Shooting Form - or to put it another way, how bad am I really?

20 July 2008

Some analysis of my FITA scores

Now playing: Built to last - Melee

I've got a handful of FITA scores under my belt now, and as these are the easiest to break down and analyse, I thought I'd start keeping a chart of how my scores are improving over what is considered to be the biggest test of an archers skills. To do well at this round you have to be accurate over both long and short distances, and have the stamina to keep it going for 12 dozen arrows. I'm beginning to get to enjoy this round now, but trust me, double FITAs are hard work!

1 March 2008

Shoulder stiffness, and controlling the bow at full draw

Now playing: Cherry Blossom Girl - Air

Been getting a bit of stiffness in my right shoulder lately, and it wasn’t until shooting today that I realised I was capable of doing something constructive about it, and how it has an effect upon my shooting.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been able to “pop” my right shoulder half out of its socket by moving the joint laterally. It would make a lovely gristly noise, and I could pop it back in again by rolling it forwards. A great party trick, but of no real use other than to make my family squirm at the sounds it used to make. I was fortunate that I was fairly ambidextrous when it comes to most sports – I bat with my right hand, but bowl with my left, I’d hit a tennis ball with my right hand, but the major sport I loved as a child was javelin throwing (Welsh Schools champion in 1978!) which I did with my left arm. So there was never really any large amount of pressure going through my right shoulder until it came to archery. As I’ve shot more and more regularly in the past year or so, I’ve begun to notice and feel a general stiffness in my right shoulder (I shoot right handed), and up till now I’ve just rotated it between shots, or stretched it out using lateral raises whenever it feels uncomfortable, and the stiffness goes away. I also found that swimming front crawl really helps it to loosen up.

Today, while shooting with the juniors, and practising for the upcoming Frostbite shoot and the Stafford at Milton Keynes in a couple of weeks (both of which are only 30m), I noticed that I seem to be developing two different draw styles, which appear to be dependant upon how my shoulder feels as I get to full draw. There are times when I get to almost full draw and my shoulder does the pop thing, and I rest into the full draw, allowing my back to take the tension (almost akin to a compound bow), and take a few seconds to aim the shot. Then there are times when I seem to keep my right shoulder rolled ever so slightly forward through the draw without the pop happening, and the draw comes to full just before the clicker drops. Rather bizarrely, the arrows shot using this method seem FAR more accurate (lots of 10’s and a few X’s at 30m in about 4 dozen shot today) although I’m spending less time consciously aiming the shot. Can’t figure this one out just yet, and I’m not always able to “not” pop my shoulder as I’m drawing, so like the shooting with both eyes open thing, I’ll just have to see how things progress through the spring, and play with the two versions of the draw.

As a point to note, I did shoot a 310 Frostbite, so I’m fairly happy with how things are going at the moment.

26 December 2007

More shooting with both eyes open

Now playing: Killing the Blues - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Merry Christmas everybody! Christmas came and went, got very drunk on Christmas Eve, spent most of Christmas Day feeling a tad under the weather, so what better way to blow the cobwebs out than to spend the afternoon of Boxing Day on the range? I wanted to try out my shooting with both eyes open at longer distances today, and as it was a beautiful windless afternoon it was the perfect opportunity to get out of the house for a couple of hours.

Started off at 90m shooting alternating ends of "two eyes open", then "one eye open". Shot about 4-5 dozen (with no misses at all!) and noticed a distinct difference in the groups with the differing shooting styles. With both eyes open the group, although all at more or less the right height on the target, had a strong horizontal spread across the target, and a tendency to be pulling slightly left with a few stray whites and blacks, not too dissimilar to this:

Then the ends shot with one eye open, the groups were much tighter, again all about the correct height, but tending to be nothing worse than blue, and which were much better, and looked a little like this:

This pattern of wider groups with both eyes open continued throughout the whole time of shooting 90m, so I then tried a couple of dozen at 70m, with almost exactly the same results. Two eyes open seems to produce a wide group, veering slightly left, one eye open seems to get them back on the gold again (ish). I think I'll continue with this experiment and see where it takes me, as it is definitely a more relaxed way of shooting, to shoot with both eyes open, I just have to try to control the group and tighten things up a little.

21 December 2007

Eye dominance, and shooting with both eyes open

Now playing: Headlights on a dark road - Snow Patrol

Up till now, all of my shooting has involved aiming with one eye closed, as I’m fairly right eye dominant (I also shoot right handed). At the club last night, as it was just a fun shoot, I started to practice shooting with both eyes open, just to see if it would make any difference and to see if binocular vision really does work. I’ve watched some of the world’s best archers at the Olympics and other premier shoots, and noticed that nearly all of them shoot with both eyes open, so I thought I’d give it a try. I’ve shot clout and field shoots and tend to keep both eyes open anyway, so maybe it will work with target too.

The first thing you notice is that as you’re looking at the target through the sight ring, is that you’ve got two rings to look through – weird or what? Try holding up your index finger and looking at a distant object through it – you’ll see two finger tips! So the first thing to try to work out is “which is the correct ring to use?” I think I kind of settled on an average of the two as I was aiming, but it's very obvious that the subconscious seems to take over and you naturally tend to aim correctly without really thinking about it. In talking to one of the other guys last night who shoots with both eyes open, (and consistent 1100 FITA scores!) his philosophy was that the brain will automatically work out where to put the ring in conjunction with the gold on the target anyway, so not to worry too much about seeing two rings. The age old trick was mentioned - try placing a coin in the middle of a plate; 9 times out of 10 you'll get the centre every time as the human brain is very good at lining up concentric circles.

We were shooting at poster type targets most of the evening, like pictures of animals, so it was difficult to put this theory into practice properly. However we also had a couple of Portsmouth targets set up as part of the shoot, and when shooting on those just as a try-out of my new idea, I slotted three arrows into the 10 ring! 

I'm going to persevere with this approach of aiming with both eyes open as it's a far more natural way to shoot, it feels much more comfortable, and I think it'll be easier to wear sunglasses in the summer too, as I wont be aiming at the target and looking through their nose piece - I'm so vain! 

18 November 2007

Now playing: The look of love - Diana Krall

Wow, it's been ages since I've written anything on this page! Six months' worth of competitions, practice and various other stuff have passed since I've thought about anything resembling my form or my general archery technique. But one thing has been bothering me for the past couple of months, and it's especially noticeable since the indoor season has just started, and that I'm only shooting 20 yards in a competitive environment at the moment. 

I started off the indoor season by shooting fat aluminium X7 arrows, and because their spine is a little on the weak side, rather than accommodating for them by changing the pressure button settings, I simply wound the windage on the sights out by about 3 or 4 turns to allow for their whippiness. This all worked fairly well, as long as I remembered to wind it back in again when it came to shooting the Navigators at longer distances outdoors. However, what I began to notice was that the amount I was winding back it in by was gradually increasing as recent weeks have gone by, to the point at which there were only a few turns of thread left on the sight ring screw before it was hitting the adjuster. I'd also noticed that the further in I wound the sights, the closer the ring was getting to the riser sight window when aiming the bow - not really an ideal situation. And to be honest, my indoor scores have gradually been getting worse too, so the two may have been inter-connected.

So on talking to one of the guys at the club yesterday, when he looked at the bow, it transpires that the center shot of the bow was way out, and this was causing the arrows to fly to the right as they leave the bow. We made a fair amount of adjustment to the pressure button, wound it further through the riser, and then wound the windage back out by 5 full turns again. Hey presto! At 25m all the arrows were now hitting the gold on every shot (on a Frostbite face), and the bareshaft was also landing smack in the middle of the group too, meaning that the pressure setting on the button is about right. I now have the sight ring back to where it should be once again, the arrows are leaving the bow cleanly, and it even sounds a little bit quieter, which I guess is because it's shooting more efficiently. Let's see if my scores improve as a result!

22 May 2007

Now playing: Nothing in my Way - Keane

Wasn't sure where to put this entry, as it's not really anything to do with form as such, and it's not a round or a competition either, but this seemed the most suitable page. 

After the debacle of the sight marks for 30m at Sunday's FITA at Laleham, I managed to get myself a few hours on the range today to sort out my sights and corresponding new sight marks all over again. I also took the opportunity to start off a new string (the Ann Summers string, as its become known!) as it has a slightly higher nocking point, and the nocking points themselves are closer together than on the previous string. 

Having moved the entire sight track up one hole, started the shooting at 30m, and was very conscious of the football players about 100 yards behind the target - this was a sure fire way to focus the mind and ensure I didn't miss! The grouping of arrows was no larger than about 4 inches, and started in the red at 12 o'clock and by the time I'd shot 20 arrows, they were all landing in the gold. This was a 122cm target face though!  50m, 60yd, 70m, (scored a 48 here!) and 80yd were all fantastic, and the string was making the bow sound a lot quieter than before.

Then the killers - 90m and 100yd. Moved the sight bar in halfway, and left the block more or less where it was for 80yd. First two arrows went perfectly straight and into the grass right underneath the target. Moved the sight bar back to hole #1 (although this is not quite all the way in) and listened to the sound of arrows landing on the target face - perfect! Finally managed to get them grouping (of sorts) too, and there's room for some adjustment downwards if necessary - FITA shoots are less of a worry now! 100yd is a totally different thing altogether though, even though it's only a further 5 feet! I was able to get another 2-3mm of downward adjustment on the sight block, but that simply wasn't enough, and all the arrows were hitting low blues and blacks - I need more adjustment!! I've noticed that I do have about another 1/2 inch of travel on the sight bar to bring it in a touch further, even though this would mean it's not locked into place on hole #1, so I'll have to give that a try on Saturday, and hope that it'll give me the extra adjustment I need. 

In total I shot about 15 arrows at 7 different distances, so a little over 8 dozen, and only had three misses all evening - I'm sure the football players were grateful. I've also begun to notice that the bow now has a definite swing to it on the follow-through too. At the moment its swinging behind my back after the shot, but a lot of archers seem to favour allowing it to swing in front of the body. I tried this on a couple of shots, and although it feels somewhat alien at the moment, I might see if I can develop this trend.

6 May 2007

Now playing:  I got you (I feel good) - James Brown

I've not written much about my form recently, and that's not because I'm becoming blasé about how I'm shooting, or that I'm shooting particularly well or badly lately. I just wanted a few months to analyse how (I think) things are developing, and to take some time to process in my own mind my shot cycle.

Some things that I've noticed over recent weeks are:

My back is most certainly doing all the work nowadays, which is a good thing! Anything more than about 6 dozen, and I'm coming away from the shoot with a definite feeling of "yes, I've shot a lot of arrows today, and my back is slightly stiff". This is a lot better than it was 6 months ago when my arms and shoulders used to ache from all the work.

I've also noticed how my best shots, the ones that I just KNOW are heading into the centre of the target, are nearly always the shots that I just come up to full draw, hold for no longer than 2-3 seconds, and pull through the clicker really easily. There's almost no aiming, no thought process, and no extended holding at full draw. It's just one swift movement, through the clicker and bang - a gold! Now THOSE are the shots that feel the best - I just wish I could do them with monotonous regularity!

And because those sort of shots never seem to happen very regularly, I can find only one video of such a shot, here

7 January 2007

Now playing: Dirrty - Christina Aguillera

6 weeks on from my last entry and most of the problems that were causing me issues before have more or less been ironed out. I'm now gripping the bow with just about *only* my thumb and index finger, and allowing my other fingers to rest naturally in a relaxed way, slightly curved. I'm noticing more and more that when I shoot like this my practice goes well, and my accuracy improves. What I'm finding difficult however, is coming to terms with the fact that if I shoot like this while shooting a round, it will improve my scores, and wont have a detrimental effect upon them - psychologically though, I keep wanting to go back to my comfort zone of gripping the bow with a high grip and relying on the fact the the "new" grip is the best way forward.  I need to believe that what I'm doing is right, and allow the rest to follow naturally. My coach isn't making any comments on my (former) high grip though, and my scores are gradually improving, so I guess I'm going in the right direction.

My other issue was following through properly, and trying to make sure that my right hand ends up somewhere near my right shoulder when the shot is completed (something that Matt seems a natural at). Having watched some recent videos of my shooting, my elbow is definitely going backwards after the shot, and I'm not dead loosing as I was before. Indeed, watching some others shooting around me, I reckon my follow through isn't all that bad!

25 November 2006

Now playing: She has no time - Keane

I think ever since I’ve started using a clicker, my coach has noticed that I’ve recently been developing the habit of pushing the bow down with the web part of my hand, and causing pressure around the base of my thumb, and leading up the base of my index finger. This in turn has made it look as though I’m gripping the bow with a “high grip”.  This is bad for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I’m gradually tilting the bow downwards during the shot, and also causing a bruise across that part of my hand – neither of which are good!  Having spent the past few months trying to get into the habit of gripping the bow less, I’m now having to break what is clearly a bad habit, and to hold the bow more level and concentrate on keeping my hand in an upright position rather than tilting downwards and using my wrist to do the pushing away from the shoulder.  

Need to work more on rolling my shoulder blades towards one another, and trying to imagine hitting someone behind me with my drawing elbow.

The other issue that I need to work on, but is less of a pain, is the follow-through with my drawing hand (the right hand).  Apparently I’ve been close to dead-loosing recently, and releasing away from my body, rather than drawing my hand in line with my shoulder and finishing the shot with the hand somewhere near my right ear.  This is a lot easier to work on than the above problem, and with a bit more concentration this should be eliminated.

The trouble was, when I came to try out these new aspects of my shooting, the weather had other ideas! We were only able to shoot about 3 dozen arrows before the skies opened in a major way and prevented us from shooting properly. I left the range just in time, before a major cloudburst, and I’m sure a lot of people got very wet up there today!