Last update’s lesson consisted on focusing and the same theme was continued the last couple of weeks. I have been struggling with switching between my target scope and the pin sight I use for 3D, and shooting with pins has suffered (see Archery and the Mental Game for details.) The last few days I have spent mostly shooting the 3D bow and attempting to bring my aiming with it back into line, with some pretty good success.
Today’s target started off very roughly with the practice shots far from good and a 9 thrown in the first scoring end. After that things settled down and I didn’t shoot another 9! Only one point off of hitting 300. A 299 is nothing to smirk at and I am quite happy with it, though I am disappointed in my ability to get those first shots in.
Even though the score looks good, my X count is still far from where I would like it to be. This round was looking good and tight for arrows one and two, but arrow three was significantly worse with only a few arrows finding the X and many on the outskirts of the ten ring.
I believe the issue is that whenever I put together a couple of good shots, I take it for granted that the third shot will be good as well. Often when either shot one or two isn’t perfect, I work that much harder to make three better. Both of these cases show a lack of keeping my mental game together and this issue is going to need some significant attention over the next few weeks. The ideal mentality should be that every shot by itself must be perfect and any shots before should have no bearing on the current shot. My problem is that I tend to rethink a previous shot or be looking ahead to future shots rather than focusing entirely on the current shot.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Waw, 299 is amazing result ! Sometimes I need few ends before I shoot mostly tens, so if you did it after first end, you are on the good way to 300
… maybe sooner as you expected
It’s getting there slowly! There are always a few questionable arrows that I fling that I still need to work on. The mental game is the toughest part by far.
Curious to know your bow specs and what arrow shaft you’re shooting such as (Brand,Van length-type, offset, tip-weight …etc etc)?
I’ll do a write on the gear I’m using for the next update; look for it soon!
Gear list: http://archeryreport.com/2010/07/300-days-300-equipment-corner/
I see by looking at your groups that after you got use to the bow that your groups were more consistent and a pattern developed of left cast arrows . I also noticed this same pattern in my shooting years ago and I was able to eliminate or reduce the size of these casts dramatically by twisting the cams left or right buss cables and tweaking the cam lean.(You will be surprised at what 1/2 of a twist in one side or the other of the buss cable will do (I shoot a Mathews Z7 now however I clued into this about four years ago when I was shooting a Mathews Switchback XT and I could get casts right or left by tweaking my cam lean. The same principle I believe applies for all bows, even two cam bows ) . The problem is bow torque ( what happens is after release the string strikes the cam grove slightly to one side or the other of the grove causing the string to oscillate, throwing/casting the arrow to one side or the other depending on which side the cam is leaning) Now I realize your 350 is a two cam bow so I’m not sure if this will make this cam tuning more difficult or not or if its a matter of just tuning one cam at a time and recording the results. I know that I’m amazed at how little of an adjustment it takes to see results. Give it a try, record your findings and you got nothing to lose you can always put it back to where you started from and no harm done!! I’m interested in your results let me know what you come up with………………. Good luck and great post!!!
Hi Michael
Did you ever progress further on this journey of yours? I am quite interested in your findings on technique changes and so on and would like to know how things are progressing.
Where can I ask more detailed questions about equipment issues … under your equipment post?
I look forward to hear from you.
Andre,
Thanks for asking about my progress! My day job required a bunch of out of country travel and by the time that was done it was time to hunt elk. These two things combined to stall out my quest for 300, and then daylight savings and nasty weather kicked in to make it tougher to shoot outdoors. While these things may have delayed me, the indoor season and indoor leagues are about to begin and I will be once again focusing on this project.
I would say the Equipment Corner post would be the best place to discuss equipment to keep things better organized.
Congratulations, you committed to a 300 day training goal and weekly progress reports and failed at both. You cant pick up where you left off because it will extend the goal line thus making it ?days to 300.
John,
I won’t deny that things didn’t work out as intended (see above post for why) but I’m not giving up! As soon as the daylight is sufficient to allow me to shoot after work, I’ll be back at it with 300 part 2.