First the scores, then the post-mortem
The good bits... - ZERO misses. - Enjoyed the hell out of it. - Electronic timekeeping is
ACE! - SO looking forward to the next one. - Won a 6-pack of continental long-necks (Now gone!) - Got my first medal
The 'needs work'... My Pompey was nowhere NEAR good enough! (Even as a 451, I cost myself 2 points by calling 10, 7, 6 in the 3rd end when it was actually 10, 8, 7 & I'd already pulled my boss-mates' 4 when the scorers called for a judge. Totally my fault for rushing, lesson learned.)
It started badly, I had to bail out of my first sighter end without shooting an arrow when I realised the pin-shaft was about 15* above horizontal
- I'd mounted the pin-holder skewiffy to the bar block somehow
(In hindsight, because my 'assembly area' wasn't as I'd 'rehearsed' & I couldn't stand where I normally would to fit the pin.)
No biggie, you'd think. The 2nd end of sighters was a beautiful 2" group in the red at 2 o'clock.
Quick tweak of the sights & I'll be fine, I thought. WRONG! First end was my worst end of the entire day. I did pick it up through the middle ends but only rarely hit the standards I thought I should have achieved. Happy with the sights, my kit, the venue (etc) but KNOWING that it was something in ME that was causing such inconsistency. I do give myself brownie points for not getting frustrated & flustered though, my 'mental state' stayed on-point for the entire event, definitely a plus, especially when my boss-mate was having a totally disastrous day & indeed pulled himself from the compo by about end 16. He stayed to continue scoring though, his wife was shooting compound a few lanes up from us. also, it definitely helped that I didn't have a clue what my scores actually were until I looked at the photo after I'd got home. I had a decent idea of 'how badly I was doing' but no way to risk getting 'scorecard panic', so less stressful all round
Still, 449 is a big disappointment, when my PB is 493.
~~~~~~
I
should be quite satisfied with my Worcester, above my 200 'target' for the event, only 12 down on my PB & 25 up on my final practice, but I'm
NOT! There wasn't a 'clean' 5 in the whole damned round, the six I did get were all barely line-cutters
- My 'centre of group' was bang on the spider, but round after round I was 'surrounding' the white without penetrating it. Equally on all sides, wish I had pix of the ends. Basically the same shit as during the Pompey but without the satisfaction of putting the odd one bang in the middle.
I'd started the day concentrating on getting a slightly deeper hook with the 3rd finger, an issue I'd identified as causing much of my vertical drift, but (again with wonderful 20/20 hindsight) feel I'd begun neglecting getting exactly the right anchor-point spot every time with my 'chin fin'.
Side issues... I had a good chat with the 'scrutineering' judges about 'long fibre' sights. They said ideally the fibre should bend in the horizontal plane only but that my 'spiral' solution was acceptable. Where the free end of the fibre ends up is unimportant as long as it isn't on the 'sight' side of the riser, it doesn't count as a 'second mark' if it's on the 'outside' of the riser. I can't remember where this was originally discussed but that's the latest skinny, as far as DNAA are interpreting it anyway
Conclusion... More Practice & more Coaching. Rinse & repeat.
I 'm comfortable that I'm a
genuine intermediate now, that I have the
basics of good form pretty much figured out, that 99% of what is needed to reach the 'next level' is just a bit of a fine polish from a decent coach & lots'n'lots of high-quality repetition.
- The other 1%? Hell, if I knew
that I'd be getting paid to tell Brady Ellison what to do next!
So, I'm here & I'm staying...
... Here for a good time
and a long time