Am I doing any good?

[3blades]

Recently I have been penned into my small back yard to shoot. I have a "Tuff bag" hung on the fence at 10 yards and I try to hit the small circle and triangles. That's all I am going to be able to do for a bit. My question is am I doing any good toward my over all accuracy or am I just getting better at that specific distance?

[Friends call me Pac]

Believe it or not you are doing fine.  You are developing form and muscle memory.  That leads to consistancy.  You have to have consistancy before accuarcy.  

When I practice I shoot about 10 minutes at distances up to 20 yards but after that I work on my form and muscle memory at 10 yards.  I don't really work at accuracy at that point.  I work more towards feeling the same shot over and over.

My son in law just started shooting about a week ago.  By the time he gets home it is dark so I had him do the same thing you are doing under his carport.  He came over yesterday and shot for the first time at 20 yards.  He was actually doing better than I was.  We were shooting at a balloon that was about the size of a plum and he would shoot 3 arrows then I would shoot three.  He popped 4 or 5 balloons before I ever got to shoot during the course of the afternoon.

[McDave]

It might be the best thing that ever happened to your archery skills.  All the good archers in this forum are always trying to get people to shoot at close distances at a blind bale, in order to improve their form.  If you have good form, the only other things you need are good concentration and a little practice at the distances at which you plan to shoot.  Most of us get a lot of practice at the distances we want to shoot, and never fully develop our form, so we really never reach our potential as archers.

When I attended the Black Widow instinctive shooting clinic, all of our shooting during class time was at blind bales.  I thought, this is going to be boring, which it was, but I could never have learned good form if we were shooting at targets 20+ yards away.  Fortunately, Fred Asbell and Ken Beck kept us entertained.

That was fine for the clinic, but the problem I had after I got home was,I didn't see how I could improve my form if I was just shooting arrows into a bale all by myself.  Wouldn't I just be reinforcing bad habits?

Actually, no.  When I started doing it, I discovered that removing the distraction of distance, I could concentrate on my stance, body position, draw, and release, in a way that I could never do when shooting at targets a normal distance away.  I found that when I had good form, three arrows often flew into the same hole, to the extent that I had to shoot at different points on the bale to avoid busting arrow nocks.  My accuracy became so good at about 10' that if you extrapolated it out to 20 yards, I should be shooting fist sized groups all the time.  Which I certainly don't do, because other variables enter the picture.

If you haven't had any formal training, you can learn good form from instructional DVD's or books.  It's pretty easy to get the concept of what good form is, but harder to recognize whether you are actually doing it.  Make a video of yourself shooting from various angles, and you'll probably be able to pick up on most problems.  Send the video to this forum and people might be able to help you pick up on more subtle things.

[3blades]

Thanks for the quick responses. I have only been shooting traditional seriously since June or July and really got the bug in August when I picked up a Samick Stingray at 50lbs. I was hoping that I would get some positive feed back from what I was doing.     I will continue what I am doing and learn more on good form.

[Terry Green]

Any practice is better than no practice....yes, you are doing good....but not at longer distances.  Get those 10 yard groups in tight, and then you can program your brain for longer distances at other times at other places.

[3blades]

Thanks again! I am motivated to shoot at this short distance now and knowing I am not wasting my time. Even big Terry Green chimed in! Nice...  

[TradDad]

I have a question sort of along the same lines...  I'm considering getting a Block for practice, just placed on the ground.  My concern is continually shooting at a downward target.  Will this affect my overall shooting form or, like a wise man once said, "Any practice is better than no practice..."?   :confused:

[McDave]

I don't know if this is a common experience, but most of my misses are over rather than under, so maybe having a lower target isn't such a bad idea.

[Stick_N_String]

I have a small yard I can only shoot out to about 15 yards. Most of my practice is at 10 yards( I don't want to have to retrieve arrows out of the neighbors yard .) Every time I go to the woods for hunting or stump shooting I shoot several arrows a day at different distances. So far the results have been satisfactory.
Daren