Archery

A lot of things came together at range practice today.

I had woken up and gotten to practice, but my head wasn’t in the game. I had a bit of help from someone, reminding me about the negative self-talk that happens. (The source of this came from an energy that is not related to archery, but started latching on to it).

Instead of worrying about aiming, I started to draw and release in a smooth motion. I told my body there was a limited window to aim. I started being able to shoot better.

It felt better to have a good form that flowed.

This is also the first range practice I had since coming to a new understanding of how my bow-arm shoulder works. Those small muscles are not load-bearing – they dynamically adjust the geometry of the shoulder socket so that the load can pass through to the rest of the body. There is no need to grip the bow tightly (a looser grip allows for a cleaner release). As a result, I was able to shoot many more arrows without the shaking that comes from using muscles to hold things steady.

I also tried to make sure my hip socket rotation is correct, so that the load can pass through my legs.

The result is that I was suddenly finding myself having smooth, continuous draws that feels a lot more like my other martial arts practices. I found that stopping or reversing had a more negative effect on my shooting.

So instead of stopping to aim, I am aiming as I draw, and my body knows there is a limited window to aim and release. And this can move right through to the expanding release.

When my time as champion for the barony (SCA) ends, I’m going to start practicing on small targets as Gao Yin suggests. I’ve come to understand that I don’t want the dopamine feedback loop to be ok with missing on the standard FIFA targets. They either hit that smaller target, or they don’t. But I’ll start off at the shorter range – 5 yards, 10 yards, and work my way to the 20 yards.