I was talking to a fellow the other day who is working through years of target panic and is relearning the Hill style of shooting and aiming and our conversation led me to think it might help others too...I will relate shooting to other sports as basketball and football as well...
when shooting instinctively, we have been taught to concentrate so hard on a target that all other stuff fades away. just you and the target....
When shooting for form, our thinking is on form more than bullseye, and hence we start grouping arrows without really trying because our form is correct, and we are casually seeing the target. When shooting to hit the target or animal, our thinking is on the target and we are casually thinking on form.... opposite mental processes going on here...
I believe that when the shot sequence in a hunting/3D situation is slower, more methodical, we are giving the mind and body too much time to create the shot sequence, and we often get sloppy in form because we are concentrating on the target too much, and since the form is bad, the shot can't go where we are looking....
(relate this too a basketball free throw shooter trying to make the winning basket in overtime pressure....what's he thinking about? form, he practices his form and follow-through and then imitates that form while looking at the basket/target....if his form is off, the ball is off target too....)
Now imagine a hunting situation where we are given little time to think, a running deer or a deer approaching out of nowhere and giving us 2 seconds to set up and shoot....we look at the target, the body goes on autopilot, we shoot without thinking much, and the arrow goes where we are looking very easily and we wonder how....(this situation is akin to a football quarterback needing to make a touchdown drive in 60 seconds to win the game and he must throw perfectly to his receivers to do it...he just looks and throws and it seems his throws are awesomely accurate and he takes no time to think, just throw..)
So anyway, in my conversation with this fella, I brought up these scenarios to help him with his practicing and hunting shooting....when practicing, think about form, ingrain proper form while looking at the target and the arrows will start to group in the center, even though the target isn't the complete focus of attention...form is. learn a rhythm of shooting form, and next time a hunting shot is needed, if there is time to shoot with your standard rhythm, then think about form/rhythm more than the target...(give the mind something to think about other than the target) and since the form is done correctly, the arrow will hit the target. If the hunting shot situation is a hurried, no think situation, then let the body naturally do what it's been conditioned through practice to do and don't try to overthink the process...and the arrow will hit the target....like the quarterback hitting the receiver.
All this shooting stuff comes more naturally if you can standardize your equipment so that there aren't variables of bow weight, arrow trajectory, bow feel, etc. thrown in the mix. It amazes me much trad archers limit their accuracy to short distance... because all their bows will shoot the same at 20 yards... and they never really learn one bow/arrow combination well enough to shoot well at distances where trajectory comes into play. can you imagine how frustrated football quarterbacks would be if when the game was on the line, 50 yards to go for a touchdown, 30 seconds left, they were handed a football that was 50% larger/heavier than they were used to? Think they could hit the receiver then? or how about when the basketball player must make two freethrows to win the game in OT and someone hands him a beachball to throw...think he could get it in the hoop? Our hunting accuracy demands much more consistency than other sports, yet we hamper our own efforts by always shooting varying equipment...are we limiting our full capabilities?
Food for thought on a cold winter's day...
Topic: HH bug got me ... Part One! (Read 135873 times)
