This week was my first coaching session with Level 1 coach Beatriz. Along with Andy (her Dad) she is training to be a Level 2 coach and, as well as attending their training sessions, they are required to coach a number of other archers over a period of a few months and record progress. I think Beatiz selected me because I had recently converted to barebow: either that or she saw that I needed a lot of help!
This first practical session was delayed due to work commitments and transport issues and came a couple of weeks after an initial information-gathering session, where Beatriz made a note of my equipment, then discussed what my goals should be for the short, medium and long terms. She explained that, when goal-setting, you should remember the acronym SMART:
Specific - Being clear about your goal means you can be sure you have reached it
Measurable - Goes along with Specific - allows you to quantify progress
Achievable - No point in aiming for the impossible
Relevant - No point in doing something pointless (!)
Time-bounded - Set a time to do it otherwise it will never get done
The very same idea is also used in business management training and other areas. Bearing this in mind we agreed my goals are:
Short term (first couple of months) : Reduce my misses to zero
Medium term (this year) : Achieve First Class barebow classification
Long term (end of next year) : Achieve Bowman classification
I guess it is arguable whether my first goal is actually achievable in practice, but it is a goal to be aimed at! Looking back to my first post of this year, I set four personal goals to achieve before the end of the year and, I am glad to say, I have already achieved them! A week or so after the goal-setting and information-gathering session, Beatriz took 15 minutes or so to observe me shooting and to make some notes on my technique, preparatory to the first practical coaching session.
At the beginning of the practical session we reviewed my goals and then Beatriz highlighted what she thought were the priorities to work on to achieve the first of them. She also observed me shooting again for a few ends to confirm, and attached a length of light string to the tip of my top limb to judge how far back my drawing arm was moving. This simple device made it very clear that my drawing shoulder was not coming round far enough at full draw, so that it was out of alignment with the rest of my body. She also noted that the handle of my bow was not resting in the optimum position in my bow-hand. The 'flat' of the handle should rest against the fleshy part of the hand below the thumb, and not in the crease between thumb and forefinger.
To get my shoulder round, Beatriz suggested that I first part-draw the bow using arm muscles (pricipally the biceps), and then finish the draw by rotating my shoulder round and back. It was surprisingly easy to do, and I immediatley noticed that my arrows were landing on the target in a fairly tight vertical line, and that my drawing hand was not flapping out as it had done previously. We discussed the reason for this and concluded that previously my shoulder rotation was very variable, which meant that my left-to-right alignment was not consistent. In the worst case at least one of my arrows per end would miss the target left. I shot a good few ends and, with the exception of a few boo-boos, I was getting consistent results and the whole shot process just felt better.
With the left-to-right consistency adressed, we discussed vertical alignment. I have noticed, in the month or so since starting to shoot barebow, that I seem to be relatively more consistent at the longer distances than the shorter ones. I was discussing this on the line with Mike, another club member who switched to barebow last year and has been really helpful in these early weeks. What he suggested, and Beatriz agreed, is that I may find problems with string-walking at shorter distances using my current, plastic Hoyt super-rest. With string-walking, the shorter the distance, the further away from the nock you have to draw, which sets up some uneven forces in the bow and results in increased downward arrow pressure on the rest during release. To confirm this, Beatriz used a slow-motion capture app on her iPad and we could see where the arrow pushed down on the rest as it left the bow. The rest responds and sets up a vertical oscillation in the arrow so that it does not fly as straight as it could. As we were shooting at a relatively short distance of 30m this effect was being seen as a large vertical spread on the target. The solution is to change the rest to something more substantial, so I have now fitted a Spigarelli ZT wrap-around rest, which has a strong steel wire and is widely used by barebow archers, including Mike.
At the end of the session, Beatriz set me some homework. This is to use a mirror to ensure that my body is perpendicular to the shooting line when I draw, and to work on getting my shoulder round so that my bow arm and drawing arm are aligned. All this can be done with the ubiquitous stretchy band beloved of archers everywhere, and which I haven't touched since my beginners' course.
The next session is in about a month so until the I will be putting the training into practice with the hope (expectation?) that my shooting will improve.
This first practical session was delayed due to work commitments and transport issues and came a couple of weeks after an initial information-gathering session, where Beatriz made a note of my equipment, then discussed what my goals should be for the short, medium and long terms. She explained that, when goal-setting, you should remember the acronym SMART:
Specific - Being clear about your goal means you can be sure you have reached it
Measurable - Goes along with Specific - allows you to quantify progress
Achievable - No point in aiming for the impossible
Relevant - No point in doing something pointless (!)
Time-bounded - Set a time to do it otherwise it will never get done
The very same idea is also used in business management training and other areas. Bearing this in mind we agreed my goals are:
Short term (first couple of months) : Reduce my misses to zero
Medium term (this year) : Achieve First Class barebow classification
Long term (end of next year) : Achieve Bowman classification
I guess it is arguable whether my first goal is actually achievable in practice, but it is a goal to be aimed at! Looking back to my first post of this year, I set four personal goals to achieve before the end of the year and, I am glad to say, I have already achieved them! A week or so after the goal-setting and information-gathering session, Beatriz took 15 minutes or so to observe me shooting and to make some notes on my technique, preparatory to the first practical coaching session.
At the beginning of the practical session we reviewed my goals and then Beatriz highlighted what she thought were the priorities to work on to achieve the first of them. She also observed me shooting again for a few ends to confirm, and attached a length of light string to the tip of my top limb to judge how far back my drawing arm was moving. This simple device made it very clear that my drawing shoulder was not coming round far enough at full draw, so that it was out of alignment with the rest of my body. She also noted that the handle of my bow was not resting in the optimum position in my bow-hand. The 'flat' of the handle should rest against the fleshy part of the hand below the thumb, and not in the crease between thumb and forefinger.
To get my shoulder round, Beatriz suggested that I first part-draw the bow using arm muscles (pricipally the biceps), and then finish the draw by rotating my shoulder round and back. It was surprisingly easy to do, and I immediatley noticed that my arrows were landing on the target in a fairly tight vertical line, and that my drawing hand was not flapping out as it had done previously. We discussed the reason for this and concluded that previously my shoulder rotation was very variable, which meant that my left-to-right alignment was not consistent. In the worst case at least one of my arrows per end would miss the target left. I shot a good few ends and, with the exception of a few boo-boos, I was getting consistent results and the whole shot process just felt better.
With the left-to-right consistency adressed, we discussed vertical alignment. I have noticed, in the month or so since starting to shoot barebow, that I seem to be relatively more consistent at the longer distances than the shorter ones. I was discussing this on the line with Mike, another club member who switched to barebow last year and has been really helpful in these early weeks. What he suggested, and Beatriz agreed, is that I may find problems with string-walking at shorter distances using my current, plastic Hoyt super-rest. With string-walking, the shorter the distance, the further away from the nock you have to draw, which sets up some uneven forces in the bow and results in increased downward arrow pressure on the rest during release. To confirm this, Beatriz used a slow-motion capture app on her iPad and we could see where the arrow pushed down on the rest as it left the bow. The rest responds and sets up a vertical oscillation in the arrow so that it does not fly as straight as it could. As we were shooting at a relatively short distance of 30m this effect was being seen as a large vertical spread on the target. The solution is to change the rest to something more substantial, so I have now fitted a Spigarelli ZT wrap-around rest, which has a strong steel wire and is widely used by barebow archers, including Mike.
At the end of the session, Beatriz set me some homework. This is to use a mirror to ensure that my body is perpendicular to the shooting line when I draw, and to work on getting my shoulder round so that my bow arm and drawing arm are aligned. All this can be done with the ubiquitous stretchy band beloved of archers everywhere, and which I haven't touched since my beginners' course.
The next session is in about a month so until the I will be putting the training into practice with the hope (expectation?) that my shooting will improve.
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