First off let me say that.... I just want him to be successful with his selfbow. I also want him to have a clean kill (because guess who's going to do the tracking)....but on to our story.
There's two things that my dad has done half decently....He made a bow and made a string. He seems to overlook every other aspect of traditional archery: tuning bow and arrow, sharpening broadheads, shooting form, etc.
I'll describe him as an old dog that cant learn new tricks, and extremely uncoachable. His golf shot is on par with Charles Barkley's (terrible form), his softball swing is cringeworthy, his pistol stance is of his own design (in a bad way), and (in our case)worst of all his bow form is just atrocious. BUT his brain must be amazing, because if you watched him do any of those things you'd say he'd be terrible, but he does ok, he's found his own way and practiced at it until he's decent. He's the kind of guy that takes advice as criticism and gets frustrated. He's the kinda guy to put in minimal effort but (luckily) get the most reward. He's also a believer in "Kentucky windage". If his rifle is shooting 3" to the right, he'll aim 3" to the left instead of adjusting it. He picks something up, does it or shoots it, and that's just the way it is, and he compensates with his mind until he reaches mediocrity.
So on to archery...
Just shooting around in the backyard he usually tells me that "I have to get within 20 yds", "I think my max range is 17 yds"... stuff like that. And that's perfectly commendable. ( honestly, I think I want to get him within 10 yards the way he is shooting).
And despite his terrible form he manages to hold about a 4-5" group around 10-12 yards.
I'm no coach, but I see a few things immediately:
First off he leans into the target, like 80% of his weight on his front foot, spine at a pretty sharp angle etc.
Next he only draws back until the back of his thumb touches the corner of his lip. He's 6'3", he should be pulling 29-30" pretty easily, I bet he only pulls 25" maybe.
Third, his arrows never impact or fly the same, sticking in the target at different angles (which doesn't bode well to the prospect of shooting broadheads). And I'm fairly certain that he's plucking the crap out of it, especially since he's not drawing all the way back. Back tension is obviously non-existent, and he's most certainly not pulling through the shot. I've discussed the way I aim, align, and shoot...I'm trying the 3 under fixed crawl, and must say that it has helped quite a bit...and I think that shooting 3 under using the point as a reference would help out his shooting. He says he's shooting 3 under instinctively. Which is fine (but remember the 4-5" inconsistent group at 10 yards and the 17 yard "max" (cough
) accuracy range).
As far as tuning, I've tried to set him up as best as I could (he seems to have no interest in learning or improving his setups
. When I shot the arrow out of the bow they hit the target, but most certainly "were not fine".
Soooo to the crux of the matter....
How does one go about coaching the uncoachable? How does one instill the knowledge that a properly tuned bow/arrow combo will shoot more accurately and penetrate better? (and its not "it is what it is", but can be improved). I almost feel like I need to pull a Leonardo dicaprio and somehow "inception him" into wanting to learn a better way
. I'm fairly certain that if you matched decent form with his natural ability to mentally compensate he could shoot that 4-5" group at 20 yards pretty quickly. The problem is that this seems like the kind of thing that he's going to have to find the motivation to do himself. I cant have that desire for him.
Obviously telling him that his form sucks, his release sucks, and he's not even pulling it back WILL NOT help our situation lol.
Do I just calmly tell him that there's a few things we can change to improve his max range?
Maybe get him a book to read? He built his selfbow following some old well known book (the title escapes me at the moment, but it was from pope and young I believe). Is there a good form/tuning book from a well known name that I could get him? I think he respects the old famous names, bear, hill, pope, young, etc. I'm just his young know it all, engineer, perfectionist, never wrong son (basically whatever I say seems to be worthless to him).
Anyway...
If anyone has any tidbits on the best way to approach this sort of situation im all ears
Topic: Soliciting advice for giving unsolicited advice (helping my dad's bad form) (Read 1321 times)
