# Shooting bad shots



## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

I suspect that is a sin that many of us commit. 

Those who commit it the fewest times are the ones with the better scores.

Allen


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## hoytelement24c (Jun 4, 2013)

As long as you know what your issue is to start with you should be able to conquer it...Hope you well!!!


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Hope you get it worked out.


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## rohpenguins (Dec 2, 2012)

glad you got it worked out. I struggled with the same issue for a while.


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## subconsciously (Aug 22, 2009)

It all focuses around process. A part of the process is skipped/missed. Thus different or unwanted result.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

Back from shooting. I had a difficult time executing my plan perfectly and shot more bad shots than I wanted to. That said; I do believe this path will result in improvement in my overall shooting but at the same time understand this is going to take some work on my part to get it burned into my brain. There was also a minor setup issue that prevented me from letting down much. I recently installed my d-loop under the nock to reduce torque and this causes my arrow to jump from the string on let downs. I also found that the bow wasn't settling down quickly enough so I may have to do some tweaking of my setup as well. I did find that by waiting for the bow to settle down I'm better able to identify some issues. That has to be a good thing. BTW I shot a 439 with one very poor 26 end.


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## SonnyThomas (Sep 10, 2006)

Just asking...How much draw weight you pulling? I mean, rushing comes from something, picked up bad habit or other. Wouldn't hurt to find out. Full turn out shouldn't require any other adjustment for the test.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

SonnyThomas said:


> Just asking...How much draw weight you pulling? I mean, rushing comes from something, picked up bad habit or other. Wouldn't hurt to find out. Full turn out shouldn't require any other adjustment for the test.


I'm shooting 50# on my Supra and 55# on my Dominator. I don't think this is the issue as I'm not struggling at all with these weights. I do recognize the back end feel may be a problem though and I'm game for anything.


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## N7709K (Dec 17, 2008)

If you want to get over bad shots move up close and simply do not shoot a shot that isn't setup correctly. Don't shoot iffy ones or ones that don't feel that bad; it's either perfect or it's not. First couple times you'll shoot 20% maybe of the shots you draw back- after a week or two it's gonna be 60% or more. 

It ain't fun, but it works- I've had days where in 150 arrows I shot idk maybe 15... But it fixes issues quick


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## steve morley (Dec 24, 2005)

If you feel you have control of the weight and executing good at the bale then no reason to move in close it's an issue with the process and not Form and it's your shot discipline that needs work, it is a discipline that needs to be obtained during a proper scored round. Simply put if it's not right come down and restart the shot.


If you shoot a PB don't expect to do the same next time, recalculate your average score and plan to shoot a couple of points either side, look to maintain or improve your average and don't obsess on the high/low scores

The worst thing about Indoor rounds is it shows up these process issues, the best thing about Indoor rounds is it shows up these process issues.:thumbs_up


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## cbrunson (Oct 25, 2010)

EPLC said:


> Back from shooting. I had a difficult time executing my plan perfectly and shot more bad shots than I wanted to. That said; I do believe this path will result in improvement in my overall shooting but at the same time understand this is going to take some work on my part to get it burned into my brain. There was also a minor setup issue that prevented me from letting down much. I recently installed my d-loop under the nock to reduce torque and this causes my arrow to jump from the string on let downs. I also found that the bow wasn't settling down quickly enough so I may have to do some tweaking of my setup as well. I did find that by waiting for the bow to settle down I'm better able to identify some issues. That has to be a good thing. BTW I shot a 439 with one very poor 26 end.


Back to the confidence with being able to get a good hold. It's not as easy as I or anyone else says it is or we would all be shooting 300/30Xs every time. But just knowing that if you can force yourself to hold it until it settles, will help you clean up most of the bad shots. Let down drills will help clean up some more. Practice letting down.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

back to the short bale EPLC....
a regular series of "let down drills". working on shot set up,...when any little thing goes wrong during the shot, let down immediately, with out any bit of hesitation what so ever. you have to learn to let down with no hesitation or anxiety. the let down, on a bad set up, is just as much a "reward" as a well executed shot, that goes in the middle, because it saves a bad shot from missing. you have to teach your process that little secret.


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

I think emphasizing natural letdowns in practice can train you to take better shots and halt ones going awry. Let down when the situation calls for it and train yourself to do it right.

But I wonder if letdown repeats -- regardless of shot feel -- are just training you to letdown over and over, ie, be a nervous wreck not trusting in your shot.

It's probably less true for compound but sometimes fitness is a barrier addressed by either more shooting days or cross-training.


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## cbrunson (Oct 25, 2010)

EPLC said:


> Back from shooting. I had a difficult time executing my plan perfectly and shot more bad shots than I wanted to. That said; I do believe this path will result in improvement in my overall shooting but at the same time understand this is going to take some work on my part to get it burned into my brain. There was also a minor setup issue that prevented me from letting down much. I recently installed my d-loop under the nock to reduce torque and this causes my arrow to jump from the string on let downs. *I also found that the bow wasn't settling down quickly enough *so I may have to do some tweaking of my setup as well. I did find that by waiting for the bow to settle down I'm better able to identify some issues. That has to be a good thing. BTW I shot a 439 with one very poor 26 end.


I have a 36" bar up front with about 8-9 oz in weights. It may take 5-7 seconds to stop moving after I hit the wall on my spirals. I have to force myself to wait even if the dot looks solid in the sight picture. One thing I have learned to do when I catch myself wanting to rush the shot, is to repeat the word "hold" in my head until I can see the end of the stabilizer settle.


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## cbrunson (Oct 25, 2010)

Azzurri said:


> I think emphasizing natural letdowns in practice can train you to take better shots and halt ones going awry. Let down when the situation calls for it and train yourself to do it right.
> 
> But I wonder if letdown repeats -- regardless of shot feel -- *are just training you to letdown over and over, ie, be a nervous wreck not trusting in your shot*.
> 
> It's probably less true for compound but sometimes fitness is a barrier addressed by either more shooting days or cross-training.


The way I learned to do it, was to draw, settle in and hold on the spot as long as you can, and then when you see the shot breaking down, you let down. Do it several times before practice to warm up. It will help you establish your shot window, and to recognize the shot breaking down early.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I forgot that I do this but last night I felt one of my shots breaking down and it felt horrible. In the past when I wasn't a good shooter I would feel a shot breaking down and I would fight through it and fire the shot and so many times it ends in a disaster. In fact I shot probably half of my shots this way which looking back on it was so incredibly stupid but I just didn't know any better, then I learned how to let down and everything changed. I started paying attention to a shot that felt incredibly good and I started trying to duplicate it and at first I just couldn't hardly do it even one time but soon I could duplicate a good shot a few times. After a while I got to the point where probably 60% of my shots on the first attempt felt great and I shot them but the other 40% I had to let down, this sucked because my buddies all never let down and made fun of me. It took a year but then all of a sudden I got to probably 95% of my shots felt really solid and I didn't have to let down as much.

I think the decision that I made that I am going to never send a arrow to the target that doesn't feel right was the biggest decision in the last year or so that has allowed me to move up to a much higher level of shooting. Why because it is amazing how a persons brain can justify a bad shot that has hit the target because you can pull the arrow out and shoot it again. By never making that shot I don't have to go and make excuses for why it sucked and I can go pull out good shots from the target.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

that's precisely what the let down drills, when done right, do. they teach and force the shot process and execution, to get off it's lazy butt and perform the way it should. by drilling into it's head, that you are not going to accept anything but perfect set up and execution, you establish a threshold of "minimum performance" that yields a shot to the center for your shot process. the higher this "minimum performance" threshold is, the better you'll shoot. by doing the let down drills, you set that threshold , so the "pickier you are in recognizing when a shot is not running right, the higher that threshold will be set. that is what "doing the let down drill correctly" defines.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

This is not a let down problem as I normally have no issues with letting down. As mentioned there was a minor setup issue preventing me from letting down the other day. This has since been corrected. Since then I've done some tweaking of my bar positions and shortened my DL from the longer position I was trying. The bow is setting up faster now which is helping. I shot a partial round yesterday and had some L/R improvement but was getting some unexplained 2" up flyers. I plan on doing a creep tune to see if there are any timing issues that need to be addressed. I also haven't ruled out there may be some grip issues.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

EPLC,...
if you're shooting shots that you know are "bad", you are having a let down problem. plain and simple. if the shot is running poorly and you don't let down on it, you haven't grasped the concept that a let down, is every bit as valuable, as a well run shot. it doesn't matter if the shot is running poorly from mechanical reasons or from mental reasons....it is a shot that is running poorly and should be abandoned. fix the "mechanical problem" or fix the "mental problem", the result is the same,.....the shot starts running better. the point is that they won't start running better until which ever is causing them to run poorly is fixed. if they are running poorly, the only fix, is abandoning the shot and the only way to abandon the shot is by letting down. if you don't do that,... you are having a let down problem.
either the whole shot runs well, or the whole shot gets abandoned....there's no in between.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

ron w said:


> EPLC,...
> if you're shooting shots that you know are "bad", you are having a let down problem. plain and simple. if the shot is running poorly and you don't let down on it, you haven't grasped the concept that a let down, is every bit as valuable, as a well run shot. it doesn't matter if the shot is running poorly from mechanical reasons or from mental reasons....it is a shot that is running poorly and should be abandoned. fix the "mechanical problem" or fix the "mental problem", the result is the same,.....the shot starts running better. the point is that they won't start running better until which ever is causing them to run poorly is fixed. if they are running poorly, the only fix, is abandoning the shot and the only way to abandon the shot is by letting down. if you don't do that,... you are having a let down problem.
> either the whole shot runs well, or the whole shot gets abandoned....there's no in between.


While we are in agreement about the importance of letting down, I am not having a let down problem. On "one" day letting down was difficult because my arrows would pop off the string. I have since fixed that. That said; letting down will not fix my issue as the issue I have identified requires that I allow the setup to complete before committing to the execution. Prematurely letting down would only screw things up as I have to wait for things to settle down. Now, if things don't settle down I would naturally have to let down... which I do on a regular basis.

Just so there is no more confusion: The "bad" shots that I was executing were not because of a "bad" setup, they were due to my "not waiting" for the setup to complete. Masters & Johnson might have called it "Premature Execution"...


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

OK I understand....
something you might want to try is the "shot window time drills", where you have a buddy time your shots, from anchor to the shot breaking and record the times that produce arrows that land in the x-ring. after compiling a series of rounds, recording only the x-ring shots, an average "shot window time" starts to appear. this amount of time is your "ideal shot window" and is the amount of time you should tailor your execution to operate in. you tailor the execution to complete it's shot buy letting down on any shot execution that goes beyond that "average time", there by training the shot to happen inside that window where good shots are produced. everybody has a specific shot window time of around 2-3 seconds where float is at it's minimum range and it is said to be around 4 to 8 seconds from anchor to the shot breaking. with the best shots happening in a fairly consistent amount of time as your "internal clock naturally developes a rhythm for your shot process to run consistently.
although it isn't the "let down drills" that I originally suggested, they are closely related, because the let down is used to teach the shot process, that you aren't going to accept a set up, or execution that doesn't run right or consistently. it can also be used in the reverse effect, by letting down on any impulse to loose the arrow before the sight picture settles, as is your declared problem. 
now, if you read between the lines, you'll get the picture.....it is a let-down problem, after all. the difference is that you're not letting down to refuse a poorly running shot, just the same as what I originally spoke of, only on the other end of the spectrum that is the definition of a "poorly running shot". instead of taking too much time, you aren't taking enough time.
as an example.....using your reference to "premature execution" .......in a view of the time frame of a typical shot window, you have, as you suggested "premature execution" you then have the period of time where any number of things can go wrong on either side of what is your specific "shot window time" and lastly, the period of time that goes beyond that specific time that produces the well executed shot. most people have the problem here, at the end of this time frame. they take too long to break the shot off and have to force it to go, because they start wandering around on the target and don't let down to start the shot over.
either side of that specific "shot window time" can be tailored. the effect has the same training on your mental process....one side trains your process not to execute too soon, the other side trains your process not to be lazy about the issue and produce the shot too late. somewhere in the middle , between these two extremes, lies the element of time that you need to establish to produce the shot that breaks, when the float is minimal, during that 2 or 3 second shot window, that your internal clock organizes.


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## EPLC (May 21, 2002)

After shooting all this time and having some successes I'm starting to understand that my methods have been off enough that I would never be able to step up to that next level unless I make some drastic changes in the way I think about my shot. I have made some improvement in my hold as of late and this has brought out other issues. I guess you could call it an epiphany as I can now see I have some fundamental issues and I'm really just hoping for the best when I'm shooting. Currently I'm working on improving my "hold". Once I get that in a comfortable state I'm going to have to develop a release that doesn't mess it up.


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## Padgett (Feb 5, 2010)

I think that for some people there are walls that are just hard to break through, I have been shooting with dshort for a few years now and finally this fall something clicked late in the 3d season and he just went nuts. He shot a couple of scores on tough courses that I always knew he was capable of shooting but just wasn't because of the walls, to me they seemed obvious but to him they were foggy. 

To me the answers to your shooting are right in front of you but you have to look at them with a open mind to first see them clearly and then train with them and make them reality.


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## ron w (Jan 5, 2013)

EPLC said:


> After shooting all this time and having some successes I'm starting to understand that my methods have been off enough that I would never be able to step up to that next level unless I make some drastic changes in the way I think about my shot. I have made some improvement in my hold as of late and this has brought out other issues. I guess you could call it an epiphany as I can now see I have some fundamental issues and I'm really just hoping for the best when I'm shooting. Currently I'm working on improving my "hold". Once I get that in a comfortable state I'm going to have to develop a release that doesn't mess it up.


 now you're starting to get the idea !. but you have to work towards it, from the other end of the shot process...establish the release execution first. then you will be able to develop the hold, because the release execution is what installs the confidence that allows the development of the good hold.


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