Rob Shooting

Why fighting to recover a bad shot is a big mistake in the long run

I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there at some point in our archery journey. We might be at a competition, maybe on our clubs practice range or sat in a tree stand hunting.

We have nocked the arrow on the string, set ourselves up, starting our draw and got to anchor but something feels wrong. The alarm bells are going off in your head or your gut is telling you it’s not right.
Rather than coming down and starting again as we know we should, we push on with the shot believing we can make it happen. Willing it to work in our attempt to recover or force it.
What’s the result?
Well if we are honest with ourselves then yes sometimes it will work and we make the shot. Other times it fails, leaving us feeling and thinking why did we push it?
The problem is we are fooling ourselves each time we force the shot and it works.
It also lays down memories and processes in the brain that this is the right thing to do. IT’S NOT!! Plain and simple.
This can be very hazardous as there well maybe times you force it and it’s dangerous to do so.
It’s even more important for newbies to learn to reset and not push it.
I was coaching a family group last weekend, a couple of them had shot a little before so knew some basics. Like all newbies who draw a bow to anchor point and then try to aim, they can sometimes hold at full draw too long.
I tried to explain that its better to come down and start again rather than holding at full draw. This is both less tiring and it helps to condition your brain into knowing that drawing up doesn’t mean you have to shoot and it’s okay to come down. A fact that any experienced archers struggle with.
Thanks for reading.

3 comments on “Why fighting to recover a bad shot is a big mistake in the long run

  1. Great advice, now to use it! Thanks. Tim

    On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 5:05 AM My Archery Experiences wrote:

    > Rob Jones posted: “I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there at some point in > our archery journey. We might be at a competition, maybe on our clubs > practice range or sat in a tree stand hunting. We have nocked the arrow on > the string, set ourselves up, starting our draw and go” >

    Liked by 1 person

    • As I said in the post.
      There will be times you will draw up and it won’t feel right. Some element will feel uncomfortable.
      It is those that we need to address and learn not to shoot.

      Liked by 1 person

Feel free to leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s