One of the behaviors I see quite often on the shooting line is a furious adjusting of the sight. The first question an archer should ask of himself before adjusting the sight is, if he made a quality shot? Do you know what a quality shot is for you? Do you have the ability to repeat that quality shot? I hope all the answers are yes, because moving your sight without having answered affirmatively will lead to adjustments which may actually be detrimental to determining proper sight positioning.

In the above picture, the low eight was at the front end of the sequence. I knew I made a weak shot and left the sight alone. The result was the balance of the group in more or less the middle of the target. At 70m, it takes very little to move an arrow multiple rings.  The point is, I knew I made a less than optimal shot and made the correct decision to leave the sight alone.

Last weekend I shot in the North Region FITA Field. An archer I shot with made his first shot on a target of an unknown distance and scored a 3. I thought for sure he would adjust his sight, assuming he had misjudged the distance. To my surprise he did nothing, raised his bow and drilled an X. We talked about it in the group for a while and the archer said he knew he had made a poor shot and was confident he had the correct yardage. His knowledge of his shot allowed him to recover quickly and not make a poor decision regarding sight adjustment.

This understanding of what your quality shot is, is extremely important when transitioning distances, or shooting FITA Field. Often times, this will be the difference between beating your competition, or getting edged out on the podium.

It has been a cold spring, just as it had been a cold winter, but it is time to break out your outdoor gear and start training for your first outdoor event. Get your checklist ready!

1) Check your outdoor bow for any maintenance issues. If you use your indoor rig for outdoor shooting, there should be no issues, assuming you are using the same arrows.

2) Verify your sight marks from last year. Are they the same? If not, go back and check that something has not changed with your set up. Some culprits may be BH change, clicker setting, nock locator change.

3) Verify your tune. Shoot at 70m (less distance if your experience and skill dictate) and look at your bare shaft placement versus your fletched group. Has the group changed? If so, re-tune the rig

4) Check your tripod, spotting scope and other ancillary gear to make sure they are up to snuff.

Now go out there and and revel in the warmer weather!!! Be patient with yourself. Have fun and soon you’ll be in full outdoor shooting mode.

Well, it’s the time of year when the transition from indoor shooting to outdoor shooting occurs. At around this time, most of us need to recharge our batteries.  As an added burden, it has been as especially harsh winter in the Chicago area. There are a couple of ways archers handle this in between time.

The first way is to put the bow down entirely for a period of time. I have done this, but it comes with a cost. Archery fitness erodes quickly; even more so when you get older. If you have many years of shooting under your belt, putting your bow down may not hurt your form, as you have a strong base from which to pick up in a couple of weeks time. If you are a newer shooter, the road back to where you left off may be considerably longer, as your form has not been fully established and your muscle memory is not ingrained.

A better way to take a break for many archers is to cut your arrow count and practice sessions. This way your strength ebbs modestly and you can still maintain the feel of your shot, albeit not for too many arrows. There is risk here as well. When your shot count goes down, you can only maintain proper form for a limited amount of arrows……then you must stop! Not stopping when your form degrades leads to compensatory muscles being used and the risk of your shooting form changing without you realizing it!

Taking some kind of break is important. It keeps archery fresh and exciting and allows your body some time to reset. How you choose to take a break is different for every individual. If you have been working with a coach, having that coach watch your shot as you come back will be important. He can see if something has changed without you realizing it!

My son and I shot at USAA Indoor Nationals this past weekend. He has not been able to practice much, about twice a month for almost a year. But something quite remarkable happened. He shot a personal best after getting his bearings in the JOAD portion of the event.

Were the tables to be turned, I doubt that I could have broken 1000.  Yet he surged to within a whisker of 1050 for his 2 day total. You bet I’m a proud dad. But there is a larger point to be made. His fundamentals looked to be quite good. His shot rhythm was spot on and his mental outlook was positive. The combination of those factors allowed him to perform in an optimal manner. Of course this does not mean practice is not necessary and regular practice is essential to moving forward. This was lightning in a bottle and it doesn’t happen often.

Perhaps the take away is, shoot because you love to shoot and if your schedule crimps your practices, shoot the events anyway. You never know what you will learn and achieve!

So, I’ve just completed two weeks of indoor competition and will reflect upon the strengths and weaknesses of my shot.

A tournament is an archer’s best classroom. There are no excuses, only the score. Did your shot hold up under pressure? Were you able to execute your sequence consistently? Did you break the shot off if you were out of sequence, or if the timing became different? Were you steady and able to recover after a bad shot? (And yes, everyone executes poor shots)

It is useful to list what went well and what needs work. Don’t gloss over any poor result. Try to understand what caused it and take corrective actions. Do be positive! Most of us are all too eager to point out our faults, but surely there are positive take aways as well. I’ll give you an excellent example. An archer shot very well but at the end looked at his target and saw a 7. The target was peppered with 10s and 9s and the final score was exceptional. Why would that archer choose to focus on the 7? I don’t know and of course the archer was me. Be positive. Celebrate the good and correct the flaws.

What seems to work in practice may not always work in a stressful situation. Is your shot built on a solid foundation? Taking your shot out of the laboratory and putting it to the test is important. And there is no greater test for a tournament archer than shooting in a tournament. The bigger the tournament, the bigger the exam is. Your shot is laid bare. You will have a full and clear picture of where you stand. How cool is that!!??

When considering which pieces of equipment will effect the largest changes in your score, the arrow is often overlooked. Aside from an archer’s form, a proper arrow match to your your kit is where you can really improve your group sizes and miss variances.

Why is this so? A properly matched arrow will actually minimize archer errors. Finding the match which allows acceptable groups even if the archer makes a slight error is the goal of a good archer/arrow/bow combination. This forgiveness of set up may not be noticable to a new archer, but will be readily apparent to a more experienced shooter. If you have heard the expression ‘critical set up’, it refers to a combination which may produce excellent results but is quite sensitive to an archer’s errors. These errors are quite often related to release inconsistencies finger shooters have.

Let’s look at what happens when an Olympic recurve shooter looses an arrow. The string is released with a sideways motion, creating a left and right oscillation called the string cycle. This in turn causes the arrow to bend around the riser of the bow (Archers Paradox). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2-d1SGRIgM

This flexing is why we need to consider the spine of an arrow. If the arrow flexes too little, it will not bend away from the rest and riser, causing contact. If the arrow flexes too much, there will be a loss of stability. The correct solution of what is the proper spine (flex) for an archer is determined by a few variables.

If you understand your draw length, arrow length and weight of the bow at your draw length, you can roughly determine what spine arrow will work in harmony with your bow.

Draw length = length of arrow to the pivot point + 1.75″. A rough approximation would also be arrow length to the back of the bow. Now determine what poundage you are holding at the draw length you’ve determined. You’ll need a bow scale for that. Next, what is the length of the arrow you will be shooting.

Now you can go to the arrow charts of the manufacturers and determine what fits the parameters you’ve discovered. http://www.eastonarchery.com/downloads/selection-charts

But your job is not finished. You’ve now got an idea about what may work, but there are other variables to consider. How clean is your release? What point weight are you shooting? Is the archer growing? Is your form changing?  Get together with your coach and he can help you determine what arrow spine is appropriate for you.

The selection of arrows to fit the archer is not an exact science! When you do find the correct combination, the payoff will be tighter groups and a more forgiving set up.

While at the range over the weekend I saw a very common issue new archers have. How do you adjust your sight correctly and when should you move your sight?

The first question is pretty straight forward. Chase your misses! If you are missing low, move your sight lower. If you are missing to the left, move your sight to the left.

Sights will have micro and macro adjustments. The micro adjusters are the knobs at the sight block and the top and bottom of the sight bar. The adjustment at the sight block will correct your left/right misses, while the adjusters at the top and bottom of the sight bar will allow micro adjustments for vertical misses.

The macro adjustments are made by sliding the entire sight block for vertical misses and the macro adjustment for horizontal misses is some sort of set screw so you can turn your aperture.

When making a macro horizontal adjustment, make sure you leave enough room in the sight block to make micro adjustments later.

Ok, now when should you move your sight? Move your sight when you have a discernible miss pattern. In archers parlance, when you have a ‘group’. If you are not yet at the point where you are able to shoot a group, move the sight so the majority of the arrows find the target and work on your form so you can start shooting a consistent group. If you move your sight after every miss, you’ll chase your tail in frustration.

When shooting outdoors, reading the wind will be extremely important. If there has been a shift in the wind pattern, you should move your sight immediately. If the wind is variable it may be best to ‘aim off’, which means to aim away from the center to compensate for an abrupt wind change.

Understanding how and when to move your sight is a foundational aspect of shooting your bow accurately. Understand your sight and how to adjust it. Understand your group, so you can adjust your sight.

My last missive dealt with aiming and what part it plays in your shot. Well I left out how to implement your new, more efficient aiming strategy. Assuming you now buy into the statement that the mind is very good at efficiently and quickly aiming, what steps can you take to facilitate it?

I would like you to consider the size of your sight aperture. Most sights come with an aperture with a diameter of about 1/4″, or smaller!! What this means is that it will take you longer to center this on the middle of the target. Think of it this way. If you were to roll a golf ball into a hole the size of a bushel from a few feet away, the mind would very quickly resolve how to aim and you would roll the ball neatly into the hole with little calculation, or effort. What happens when you shrink the hole to the regulation size of 4 1/4″? Well, you get all that plumb bobbing and meticulous aiming, so the golfer can sink the putt……..maybe.

So, if you increase the size of your aiming aperture, you can decrease the time it takes to aim and then execute your shot more efficiently. You can pull in your sight bar to effectively make the aperture closer to your eye and that works! My solution was to create my own sight apertures in larger sizes. I have 3/4″, 1/2″ and 3/8″ apertures. I used a 1/2″ aperture to set a national record. So, you should experiment with what size aperture allows you to acquire your target quickly and shoot accurate, rhythmical shots. I would hazard to guess this is something most archers never do. Get together with your coach and determine what is right for you!

Ok, so size matters. What about using a pin versus an open aperture? This falls under the personal preference category. All though again, the open aperture promotes a faster target acquisition and I prefer its use. Too often I see archers chasing their pin around the target. This slows your shot. One issue I had in my early years of shooting was to peek around the pin at the break of the shot, which of course hurt my accuracy.

Take some time to explore this topic. It will pay off in better shooting.

Just about every new archer I see tends to over aim. Well, it is an aiming sport, is it not? Of course it is, but we underestimate the minds ability to aim efficiently and quickly. The result of aiming too long is a less than optimal shot cycle.

Olympic recurve archers hold 40# to 60# when shooting. There is no ‘let off’ of draw weight, as you would find shooting a compound bow. So, when shooting an Olympic recurve bow, it is very important to execute your shot efficiently and with dispatch!! What does this mean? What if I were to tell you more shot errors are made with poorly executed shots than shots that were poorly aimed? Believe it.

If you execute a shot ‘on time’, (which is YOUR normal timing for a shot) it will almost always produce a better result than a shot which was perfectly aimed, but not shot in rhythm.

It may take an archer some time to accept this idea, but when he does, improvement will follow.

As an archer and archery coach, I have some resolutions for the New Year.

1) Embrace the challenges.

2) Continue to be curious.

3) Never accept or start a mediocre effort.

4) Maintain an upbeat mindset.

Well, here we are in 2014 and it would be too easy to say, have a great shooting year, with improving scores. Progress is never linear and there will be ups and downs in performance. Shoot with a light heart. Have fun with your fellow archers and enjoy the journey!

Gabe