This week was spent doing some experimentation with both my release hand position as well as my elbow height. Both were inspired by watching many different videos of various pros shooting. Before I get too set in my form I want to make sure to try out different ideas and better understand various ways of doing things.
First up was to try the release placement behind my second knuckle rather than my normal way of using the first knuckle. At first this felt very strange and abnormal, but after several practice sessions I really began to like the position. What I think I like most about it is that it places the trigger far back into the base of my thumb and feels solid when pulling through with back tension. Most of my time shooting this way was spent with either just the rope loop or blind bale shooting.
Secondly I played with my elbow height. This week I pushed my elbow up a little higher to see how it affected my shooting. Throughout the entire week I kept the elbow up. My feeling is that I went too far and need to bring it down somewhere in between. It felt like I had to consciously push it up and it wasn’t quite natural for my bone structure. I like the higher elbow, just not quite as high as I was trying.
For this week’s target I decided to put my two practice rounds onto the target as well as the scoring shots (practice are green). I started with the release behind my second knuckle and the first shot was as perfect of a pinwheel as possible. My spirits where high with that shot, only to be dashed to the rocks for the next five shots. Something just wasn’t clicking quite right. The shot form felt good, but I think I was focusing so much on getting the form right that the aiming suffered.
I made the decision to go back to first knuckle shooting and the shots flowed mostly well for the rest of the session. What I find interesting is that when I missed, I missed big! When my form and aiming break down, the break all the way down. One thing that I need to work on is instead of trying to force a bad shot to be good, I should immediately let down and reset. This has always been something that I’ve struggled with and for some reason I’m so stubborn that I feel I can overcome the bad aiming by forcing it.
This coming week I’ll work more with the second knuckle shooting because it does feel good, but I need to ingrain the form into my subconscious more thoroughly so that I can concentrate on aiming.
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