Category Coaching

Links and articles on coaching archery

Jun 1 2016

Do any of you find motivation in song lyrics?

I know I used to have a playlist of rock tracks for when I’d be at the gym to keep me upbeat through the workout.
There are other tracks that make you think or possibly remind you of childhood. Maybe it’s a title track of a TV show or the first single you bought. So what has this to do with archery?
I was browsing YouTube as you do and came across the title music to The Flashing Blade. This was a kids TV show shown in UK back in the 1970s dubbed into English (I think it was French originally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZEDNkZ2L4).

It followed a small band of heroes in the musketeers theme, think sword fights and flintlock pistols. It wasn’t a big budget show or that good but it was Saturday morning and summer holidays tv which you watched on a rainy summers day. The thing is that the lyrics to the titles have stuck with me for years.
As long as we have done our best
Then no one can do more
This got me thinking about archery and how I’ve been struggling with confidence.
If you’re doing your best then great, you might not achieve your goals but you’ve done all you can. The key is you’ve done your best, you’ve made the effort.
I took the shot as well as I could at that time. Okay so you may have dropped short or thrown your arm, messed up the release but you tried. You set out to do your best and make the best shot you can.

Often there is the doubt that creeps in as to whether you have done your best. This brings me on to the next segment of lyrics I remember.

And we should never count the cost
Or worry that we’ll fall

Many of us worry about falling or failing whether it be at work, home or on a shoot. If that becomes the focus of our thoughts it is very self damaging, believe me I know. I’ve been there and still trying to find a consistent way out.

It’s better to have fought and lost
Than not have fought at all.

 If you don’t try then you’ve already lost. Yes it’s hard, read very hard, at times to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again. There is one thing I can guarantee,  you will miss the opportunity of every shot or arrow you don’t take.
The interesting thing about this was that I tried to apply some of these lyrics at the 3D championships last weekend. (Yes I will be writing a full review of this event in the next week or so). I hadn’t been feeling confident and due to work and life commitments hadn’t been doing enough positive practise. Yes I had been shooting but not accomplishing the results I wanted in grouping or distance judgement. So when the inevitable missed shot came in I wasn’t surprised, I started the feeling of self doubt and its at this point I thought back to the reading I had been reviewing.
I realised I had to approach each shot as a new start, far easier said than actually done. I forced myself to focus on form and that I was doing the best I could, if I hit or missed it was the best I could have done at the time.
Well it seemed to have worked. I shot two days at a champs and didn’t fall apart. I didn’t win any medals but I did better than I thought. In short there is hope out there for all of us.
Thanks for reading.
Feb 19 2016

lights, camera, action, I mean Archery

And the Oscar goes too…
Some people love being in front of the camera, others prefer to do the filming. The question is can video resources help you if you are an instinctive archer?A few weeks ago I posted an article on how we’ve been using a tablet computer mounted on a tripod to record archers at a club coaching session. So How does this help? This aids the archer as they can be shown exactly what they do when drawing up or at point of release. How their hand moves or whether they drop their bow arm. Often they think they are anchoring correctly to the face when in reality they aren’t because it all happens so fast , too fast for some to process. Recording them has huge benefits to the archer’s understanding of what they are actually doing as opposed to what they think they are doing.
Talking to fellow club members on Sunday they showed me footage shot on their iPhone, playing it back in slow motion to watch the arrow flight. With the growth of YouTube and ease by which people can make and edit their own recording I believe there are more budding Spielbergs are out there.

What we can learn from other sports

It is now common for touchline judges and sport referees to make lots of use of instant replays in games, multiple camera angles along with slow motion footage to aid their decisions. Managers and coaches use it for  post match analysis of players performance, game plans etc. So can we use it for our sport of archery, or more precisely for those of us who consider ourselves instinctive archers. I believe it can be used.
From my perspective I believe video resources can be immensely useful for many sports, field archery included and they are becoming more common.
One word of note, there are advantages and disadvantages of these helpful guides and video tips. For starters some may not be that helpful, so it is worth checking out multiple sources of information to get a more rounded understanding of the topic. If you are going to review these resources then make sure you watch a few different sites or techniques as each presenter convoys a slightly different perspective when they narrate their story. The important thing to remember is that they aren’t always right in what they say.
Some can come across as a marketing or sales pitch for the latest products or next development in the technology. Whilst others take a balanced view giving the positive and negative perspective which is important.Generally I’ve found these resources can be broken down in to three types
  • Instructional recordings  where a skill is demonstrated.
  • Video reviews of equipment, competitions or locations.
  • Personal achievement report.

Instructional –  these vary in length from a few minutes to longer durations. Short duration clips of a few minutes I think can be ideal for helping archers out on different topics from how to serve strings, to fletch arrows, to how to aim and shoot instinctively. The short duration is an important factor here as long reviews might go into more depth, but they are harder to find time to watch. Wolfie instinctive archery (https://www.youtube.com/user/Wolfiesairbrush) YouTube channel has some great advice for instinctive archery techniques.

Equipment reviews are good to so long as they aren’t marketing based publicity. I’ve come across a few that are more about selling the product than actually reviewing it’s merits and flaws. Jim Grizzly Kent Archery Adventures (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxl7N0J9Rc8kDnjV_BzH-yg) still comes across as a good product review even though they are now Merlin Archery Adventures. I think Jim does a pretty good job of giving a balanced viewpoint of the bows he reviews.

I also quite like the personal achievement videos; when someone has posted their own success story. You often see these pop up on Facebook sites and YouTube. It can take a lot of courage to put yourself out there for all to see and comment on. There are a lot of people who enjoy criticising others or simply being argumentative. 3d archery (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4HdCXofIA4jsWi1q9AdBUA) have some nice event reviews, showing shots from different courses, offering advice and views.

There are loads of different sites on the Internet so I’ve listed a few others sites that are worth a mention too.

Ironmind Hunting (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9zPmJfjW2R9r0y2uUzq9aQ) has some good instructional guides.
Jeff Kavanagh (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGoY0qpH8f11COXWkE8aLQ) is worth checking out for a mix of archery related topics.
Nathan Skyrme channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1kxvgSeCWZXdg4I6_BI5Zg) has also started producing some material and equipment reviews.
If you know of any others that you believe are worth sharing then add a comment here.

Making videos where I’m in front of the camera has never appealed to me. As someone once said “I have the perfect face for radio” , but I can see their merits.
Thanks for reading and don’t worry, I won’t be coming to a YouTube channel near you.
Jan 19 2016

Simple coaching tip

Use of technology to help archers

Use of technology to help archers

Those that follow me on instagram or tumblr may have seen the photo of a new toy my friend Andy has picked up to help with coaching. It’s a cradle that holds his tablet and allows it to be connected to a tripod.

View of the tripod set up

View of the tripod set up with Andy shooting

We were testing it out at our coaching day down at the wood and it has proved very useful providing a stable platform for recording archers shooting and then playing it back.

Provides easy playback

Provides easy playback

Andy has also picked up a little bluetooth remote allowing him to trigger the recording from a short distance. (Couple of metres)
Video resources can be immensely useful for many sports, archery included and they are becoming more common, with the growth of YouTube and ease by which people can make and edit recordings increasing the number of budding Spielbergs are out there.
Making videos where I’m in front of the camera has never appealed to me. As someone once said “I have the perfect face for radio” , but I can see their merits of using them in coaching.
For this reason I  have been using simple video software application called Technique for a while and in the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting more on their benefits in the meantime thanks for reading.