Form

01/13/2025

Ever since my youth, I have had an obsession with archery. I never knew what “Form,” really was. I could not hit a broad side of a barn let alone a 3′ by 3′ target. I was happy to shoot archery, but I could never place an arrow where I wanted it. As time passed on and I got older, I started listening to my parents more, older folk and strangers in this hobby. They were telling me exactly that same thing.

SLOW DOWN!

I was a speed demon in my youth. I wanted to get things done fast as possible. I did not want to do them. So, I would do them as fast as I could. I wanted to get back into games and watching TV. After that age of 15, things started to click. I did not say they really did click.

I shot Trap for several years as a Sub Junior and Junior Shooter. I was pretty good at it but I could have been better. I was too rushed and too fast into my encouragement to pull that trigger, I would always miss that target. After several years later when I was about 17-19, I was about to just give up on anything shooting related when one day. I actually did slow down.

It was back in say 2009 in Carthage New York 4 scores (24,25,24,25) and won that year’s Junior championship. I look back on that day while sitting here writing and noted these things that I changed.

• Wasting time to get to that target in a hurry was no longer a concern. I would take my sweet time getting that shotgun bead to my proper sight picture
• I had equipment that fit me well.
• I was confident in my ability and didn’t let anyone or anything bother me. I walked away from everyone between rounds to reflect on my past scores.
• Keeping calm and comfortable behind that firearm and my surroundings
• I didn’t let my ego get best of my mental state.
• I took deep breaths and focused on myself and not image of others around me and how they felt about me.

From then on, I would continue to persuade my parents to shoot more in trap and archery. I applied these principals to both schools of practice and my scores jumped significantly. My lowest score after I came to realization was 290 out of 300 in archery. Trap, was a 25 straight. I really never could get 50 straight.

I was much better at hitting stationary targets and shot placement than a round disk taking a screaming right had turn and breaking it.

From that point on, I began to improve my archery form. My teens and well into my 20’s I wanted to understand my body and what it allowed me to do and how to perform. I have always been FAT. I was only once skinny in my 20’s but that didn’t last long. I couldn’t stand being skinny, it did not suit me and l loved food! I am fat today and I will probably be fat until that day god rests his hands on my shoulders. It all comes down to how your soul is comfortable in that suit called a body. From then until my 40’s today here is my recipe for a form in archery and how it suits my style.

• I know my skin loves to be tactile. My skin loves that feeling of a bow string and what it is made out of; those synthetic fibers.
• My face loves to feel that bowstring touch my face, corner of my mouth and my nose on a sharp nose button.
• My eyes desire to see a glowing pin through that bow string uninterrupted.
• My release had rests comfortably along my cheek line.
• I have a bad ankle and my body tells me that quite often. When I stand with my feet parallel to one another I am most comfortable in pull on boots and sometimes even slippers or dress shoes.
• My body loves to be at full draw without no adverse tension on my bow’s string. It yearns to relax at full draw and focusing on timing of releasing that shot when that pin is perfectly within that X ring.
• My back is straight and erect. My gut does stick out, but who cares?
• I am confident and comfortable
• If I miss my desired point of impact. Who cares. I start over.
• I take my time nocking that arrow on my bow string
• I take deep breaths and focus.
• I realize I am a command shooter. I cannot and will not do surprise releases. I hate waiting for a shot to go off.
• I don’t eat a lot during or before a shoot. Absolutely no alcohol or heavily caffeinated beverages.
• I don’t talk too much to other participants. I am in my own little world.

01/14/2025

I did not post my last week’s league scores. Not because of embarrassment but a mutual understanding that I did poorly. I am mentioning this here because it was apparent to me that no matter of my above form techniques something more had developed to contribute to very poor performance. My score was around 230.

I was humble in my low point and understood this. Analysis after each shot during that league night came to additional realization that not every night we can perform at our best. For if we do perform at our best, that would potentially but make us as humans miserable, miserly and “Stuck up,” for lack of a better term. That makes me and others human and should be a pinnacle of human performance; an ability to fail. I am capable of failures and humbly welcome failure.

01/17/2025

Today early this morning, I proceeded for a practice session in hopes to provide a moment of enlightenment and understanding to that evenings failures. I was not out seeking full remediation, but an understanding of what I had developed to perform poorly.

My first few shots reproduced what i had encountered on league night. Below is a snapshot of that issue. To achieve this, I was shooting 4 arrows at 2 targets of a 5 spot league target. My shots were clearly going left consistently. I even attempted to adjust my sight by forcing it completely leftwards as far as it would go, but still this is what it was producing. I knew then I had some arrow release / form issue that was carrying over into follow through of my entire shot cycle.

I proceeded to achieve a zero of my sight windage and shot more rounds. Next few rounds were very similar, but one particular round, I had broken a nock off an arrow. This told me 2 things.

• I am consistent. This meant my form was perfect.
• My release cycle had an issue.

I sat in this range, all alone in a chair with my bow hanging delightfully next to me. I was inamored by it’s color contrast and beauty. It dawned on me that a very good friend of mine, Mark, had mentioned to me something that he was struggling with on our last practice shoot. “I am not pushing and pulling enough…”

What did that mean? I began to look into some videos and articles while taking a break and also reflected on my shoulder muscles becoming tired. I found this video and it really hit home. I found that I could tweak these few things today.

After watching this a few times I proceeded to employ 2 tips from this video.

• I finally understood what push/pull meant. A shooter must push their bow’s riser away from them while pulling on their release. I am using a carter Like Mike 2 and was able to do this with my index finger on that release’s trigger.
• dropping my shoulder to alleviate muscle activation and place resistance locked within my torso.

I began my draw cycle and form techniques. I immediately started to see results. My arrows started to impact where my pin had been placed on that 20yd target, still left, but grouped tightly together. Each shot felt good and was not a surprise release. I was still command shooting but allowing that push-pull motion to take up most of that slack where I was favoring comfort. I also notice increased steadiness in my pin and bow. I was no longer struggling to hold my bow as it was buried in my hand.

I completed several rounds with my sight out of desired alignment, but was enlightened by what I had just found out 15 minutes prior. I began to move my sight to accommodate my renewed sense of enjoyment and understanding.

After a new alignment, here was that result.

Next few rounds had passed. This was my next result.

My final round

I knew what I had achieved. That to me was my pinnacle of human performance. I understood a problem that had developed and sought to over come it. I got help that I needed and succeeded.

I know now that i need to add 2 additional things to my draw cycle.

• Push-Pull-Follow-through
• Drop my shoulder.

I could now tighten down and set my dead stop on my sight that I now achieved a good 20 yard mark.

Week ending 01/25/2025

On League night 01/21/2025, I had encountered a very weird situation that I have not seen before in my own setup. My arrows were very wild this evening. I had run a single game, all 5’s. However, after that first game all of my other arrows were ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Here is one picture of my evening. Bottom target is mine. Safe to say that I shot a dreadful score of 255 that evening.

Here is another picture that I found on my phone from that miserable evening.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I did not mind shooting a 255, not at all. At least I was consistent in some manner of speaking. Second picture shows that consistency. I had some help that evening by my pro shop owner who also shot in this league, and we managed to identify some slippage in my hamskea arrow rest limb driven rope. That was easily remediated and improved some shots, but not enough.

From here, I had quite a quagmire to deal with after league night. I had 2 tuning sessions to deal with at my local club close by my home that I use for practice. With help from my wife’s makeup cabinet, I snagged some of her foundation and went to my range. I soon learned root to my overall issues.

Below pictures show that I was getting vane contact on my rest.

On 01/25/2025 I had returned to my pro shop and it’s owner and I did some minor tweaks to this rest’s angle of rise and drop. Ensuring that vane up oriented arrows were able to pass cleanly over my Hamskea rest launcher in lowered position. We also found some timing issues and ensured they were corrected.

Moral of this lesson is that most often times, if a shooter has great form and is consistent, that it can sometimes be hardware failures.

01/28/2025

After last week’s session of minor adjustments to my drop-away rest, my issues have been resolved. On league night, I was now pitted against myself without my bow causing any unforseen circumstances or issues. I did pull a few shots, but I stayed in upper 290’s with my score. I am now back on track. My only issue that evening was some slight target panic and anticipation. I did noticed that shooting these targets are quite a bit different than at my local sportsman club. I may have to make a slight sight adjustment since I had to hold low on a few targets.