The simplicity of shooting arrows

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
About 20 years ago, I was lucky enough to have a meeting with the ,then, world Number 2 archer and also world Number 1 moving target rifle shooter. The meeting was arranged after a phonecall. I asked if he would help me out and he wanted to know more.
" You pull a string and let it go, now what else do you want to know?"
" I'd like to know how to pull the string properly and let it go properly," I replied.
"You'd better come up to the house, then."
The address was given and a time/date was arranged. I had been shooting about a year, so you can imagine what this felt like!!!!
We had tea on the patio and then we had a chat and he gave some insights into the complexities of this wonderful sport.);:cheerful:
He didn't really. He explained how simple it all was. (I must stress that simple and easy were seen as two very different things.)
He explained how he determined where to place his footmarkers.( very simply and logical)
He explained how he held the bow and how he managed to repeat the grip on every shot. ( equally simply and logical)
It was clear that he was self taught;many archers were in those days.
It was also clear that he was a thinker and that he had worked things out for himself,not copied someone who shot well.
If I were a famous coach or archer, I could sell my ideas in book form. I am neither. My ideas would not sell, not because they are wrong( they might be of course) but because I am unknown. Dick Fosbury was unknown too and he broke high jump records and his technique is still used to this day.
I am not making myself out to be anything other than an archer with an interest in shooting; and in technique more than equipment.
As an archer,I feel that too often, shooting is seen as something complicated. I've seen ten year olds with lovely techniques- so how complex can it be?
If the simplicity could be brought to the forefront, it is my belief that we would see more archers shooting well. I am not talking about archers getting to international level. That requires years of hard work that most people cannot give to the sport. I am talking about club level archers who perhaps would like to shoot for their county or reach MB standard. I am talking about archers with potential who have become so bogged down that they have reverted to long bow shooting as a way of clearing their cluttered minds.
Don't get me wrong, I love talking about most aspects of archery, and the complexities of, for example, Joe's explanations are fascinating and challenging. But I feel that is a separate issue from the simplicity of shooting arrows. It may be difficult to show others how to shoot, that does not mean shooting arrows is difficult.);:melodrama
 

English Bowman

Well-known member
geoffretired said:
I am talking about club level archers who perhaps would like to shoot for their county or reach MB standard. I am talking about archers with potential who have become so bogged down that they have reverted to long bow shooting as a way of clearing their cluttered minds.
I agree with you on the whole, good post, but not all of us longbowmen shoot in the longbow for that reason. I shoot in the longbow for the challenge. I have decided to take the longbow as far as I can, and next year intend to give it my best shot (pun intended) at representing England at the All British Field Championships, and getting my MB in target archery. (I know I sound like a broken record, but I think that getting MB as a field longbowman is all but impossible.)
So please don't assume that longbowmen are failed recurve archers, I certainly am not.

As I said, apart from that I think it's an excellent post.

Daniel
 

wingate_52

Active member
A good practicioner of the art makes what he does look easy. But he has been practicing for a while.A long while.
 

PaulT

The American
Ironman
American Shoot
To quote Mr Needham archery is "The simple art of repetition", the key words being simple and repetition.
Archery is all about repeating the same action, and the easiest action to repeat is a simple one.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
English Bowman, I hope it didn't sound like I was saying all longbowmen are failed recurve archers. I was only saying that some recurve and compound archers had taken up longbow shooting because they had cluttered their minds and they thought going over to longbow would be a simpler form of archery.Fewer complications, may have been a better way of expresing it. Again, I stress simpler does not imply easier. The longbow is a fine machine, if I may call it that. I am attracted to the fact that they are wood and not metal, fibre glass and carbon etc. I love to watch them being made and handled by those who know what is required. I am not up to shooting them;I wish I was. Anyone who can handle them has my admiration. I see no second class citizens in the different disciplines.
Wingate_52, I know what you are saying and the experts always seem to make things look easy. I agree with you on that. What I am getting at is the way that shooting often seems to be "seen" as something that needs to be talked about using long words and complicated explanations. Sports science has become involved and that is a good thing, but we do not need to talk in scientific terms.( I am talking about club level archery not world class-I don't know what they talk about)
I hear talk of muscle groups and individual muscle names etc. This I hear when some archers are talking to newer archers trying to help them out. If the listener has no idea of the muscles in question, what's the point?
Keep It Simple seems to fly out the window at times. I was trying to bring simplicity back as a discussion point.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
geoffretired said:
Keep It Simple seems to fly out the window at times. I was trying to bring simplicity back as a discussion point.
It's a good point. One of the things I stress to people, when they say they are having problems, is that to improve they need to simplify the whole process.

There was an Einstein quote wasn't there? Something along the lines of 'you should make things as simple as possible, but no simpler than that'. Cut complexity out until things work. I think Roy Matthews devoted a section to that in 'Archery in Earnest'.
 

Marcus26

Well-known member
Modern coaching methods are aout simplifying and makingthings easier to repeat, however they often get lost because the students try to read more than what is there.
Everything is simple to do, but to do it right may not be done simply.
To learn to shoot correctly takes along time to train the body to move correctly. The biomechanics are simple, but the body is not use to movng that way, thus few are flexible enough to do it right from day 1.
Now the complexity of the process comes into it.
Teaching the beginners to use good technique while they learn to use their bodies is the challenge, and also working around their own impatience understandings.

Finally, simple is relative, and just because something seems complicated, doesn't mean that it's correct. ;)
 

Max

New member
I think the ability to have total automatic recall of recent actions is an important factor. A lot of people either don't (or can't) file away and replay key information about how it felt the last shot, without having to have a lot of feedback into the conscious part of the mind (like having to constantly ressure yourself that you are in fact doing the same thing). Repetiton can help to programme the mind into close approximation, but many, I feel, struggle to remember exactly how the bow hand felt, or how the anchor came to be "just there". Each shot becomes something of an adventure.

It is possible that the subconscious is perfectly capable of replaying the shot sequence if it is alowed to, but that all the conscious clutter (to paraphrase Geoff) actually interferes with the process. I get the feeling that the conscious mind always wants to get in on the act and demands to share the experience that the subconcious is generating - it wants to have the reassurance of 'feeling' the consistrency of each shot, rather than just letting the body get on with it.

Perhaps those people who can tune this out or simply don't think like that do much better at repetative activities - to them it is easy and they can't understand why it is not so easy for the rest of us, with our conscious brains fizzing away like crazy. I may be slightly crazy, but I can imagine a little guy running round inside my head with a clipboard saying stuff like "OK he's at full draw - how is it feelling? Hang on I am sure there was more back tension last time - just a minute I will override the autopilot and dial a bit more in -Oops! - wrong again"
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Thanks Marcus and Max for those inputs.
"Simple to do,but to do it right may not be done simply."
I think this is one of the key issues. "Doing it right" is quite often confused in the mind of archer or coach, with "doing it exactly the same."
Doing it right, comes long before, exactly the same. The right technique has to be refined over several years before it produces perfect repetition.What I see is archers shooting quite good scores but using a technique that is far from good.
It would seem that they had refined a technique too early i.e.before that technique had become sound. This adds to the difficulties if they try to "unlearn" the poor technique later.Putting right the mistakes takes a good deal of time and effort and adds to the sense that it is a difficult thing to do.
Max, I like your explanations. I agree with what you are saying, perhaps we are both slightly crazy!!);:cheerful:
One reason, I think, for all the conscious activity, is the way the content is delivered. Each element is not learnt and given over to the subconscious because the next element often arrives too soon. As Marcus said, there is impatience and we tend to want it "all at once." If the subconcsious hasn't had time to sort it, we are left trying to remember it all. Breaking it down into simpler steps is the Korean way. We tend to go for the all at once approach.
I have just finished a beginners course with ten people. They are a very unusual group as they all ask questions. Three of them have been more than willing to take home a jelly bow just to get the draw right. I am encouraged by that.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Timothy Gallwey hits on the same sort of area in his 'Inner Game' books. He describes 2 'selves' in each person. One is the self that gets on and does stuff, it tends to learn well and improve rapidly. The other self is the one that sits back, comments vocally on what you are doing and generally gets in the way. His theory is that to perform well, you have to learn to bypass the noisy self (or distract it) and let the other self take over the process.

Compare this with Zen, where the ideal seems to be to achieve a state of complete quietness of mind and just do things.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
I like the "2selves" idea, Rik.
And the Zen, quietness of mind.
Round here it's called "puddin' headed"
I think there may be a link to something we wrote about in another thread; confidence. When you have it you don't need to think so much.
 
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