Archery Epiphany
Jul. 28th, 2009 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqA few weeks ago at practice I asked DJ to observe my form. I'd been consistently shooting well to the right for awhile now and I wanted his opinion on what I was doing wrong. It was then that we discovered I was jerking my bow arm (the one attached to my previously injured shoulder) to the right on release.
DJ did suggest a way of fixing that, namely force the arm to push straight out. So for the next few weeks I tried that but managed to overcompensate sufficiently that I was jerking the arm to the left. The problem was that I was doing it wrong.
Last week I finally put everything together - I needed to force my shoulder down while simultaneously pushing the arm forward. This stabilized everything for the duration of the shot and I started to go back to where I was. Instead of the 49 I shot the two weeks ago, I shot a 72. Still far short of my personal best of 97. What lost me was the speed round, where my shoulder unconsciously moved back to the bad position. Eight arrows, three points. Ugh.
But still, it was a start.
I shot better at Dragonslayer, but I discovered that holding my shoulder that way tires me out quickly, so by the end of the day I literally could not hold my shoulder properly.
Today at practice my average at 20 yards was 24 points. On those occasions where I didn't hold my shoulder properly I'd miss the target completely. I even managed to split one arrow with another ala Robin Hood! Another end I had four arrows in a two inch grouping (in the red rather then the gold, but still impressive).
So the good news is that I think I've beat this, it'll just take lots of practice to make my new form reflexive. The bad news is that for now it means I've got about 1 hour of shooting in me before my shoulder gets too tired and sore to continue. The ugly news is my speed rounds are going to continue sucking for awhile - I either take the time to get off six good arrows, or I shoot 8-9 arrows and have them miss. The choice is simple - slow arrows that hit the target are always preferable to fast ones that miss. Still it's disappointing.
DJ did suggest a way of fixing that, namely force the arm to push straight out. So for the next few weeks I tried that but managed to overcompensate sufficiently that I was jerking the arm to the left. The problem was that I was doing it wrong.
Last week I finally put everything together - I needed to force my shoulder down while simultaneously pushing the arm forward. This stabilized everything for the duration of the shot and I started to go back to where I was. Instead of the 49 I shot the two weeks ago, I shot a 72. Still far short of my personal best of 97. What lost me was the speed round, where my shoulder unconsciously moved back to the bad position. Eight arrows, three points. Ugh.
But still, it was a start.
I shot better at Dragonslayer, but I discovered that holding my shoulder that way tires me out quickly, so by the end of the day I literally could not hold my shoulder properly.
Today at practice my average at 20 yards was 24 points. On those occasions where I didn't hold my shoulder properly I'd miss the target completely. I even managed to split one arrow with another ala Robin Hood! Another end I had four arrows in a two inch grouping (in the red rather then the gold, but still impressive).
So the good news is that I think I've beat this, it'll just take lots of practice to make my new form reflexive. The bad news is that for now it means I've got about 1 hour of shooting in me before my shoulder gets too tired and sore to continue. The ugly news is my speed rounds are going to continue sucking for awhile - I either take the time to get off six good arrows, or I shoot 8-9 arrows and have them miss. The choice is simple - slow arrows that hit the target are always preferable to fast ones that miss. Still it's disappointing.
