Fast archery

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Instinctive shooting / aiming

Each of you certainly sometimes jumped over the pool. You run and then jump; you always watch the place where you want to land, and consciously you WANT there. You take off and land exactly where you looked. During the run and jump there were countless ocassions to do something bad - you to use some muscle more or less than was necessary - but in spite of this you end where you wanted to end quite reliably. Why? It is because the evolution equiped us with perfect ability tu subconsciously solve these muscle-movement tasks. On the conscious level it is enough to concentrate on the result you want to achieve, and youre brain wil subconsciously do everything necessary. Lightning fast, without thinking, and quite reliably.

Archery is also connected to moves and muscles, so you can use you brain also for such subconscious control of the bow. How?

1) Watch the target with both eyes, so that the brain has enough information about the distance.

2) Watch exactly the point you want to hit. If you watch target as a whole, you will hit somewhere in it. If you sense as a whole only its cencer, you will hit the center. It helps if your target is one object, clearly distinguishable from background. For example you will better hit bullseye if you pin a leaf there, than if you paint a low contrast circle there.

3) When aiming you WANT the arrow to end exactly in the place you watch.

4) That's all. No more aiming involved, you just draw the string and send it there.

 

In order to have success in all this, you can help a bit. For example it helps me to imagine that when drawing the string I also draw a line between my hands that goes exactly through target. I lean forward and imagine that the line goes exactly there. It also may help to point the place you want to hit with index finger of your bow hand.

Instinctive shooting has many useful advantages for a fast-shooter. In the first place it is fast, it enables you to aim with lightning-speed in an instant. In fact the instinctive aiming takes place even when you draw the string, so you can shoot immediatelly as you touch your anchor point (or possibly after a brief relax in full-draw position). Fast archer should shoot quickly acording to ho he feels it, because he does not have time to compute. The advantage is also in that you cunningly let your subconscious do all the hard work, so that you don't have to compute yourself.

However there are also disadvantages. In the first place there is the need for training. With gap shooting you can theoretically hit even in the begining if you have well automated your moves and positions. With instinctive shooting you cannot; your brain first have to learn how to cohere the moves of muscles with wanted result. And it requires frequent training/

Another problem is crankiness of the technique. If you miss, you don't know where was the mistake and how to correct it. At first look for error in uncontrolled movement of the bow during release, and in string hand not in the anchor point. But there is no other way to solve other problems than to repeat shooting until the brain is trained enough. It has to be said that result will be influenced even by such esoteric things as concentration, state of mind, will to hit, and imagination of ideally flying arrow. All these things will practically express themselves in tens of small biases in moves, that will together decide about hit or miss. So the next thing you can try when you suddenly stop hitting is to "feel as you felt before, during good shots".