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Hi All,
Welcome to this week’s quick tips email. As always, please forward this message to any of your archery friends who might find it helpful.
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Last week I covered the 1st major mistake many archers make when moving their sight, and today I’ll cover the 2nd.
Mistake 2 – Thinking you’re shooting worse than you are
Take a look at the image below. This is an extremely common scenario.
It’s very easy to shoot a group like this and feel like your group is just everywhere. There’s one arrow in the middle and then it feels like your whole group is spread left and right across the target. So how are you supposed to know how to move your sight?
This is a great time to remember that the gold is the width of 4 scoring rings on the target.
So if you actually look at the group above again, you’ll see that the 5 arrows on the right are very well grouped. They actually all fit in the gold! And in fact it’s the arrow in the 10 which is the bad shot.
This is really crucial to understand. Don’t just tell yourself you shot badly because your arrows are spread out. Off-centre groups look much worse than they are.
Always ask yourself: “is my group centred?”, and “what is my true group size?”.
One problem a lot of archers struggle with is ‘postural sway’, which I talk about towards the end of my stance and posture technique guide.
This is basically just when an archer leans forwards and backwards along the shooting line as they shoot. This makes it very hard to feel what’s going on in the shot and if you can be more still in your body this will definitely improve your shooting.
So how can you improve this?
One of the best things you can do is to put something between yourself and the target, right in your line of sight.
For example, you can place a tripod so that when you’re at full draw it’s just touching the side of the target in your field of vision.
When you shoot, if you sway forwards or backwards the tripod will move in your field of vision, which will make it very easy to notice when you’re moving!
I call this the Posture Sway Drill.
Use this drill often and you’ll really begin to notice when you’re swaying around and moving during your shot. It’s a really great way to train yourself to be more still.
Someone sent me this incredible video last week of Kim Woo Jin shooting against a robot shooting machine, and I had to share it.
Kim Woo Jin gives the robot a tough time! Is Paris 2024 time for him to win Individual Gold? We’ll find out soon…
That’s it for today, have a wonderful weekend!
Happy shooting,
Ashe