Given the huge amount of information people have been posting lately to help with target panic I thought I'd post something that I found very useful. I'm no archery coach but it's given me excellent results so maybe it's worth a try?
FYI - my brand of panic consisted of an inability to hold on target. I could draw and hit anchor no problem but once I hit the aiming phase I would immediately release on coming into line rather than being able to hold. Very frustrating for me as my shooting was considerably more accurate when I did manage to hold.
To get a grip of this I did the following:
-implemented Jay Kidwell's tips into my shooting sessions with at least a 50% let down rate from anchor.
I had also read in Anthony Camera's book - 'Shooting the Stick Bow' about a practice whereby the archer comes to anchor and holds at which point their coach gives a fire or let down command after a random period of time. My problem was that I didn't have a coach and my wife sure as heck wasn't going to spend her days doing this for me.
Here was my solution.
I have a digital wrist watch which has a countdown timer function. I set the count down for 30 seconds (long enough for me to go through my shot routine). I then put it on my string hand wrist facing inwards, picked up my bow and knocked an arrow.
At this point start the countdown running with your bow hand (while holding the bow) and commence your shot routine (whatever that may be). You will observe that with the watch facing inwards you can see the countdown timer while holding the string. Somewhere between 10 - 5 seconds I draw the bow, come to anchor, aim and hold on target.
If the shot feels right the alarm going off at the end of the countdown trigger's my release. If it does not feel right I let down. It took me less than 5 minutes to teach my brain to hold until the beeper. After that it became so easy as to be laughable that it was so hard to hold on target before hand.
Once I learned to let the beeper trigger the shot I started to do some REALLY accurate shooting. My confidence went through the roof and I began to feel an extreme sense of calm while at anchor and I KNEW my arrow would go where directed. I began to enjoy the feeling of being at anchor rather that the previous 'THERE'S THE SHOT - RELEASE' imperative I had been fighting for so long.
Once I got to this point I began shooting without the timer every shot and found the new ability to hold still existed. MORE CONFIDENCE.
I shoot everyday and my routine is now as follows:
-warm up with several Kidwell drills without releasing a shot.
-begin shooting at a rate of 50/50 let down vs. shot execution.
-once warmed up enjoy the shooting.
-if I feel myself starting to slide into old habits use the count down timer to gain control again.
Anyway. That's it - an economical option for those of us without a coach to help us through our slumps.
Hope this helps someone!
Cheers,
Ross
Topic: Wrist watch = target panic archery coach (Read 1279 times)
