But put a live animal out there I would " Tony Romo" it!

Was not until I ditched the foam and paper and shot one arrow roving and stumping did the light bulb come one for me.

I was then able to make clean shots and harvest deer and actually rember anchoring and the shot.

I can now shot foam and paper better than before, but my bread and butter practice is in the woods roving.

I think if you don't train ur brain to pic the spot it won't.

With paper the spot was already there, but did not take the focus it took to find my own spot, that's my believe.

I was a basket case, so if I can get it, there is hope for all.

[Mo0se]

This is a good subject, an archer can practice all day long, make incredible shots in the back yard in preparation for a shoot. Either 3D or paper it doesn't matter. You can invest a ton of money in your equipment, you can tune that equipment til the cows come home! But the most overlooked and misunderstood part of the game is mental.

Something strange happens when we take our "A" game public for others to see. Everything an archer has practiced a thousand times and has made the same shot another 1000 times goes out the window. As humans we want to do our best at these shoots, we want to score well. But sometimes it ends in disaster at these events.
Why? we focus so much on our form and execution but rarely focus on fixing the mental side of our games. It's this exposure in public that will often times cripple an otherwise excellent shot.

We are often times not mentally prepared to perform well. All the confidence in the world won't matter if you have not "exposed" and "conditioned" your mental game. The only way to do that is attending more public events. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform well in anticipation of an event. We have expectations that are unreasonable sometimes.

Most of the ailments start when we focus only on the score, rather than the process of shooting itself. Often times we think of how well we will score before we shoot the first target. Which will undermine all the practice you've ever done. Our fear of missing in public can cripple us, and remove our ability to run a proper shot sequence. Once this happens our brains turn into what I'd call a survival mode, or panic mode.

We may no longer be able to run our shots like we did at home. The shot will often be more rushed than it normally is. Why does this happen? When we shoot we all have a "sight" picture of what looks right. When that is met the arrow is gone...even before we want it to be. We have not established to our minds that what we are seeing in a public setting is ok. So it turns into an out of control shot.

The only way to fix this is to condition yourself by shooting all you can in the public eye. We have to train our brains that its ok to fail or miss in public. I shoot a lot of high profile tournaments and this is [art of my story, I hope this may help someone.

[David lozzano]

this is great, thanks for sharing!