Hi All,
Welcome to this week’s ‘5 quick tips’ email. As always, feel free to forward this message to your archery friends.
🛠️ Equipment recommendation
Let’s talk about pressure buttons, or ‘plunger buttons’ as they’re sometimes called.
There are countless options to buy, but I want to simplify it for you, as in reality there are just 2 choices.
Either use a Shibuya DX or a Beiter button.
If you’re new to archery and the Beiter button is a bit expensive, get the Shibuya DX. It’s the best budget button by far and there is no performance difference between this and the Beiter button.
If you want the best, the Beiter button is unquestionably the one to go for. As I said, there’s no performance difference, but it’s just more durable, easier to adjust, and needs less regular cleaning/maintenance compared to the Shibuya.
🏹 Technique tip
Some archers place their fingers on the string and then curl them to create the hook.
However,
make sure to create your hook shape first with your draw hand and then place your fingers on the string. This will help avoid your fingers slipping during your draw.
I didn’t realise, but this is something I automatically do within my shot and I recently saw it mentioned somewhere – I’ll share this in a future email…
You can also read more about the complete hooking technique in the
Set Position Technique Guide on the OAA website.
🧠 Mindset
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed with archery, as it’s a very technical sport and it can feel like you have to focus on many things at once. This can be even more challenging in competition, where it’s easy to start switching focus between lots of different things.
Instead, try and simplify and focus on just one thing you want to improve. For this weekend, whether you’re training or competing,
pick one thing that you want to focus 100% of your energy on and stick with it.
You might be surprised at how much simpler and easier your shot process feels.
💪 Try this in training
The
7+2 test is a benchmark to assess your strength and what poundage you can comfortably shoot.
Make sure you’ve warmed up and have shot a few ends, set
a metronome app on your phone to 60 bpm (1 beat every second), and draw to full draw whilst aiming at a target.
Then simply hold for 7 seconds, before
partially drawing back down to your setup position and then drawing back to full draw in 2 seconds. This is where the ‘7+2’ name comes from.
Repeat for as many reps as you can whilst maintaining your technique (it’s good to do this with a coach watching).
If you can do 8+ reps this means you have decent bow control.
If you can do 4-8 reps, this means you should consider decreasing your poundage or making an effort to get stronger with bow training.
If you can do fewer than 4 reps, you should decrease poundage and start bow training with a lighter bow, with good technique. Then gradually increase your poundage as you get stronger.
🎬 Cool video or podcast I’d recommend
One of my archers I coach
sent me this great podcast on visualisation – I enjoyed it a lot and I’d strongly recommend listening to the full episode. My key takeaway was that to be most effective, visualisation should be between 5-15 seconds, and should be done together with real, physical practice.
Visualising what you want to do for a few seconds before each shot is the perfect way to do this.
That’s it for today, have a wonderful weekend!
Happy shooting,
Ashe
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