Today was my first day of Rick Welch's school. The day starts with Rick coming by the motel at 8:30 AM in his truck to pick you up, and getting to know him on the drive to the class. The class is held at the farm of one of his friends, Mr. White. Mr. White is about 70, has about a hundred bows on the wall of his workshop, and about 40 or so animal targets here and there on his farm. The farm is where Rick videoed his shooting DVD's, if you want to see what it looks like. Mr. White is a real Southern gentleman, and enjoys meeting the various people from around the country that Rick brings to his farm to shoot. Rick is easy to get to know and not intimidating, which is important, because he asks you to change just about everything you ever thought you knew about archery, and that could be pretty intimidating to think about. I can't imagine how you could change anything more than he changes and still call it instinctive shooting. He teaches purely instinctive shooting, according to my definition, which means that you do not look at the arrow tip or anything else in your peripheral vision. You focus solely on the target.
These are the things he changed about my shooting: my grip, the strike plate and shelf pad on my bow, the way the fletches are alligned on my arrows, the way I address the target, the way I hold the string with my fingers, the way I draw the bow, my anchor points, the way I hold at full draw, and the way I release the arrow.
As I would with anyone I am paying to teach me something, it is not my job to question what they are doing, at least while I am in class. It is my job to learn what they are teaching as totally and completely as I can. Later, after I get home, I may change some things back, or I may not.
I have been shooting instinctively for many years, and generally could get 5 out of 6 arrows into the kill zone at the distances I normally shoot. My concern was the 1 out of 6 that went right/left/high/low, and I didn't really know why, or what to do about it. All I can say is that after a day of instruction, I either don't have the 1 out of 6 that miss, or when I occasionally do, I know why they miss (mostly). And of the ones that do hit, more of them hit in the 10 zone than before. From that standpoint, the class has been well worth it already.
I will post again after the second day, and let you know how that goes. There were videos of the first day, and if I can figure out how to do it, I will post some for you to see.
I have also attended the BW instinctive school with Fred Asbell, and have been equally enthused about that. After things settle down a little in my mind, I will post my comparison of the two. The only thing I will say at this point is the the BW school is a class with a dozen or more participants; Rick's school is 1 on 1 (or at the most 1 on 2 or 3, if you want to bring someone else). There are advantages to both approaches, but I thought you would like to know that.
Topic: Anyone Been to Rick Welch's School Lately? (Read 1913 times)
