Your Routine.
Do you know your routine? Can you describe it without picking up your
bow? Can you go through it in your mind while sitting at home,
watching your computer?
If the answer is yes then you may read on with a smug grin.
If the answer is no then you can never hope to replicate every shot.
To get yourself to a state when you can answer to the afirmative to
the above question you will have to go away and do some shooting.
While shooting each shot pay attention to every little detail of your
routine...
- How you place your feet.
- What your posture is.
- Your initial hand placement on the bow handle.
- Your finger placement on the string.
- Your initial pre draw posture.
- Where do you draw to?
- How quickly did you draw?
- What path did your elbow make during the draw.
- How your anchor feels.
- If the string touches your face/nose where is it?
- Where the pressure in your bow hand is.
- Is your posture still the same?
- What the sight over target picture looks like.
- Can you see the string?
- Have your fingers slipped?
- What do you do just prior to release?
- Where does you hand go just after release?
- Did you hold your posture through release?
- Where does your bow go after release?
- How long do you wait before relaxing?
Go on! Off you go!
Done it?
Good. Now we know what we're doing we can work on doing it more the
same each time. While we are doing this we might alter some part of
the routine to make it easier to replicate. But in the meantime, now
you're back home, I'd like you to try the following..
With your eyes closed imagine you are back at the field. Use your
imagination to picture yourself walking to the shooting line and
shooting three shots. Three perfectly replicated shots. Remember as
much detail of your routine and surroundings as you can. The pressure
on your feet, the colours of the target and the feelings of each shot.
And; watch those arrows go into the gold - plumb together!
Did a little thrill run up your spine as you finished that? Even as I
wrote it I got a warm feeling. Hang on, I've got to try that again..
... - plumb together.
Cor!
It is good to rehearse your shooting in this way during any idle
moment during the day. Stuck in traffic? ... - plumb together.
Waiting for the kettle to boil? ... - plumb together. Waiting
for windows to load? ... - plumb together!
After doing that you, no doubt, would like to go back down the field
to prove that you can ... - plumb together! So I will
let you go and you can read the next section about how to adjust your
routine later.
PS. It occurs to me that you may not know that plumb has an
English (UK) definition that means exactly.
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