# Practice Routines and General Coaching questions



## jonas111 (Nov 27, 2009)

I am fairly new to archery (under 2 years) and I have been quite intrigued by the sport. I have a competitive personality and I have managed to become a fairly good shooter in this short time. There is a small archery shop that got me started but I have now, with the help of AT, become better then most everyone in our small town. I have gotten to the point where I need to have someone give me some professional advice on practice routines and shot sequence. 

I have taken up target archery and have become obsessed with it. We ran a league last season that went twice a month. It was Vegas style 300 rounds. I averaged 292 on the season and I ended up winning the league. Since then I have been working hard on my shot sequence with a hinge release. Last night I shot a 299 19x and a 298 17x so I feel I am getting better all the time. I feel like I am lacking in the way I release the arrow. The hinge release gets more and more inconsistent the more tired or fatigued I get. 

How do I create a system to make my hinge style release go off with less pulling through the shot. I feel the harder I create back tension the more my dot moves around and I get more inconsistent. 

I have goals to go to vegas but I also want to compete at long range as well. Any advice will be listened too intently so please do not hold back. If there is books or videos you recommend to help me please let me know. 

Thanks in advance 

Kyle


----------



## recurvist22 (Jan 13, 2010)

Best video I've seen in regards to execution. Also, make sure to keep your posture straight and your shoulder down. When I start to get fatigued, my shoulder tends to want to rise up. When your shoulder rises up, it keeps your drawing arm from rotating properly and makes properly executing a back tension release very difficult. Are you giving yourself adequate rest time in between shooting? Just something as simple as having rested muscles makes shooting good much easier.http://www.performance-archery.tv/?q=node/53


----------



## [email protected] (Aug 3, 2010)

The actual movement of your scapula should be a very small precise movement to set off your arrow.I think you should work on your rhythm of your shot eyes closed on the bail.Your release should be the same every shot.Reward your brain with a feelgood feeling of just releasing good shots.Al Henderson said whenever an archer is having problems he would ask when is the last time you shot up close eyes closed on a bale.Doing this will get you a consistent rhythm and more consistency with your release.Get Al Hendersons understanding winning archery and grab any material from Len Cardinal in my opinion two of the best.Good Luck


----------



## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

Indoor archery is a game of perfect. To compete at the higher levels, you have to perfectly execute every arrow of the entire round. One arrow that's not perfect, & you don't make the shoot off.

So where does that consistency come from? First you have to have a shot sequence that you can trust to run without conscious guidance. Many fail because they don't write down their shot sequence and follow it on every arrow. Nothing says that you can't change the sequence if you find a better way to do something. But if you don't have it or don't trust it, you won't get to where you want to go.

How do you develop a trusted shot sequence? One step at a time. Get on a blank bale and concentrate on one part of your shot at a time. Remember that concentration is what the mind sees, not what the eyes see. Try to shoot a good shot, but focus your mind on one thing at a time. On each arrow, ask yourself, "how did I set it and what did I get for it?"

The idea is to get each step of your shot to run without conscious supervision. You can focus your conscious mind on only one thing at a time and the goal is to get to the point where that one thing is aiming. The bad news it that this takes a lot of time. Most who fail at this are simply not willing to stay on the bale long enough.

Once you shoot the blank bale until you are sick of it, then comes the real work of developing your shot. That it the bridge. The bridge begins with a large target at close range. Paper plates work well for compound archers. Also, this is when you begin to immerse in aiming. The goal of the bridge is to find the things about your shot that you don't trust. Remember that at this point the entire plate is the X ring. An arrow that lands anywhere on the target (plate) is an X. As you add a target and distance, you are putting pressure on your shot. At some point the added pressure will reveal what part of your shot is not as trusted as it should be. You will know it because that part of your form was "less than" it was on the blank bale. As soon as you shoot a less than shot, stop shooting. This is really important. Don't shoot another arrow until your next practice session. At that next practice session, go back to the bale and shoot at least 100 arrows focused on that part of your form that was less than. You should drill all of the parts of your form at each practice session, so this 100 shot "punishment" will take several days. Then start over with the paper plate at close range. 

Note, the worst "less than" that you can do is to let your conscious mind wander away from immersion in aiming. Most bad arrows in competition result from loss of focus on the X. For most this is the hardest thing in archery to master. 

Keep shooting the paper plate until you get back to 30 yards. At 30 yards, additional distance doesn't add much pressure so at this distance you have a shot sequence that trust to run unsupervised by your conscious mind and you can immerse in aiming.

Then it's time to begin your accuracy bridge. It's really important that you don't do this until you have run your bridge out to 30 yards with no "less thans". If you don't trust your shot sequence completely, you are wasting your time. Start at about 10 yards with a paper desert plate. These are smaller than the plates you have been shooting. Shoot a perfect score each day for three days. Again, the entire plate is the X ring. After 3 days, go back to 15 yards. Continue stepping back every three days until you get to 50 yards. Then come back and put up a regulation target at 10 yards. As long as you can shoot a perfect score for 3 days in a row, keep stepping back. Pretty soon, if you refuse to shoot a bad shot, you'll find yourself in the shoot off at Vegas. 

What I've left out above is the specifics of what to practice. For that I refer you to the following:
Larry Wise's book "Core Archery"
Bernie Pellerite's book "Idiot Proof Archery"
George Ryal's posts on Archery Talk. His username is GRIV. Oxford put the best of them in the Information forum'
George's videos - there are two of them, one dealing with tuning and the other with form. Both are worth having.
"Straight Talk from the Pros" video. A huge amount of good information.
Larry Skinner's video and book - Mostly about Olympic recurve shooting, but great information on the most stable form.

There is a lot more to it than this but this will get you started. 

Hope this helps,
Allen


----------



## jonas111 (Nov 27, 2009)

Thanks for the information. It was hard for me to find out the appropriate avenue to take to get the level I want to achieve but the information above will definitely help me get there. 

I have a couple of the videos listed above and own the Larry Wise book core archery. Ive been reading that book over and over trying to create my shot sequence. I am 0-2 hdcp in golf and shot sequence is very important in golf. I really didn't want to practice incorrectly and create a bunch of bad habits that are hard to break. I really wanted to create a solid foundation so my form and shot sequence are refined and shooting an arrow perfectly would be my habit. 

From my experiences in life I have found that a person may shoot really well in practice and no pressure situations and as soon as there is pressure applied it shows any flaws in that persons form or shot sequence which in turn will make him miss the shoot off. I want to make my form and shot sequence a habit so in a super high pressure situation my habit is to execute properly, kind of like the only thing I know. Does that make sense. 

Thanks again for the great information.


----------



## [email protected] (Aug 3, 2010)

excellent advice from Aread


----------



## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

jonas111 said:


> ...From my experiences in life I have found that a person may shoot really well in practice and no pressure situations and as soon as there is pressure applied it shows any flaws in that persons form or shot sequence which in turn will make him miss the shoot off. I want to make my form and shot sequence a habit so in a super high pressure situation my habit is to execute properly, kind of like the only thing I know. Does that make sense...


That makes perfect sense. It seems to be one of the steps in an archers progression. If they practice the right way, and achieve confidence in their shot, the practice scores begin to show up in competition.

The question "how did I set it and what did I get for it?" is a big help in shooting well in competition. If you know the answer, you will know your shot and how to get into it. And you will know if something is not right.

Hope this helps,
Allen


----------



## [email protected] (Aug 3, 2010)

jonas you want to make your form and shot sequence run subconsciously so you are totally free to AIM with total focused concentration.


----------



## jonas111 (Nov 27, 2009)

[email protected] said:


> jonas you want to make your form and shot sequence run subconsciously so you are totally free to AIM with total focused concentration.


This is precisely what I will be working in over the next four to six months. As long as I put the proper time in practicing properly it shouldn't be a problem. 

Thanks for all the advice


----------

