What does it mean to ‘own your form’? It depends on where you are in the learning continuum.

In the early stages of form development, a coach will dictate what needs to be done and make sure you adhere to good basic form. Variations in what an archer does at this point can often lead to incorrect static positions and dynamic movements.

An intermediate archer will begin to exhibit some consistency from shot to shot and there will be an improvement in performance. This stage is fraught with potential pitfalls, but this is the time when an archer begins to understand what it is they are trying to do every time they pull the string back.

As an archer moves through the intermediate stage to an advanced level, they need to own everything in their archery. Part of the ownership is an optimization of their form. Very slight changes can yield impressive gains, or perhaps a degradation in performance. This optimization, or experimentation, is essential in becoming the archer they aspire to be. There are many caveats to this process, the biggest of which is understanding how to get back to the baseline shot.

Some examples of shot optimization might be a modification of an anchor point, a change in stance, a string alignment change. Just about any static position, or dynamic movement could be the focus of ‘advanced shooter’ tinkering. As one can readily see, if you make any change, your performance can take some interesting turns. Any change should be within the framework of good basic form. A change should be carefully considered and given adequate time to implement. One of the worlds foremost coaches says making a permanent change can take 20,000 shots.

An archer then has to evaluate if the optimization has had the desired effect on their shot. This is of course vetted in competitions. It is often very hard to let go of something not yielding results, simply because of the time invested to make that change.

A coach can help guide a shooter with evaluation and efficacy of what that archer is trying to do with their form. This whole topic can seem daunting, but when trying to elevate oneself to the best version of ‘you’, this process is a necessity.