T
timujin
Guest
I have a couple of articles on this matter in my Journal, but Ihave been asked to include it on one of these threads so that more people can have a look at it, can make suggestions to help with the process and can relate their own personal experiences and problems.
David has very kindly agreed that I could post these articles here. I tried to do this with the full Part 1 but it was too long for the system to handle so I am going to have to do this in Parts, which I don't like but I have no choice.
Here then, is Part 1.
Target Panic ? For Those That Have It Already
Part 1
First, I?d like to say that in almost every case, target panic is a mental problem brought on by certain physical activities. There are some exceptions to this in which some people, because of a particular mindset, through no fault of their own, will be subject to target panic, with very little physical input at all.
I will discuss what happened to me and how I overcame the problem. Your experiences may be similar or not but for almost everyone, you will recognize similar causes and symptoms in your own experience and it is my hope that you will be able to use my experience to defeat your own problem and get back to really enjoying archery.
As I said in my preliminary posting on this matter, when I started in archery I received very rudimentary instruction from an equally inexperienced person and started my shooting with a wooden self bow and wooden arrows, some 50 odd years ago. I came to understand some years later that the problem of target panic was just as easily brought on by modern equipment.
When I first started, I found the sport exciting and was more interested in just seeing the arrow exit the bow in the general direction of the target than anything else. I found out fairly quickly that practicing archery had some ?costs? associated with it. These were:
a. Sore arms and shoulders from particular muscle groups that had never been used before.
b. Sore fingers from poor quality finger tabs (or in my case none at all, initially)
c. String ?burns? on the bow arm from lack of a guard and poor technique.
Very soon after I started shooting my club adopted real target shooting using rudimentary sights (until then we had been doing ?instinctive shooting?). This brought with it another problem associated with the three listed above namely, the fact that I couldn?t keep the sight steady on the target, so I used to score poorly. Not only that, I found that I could not stay at full draw very long due to lack of endurance, which simply exacerbated the problem.
As the months progressed (and I didn?t) I found that if I wanted to stay shooting with the club, I would need a bow that allowed me to shoot the distances that all of the members were shooting, so a more powerful bow was needed. This proved to be a really bad decision but I had no way of knowing this at the time. My mother bought me my first recurve, which allowed me to reach the target at the set distances but at an additional cost of more difficulty in holding the bow at full draw and as a consequence, not being able to keep the sights even reasonably still on the target.
Within a couple of months of getting the recurve, I was at the stage of not being able to bring the bow to full draw, whilst aiming at the target, without involuntarily releasing. I could come to full draw as long as I was not aiming at the target. The moment I moved the sight onto the target, I involuntarily released regardless of where the sight was aiming.
This was being caused by poor specific physical fitness in the ?archery muscles? of my body, which brought about great pain and discomfort at full draw, with a bow that was clearly too powerful for me at that stage of my development. In turn this caused equal pain in my drawing fingers and great unsteadiness on the target, to the extent that accurate aiming was impossible.
The physical strain gave rise to a feeling unendurable mental tension, which created in me the urge to do whatever was necessary to relieve that tension ? and that was to release the arrow as quickly as I could regardless of where it was pointing on the target. As time progressed, my mental processes, anticipating the tension and discomfort, would not even allow me to come to full draw without involuntarily (subconsciously) releasing the string.
I was at the stage of giving up the game completely because all I felt now was dread, whenever it came to attending the club. No one was able to advise me what the problem was or how to solve it.
Fortunately for me, at this stage, I was a member of the school cadet corps and in those days, shooting the .303 SMLE rifle was considered very important for cadets and I and my fellow cadets were given really expert instruction in good rifle technique.
I found out at the range that I was a very good rifle shot. Interestingly, I felt no discomfort at all in holding a steady aim on the target and had no difficulty in achieving a quality trigger release. Even the recoil didn?t bother me.
This got me to thinking about why I couldn?t shoot properly in archery. The principles weren?t all that different, yet mentally, I was totally comfortable with one and totally out of control with the other.
After thinking about it a lot, I came to understand that my problems with archery had been caused by jumping into the sport quickly, with no correct fitness training and trying to use a bow that was far too powerful for my physical state of development. I recognized that if I were to shoot a bow well, then I needed to learn to do two things ? firstly, to hold the sights reasonably steadily on the target and secondly, to devise a ?trigger? mechanism, just like I had on the rifle, that would allow me to gain control over the shooting (releasing) process.
What I did was to get a set of the new Easton aluminium arrows in a draw length some three inches less that my normal draw. I couldn?t afford a new bow so this was the cheaper alternative to getting a lower poundage. This meant shooting with a bent elbow, but that didn?t seem to prove a problem. I also instituted a system of strengthening training to give me the feeling of easy control over the bow and also had a friend make me up some really good finger tabs which allowed me to draw the string in comfort.
The ?trigger? thing took some thought. We didn?t have ?clickers? in those days, but what I finally came up with was to come to full draw with my drawing hand well underneath my chin and then, holding the sights fairly steadily on the centre of the target, move my drawing hand up smoothly until I felt it touch my jaw line and at that stage, I would release. I found no difficulty in holding at full draw without creep using this system.
This worked, and with some practice I was starting to shoot well and score well. After a while I thought that I should be able to hold a steady aim on the target and come to draw with my drawing hand straight to my jaw line, but this didn?t work. The moment I tried it I was back to the old panic. As long as I used the triggering technique, I was OK. The best thing about my system was that if I did not feel comfortable with anything during the ?triggering? process, I would stop, come down and start again.
It wasn?t a totally satisfactory system but it did allow me to shoot reasonably well and start to enjoy the sport again.
What I learnt from this experience was as follows:
a. Don?t attempt to shoot a bow until you have an adequate level of physical fitness in the necessary muscle groups.
b. Don?t shoot a bow that has too much poundage for you to hold comfortably on target. I came up with the idea that if I could hold a bow steadily for at least one minute at full draw, then that bow was OK for me.
c. Have a ?trigger? of some sort that will allow you to have a controlled release
d. Ensure that you have a good quality shooting tab so that your drawing fingers don?t experience excessive discomfort.
I had to give up on archery when I left school and entered the Army. Time did not permit me to pursue the sport at that stage. After about 10 years I decided to give the sport a try again, as I had more time available. There was no club around so I decided to do the shooting by myself and join a club when I was posted near one.
I bought my first modern recurve bow, a Yamaha YTSL, with 36 lbs draw weight and a good set of Easton arrows and the other necessary gear. I was pretty physically fit at that stage but still did some of the exercises that I remembered from years ago before attempting to shoot the bow.
When I did get to the stage of shooting, I found that I had no trouble drawing and was actually able to draw straight to my jaw line without that unbearable desire to release. I could still recognize that feeling in the back of my mind and it took some discipline to force my aim right into the middle of the gold and not release until I was ready, but I was able to do it. My ?trigger? at this stage became a simple mental command to shoot and I found this worked out fairly well. What had aided me during those years of not doing archery was that I had done a lot of rifle shooting and now had certain disciplines well ingrained into my mind.
Continues in Part 2
David has very kindly agreed that I could post these articles here. I tried to do this with the full Part 1 but it was too long for the system to handle so I am going to have to do this in Parts, which I don't like but I have no choice.
Here then, is Part 1.
Target Panic ? For Those That Have It Already
Part 1
First, I?d like to say that in almost every case, target panic is a mental problem brought on by certain physical activities. There are some exceptions to this in which some people, because of a particular mindset, through no fault of their own, will be subject to target panic, with very little physical input at all.
I will discuss what happened to me and how I overcame the problem. Your experiences may be similar or not but for almost everyone, you will recognize similar causes and symptoms in your own experience and it is my hope that you will be able to use my experience to defeat your own problem and get back to really enjoying archery.
As I said in my preliminary posting on this matter, when I started in archery I received very rudimentary instruction from an equally inexperienced person and started my shooting with a wooden self bow and wooden arrows, some 50 odd years ago. I came to understand some years later that the problem of target panic was just as easily brought on by modern equipment.
When I first started, I found the sport exciting and was more interested in just seeing the arrow exit the bow in the general direction of the target than anything else. I found out fairly quickly that practicing archery had some ?costs? associated with it. These were:
a. Sore arms and shoulders from particular muscle groups that had never been used before.
b. Sore fingers from poor quality finger tabs (or in my case none at all, initially)
c. String ?burns? on the bow arm from lack of a guard and poor technique.
Very soon after I started shooting my club adopted real target shooting using rudimentary sights (until then we had been doing ?instinctive shooting?). This brought with it another problem associated with the three listed above namely, the fact that I couldn?t keep the sight steady on the target, so I used to score poorly. Not only that, I found that I could not stay at full draw very long due to lack of endurance, which simply exacerbated the problem.
As the months progressed (and I didn?t) I found that if I wanted to stay shooting with the club, I would need a bow that allowed me to shoot the distances that all of the members were shooting, so a more powerful bow was needed. This proved to be a really bad decision but I had no way of knowing this at the time. My mother bought me my first recurve, which allowed me to reach the target at the set distances but at an additional cost of more difficulty in holding the bow at full draw and as a consequence, not being able to keep the sights even reasonably still on the target.
Within a couple of months of getting the recurve, I was at the stage of not being able to bring the bow to full draw, whilst aiming at the target, without involuntarily releasing. I could come to full draw as long as I was not aiming at the target. The moment I moved the sight onto the target, I involuntarily released regardless of where the sight was aiming.
This was being caused by poor specific physical fitness in the ?archery muscles? of my body, which brought about great pain and discomfort at full draw, with a bow that was clearly too powerful for me at that stage of my development. In turn this caused equal pain in my drawing fingers and great unsteadiness on the target, to the extent that accurate aiming was impossible.
The physical strain gave rise to a feeling unendurable mental tension, which created in me the urge to do whatever was necessary to relieve that tension ? and that was to release the arrow as quickly as I could regardless of where it was pointing on the target. As time progressed, my mental processes, anticipating the tension and discomfort, would not even allow me to come to full draw without involuntarily (subconsciously) releasing the string.
I was at the stage of giving up the game completely because all I felt now was dread, whenever it came to attending the club. No one was able to advise me what the problem was or how to solve it.
Fortunately for me, at this stage, I was a member of the school cadet corps and in those days, shooting the .303 SMLE rifle was considered very important for cadets and I and my fellow cadets were given really expert instruction in good rifle technique.
I found out at the range that I was a very good rifle shot. Interestingly, I felt no discomfort at all in holding a steady aim on the target and had no difficulty in achieving a quality trigger release. Even the recoil didn?t bother me.
This got me to thinking about why I couldn?t shoot properly in archery. The principles weren?t all that different, yet mentally, I was totally comfortable with one and totally out of control with the other.
After thinking about it a lot, I came to understand that my problems with archery had been caused by jumping into the sport quickly, with no correct fitness training and trying to use a bow that was far too powerful for my physical state of development. I recognized that if I were to shoot a bow well, then I needed to learn to do two things ? firstly, to hold the sights reasonably steadily on the target and secondly, to devise a ?trigger? mechanism, just like I had on the rifle, that would allow me to gain control over the shooting (releasing) process.
What I did was to get a set of the new Easton aluminium arrows in a draw length some three inches less that my normal draw. I couldn?t afford a new bow so this was the cheaper alternative to getting a lower poundage. This meant shooting with a bent elbow, but that didn?t seem to prove a problem. I also instituted a system of strengthening training to give me the feeling of easy control over the bow and also had a friend make me up some really good finger tabs which allowed me to draw the string in comfort.
The ?trigger? thing took some thought. We didn?t have ?clickers? in those days, but what I finally came up with was to come to full draw with my drawing hand well underneath my chin and then, holding the sights fairly steadily on the centre of the target, move my drawing hand up smoothly until I felt it touch my jaw line and at that stage, I would release. I found no difficulty in holding at full draw without creep using this system.
This worked, and with some practice I was starting to shoot well and score well. After a while I thought that I should be able to hold a steady aim on the target and come to draw with my drawing hand straight to my jaw line, but this didn?t work. The moment I tried it I was back to the old panic. As long as I used the triggering technique, I was OK. The best thing about my system was that if I did not feel comfortable with anything during the ?triggering? process, I would stop, come down and start again.
It wasn?t a totally satisfactory system but it did allow me to shoot reasonably well and start to enjoy the sport again.
What I learnt from this experience was as follows:
a. Don?t attempt to shoot a bow until you have an adequate level of physical fitness in the necessary muscle groups.
b. Don?t shoot a bow that has too much poundage for you to hold comfortably on target. I came up with the idea that if I could hold a bow steadily for at least one minute at full draw, then that bow was OK for me.
c. Have a ?trigger? of some sort that will allow you to have a controlled release
d. Ensure that you have a good quality shooting tab so that your drawing fingers don?t experience excessive discomfort.
I had to give up on archery when I left school and entered the Army. Time did not permit me to pursue the sport at that stage. After about 10 years I decided to give the sport a try again, as I had more time available. There was no club around so I decided to do the shooting by myself and join a club when I was posted near one.
I bought my first modern recurve bow, a Yamaha YTSL, with 36 lbs draw weight and a good set of Easton arrows and the other necessary gear. I was pretty physically fit at that stage but still did some of the exercises that I remembered from years ago before attempting to shoot the bow.
When I did get to the stage of shooting, I found that I had no trouble drawing and was actually able to draw straight to my jaw line without that unbearable desire to release. I could still recognize that feeling in the back of my mind and it took some discipline to force my aim right into the middle of the gold and not release until I was ready, but I was able to do it. My ?trigger? at this stage became a simple mental command to shoot and I found this worked out fairly well. What had aided me during those years of not doing archery was that I had done a lot of rifle shooting and now had certain disciplines well ingrained into my mind.
Continues in Part 2