Distracted from Distractions by Focus

In archery, mastering the mental game is as crucial as perfecting your technique or tuning your bow. Part of the mental game is distraction shooting. This can be defined as "the ability to maintain focus and composure, regardless of external distractions" during your shot. In other words, ignoring the strange noises, swearing, crashes, midgie swarms, conversations about Corrie last night or the waft of frying sausages that go on around you when you are shooting. This skill is a pretty important one in general, but its vital in competition. The ability to keep focused on the shot can make the difference between a good shot and something that will have you taking the walk of shame back to your car/tent. If you can't tune out distractions and your opponent can, you are already at a disadvantage. Can you really be throwing away points like this? Every point should be a prisoner with no chance of parole.

Want the perfect example of distraction shooting? In the Men's team competition semi-finals at the Paris Olympics, Kim Je Deok came to the line needing a 10 to keep Korea ahead of China. He had 20 seconds to make his shot otherwise he causes his team time problems. Approaching the line, he was wafting his draw hand at something. Taking his stance it was revealed he was being accosted by either a large fly or a wasp. Kim ignored the insect even though it was in his face and even landed briefly on his hand. Kim never budged from his shot cycle and focus shooting a 10 so keeping Korea on target for the gold medal match. That's distraction shooting at its finest.

So how do you learn distraction shooting? Its like most of archery - practice. Before the London Olympics in 2012, Team Korea had a platoon of squaddies delivered to the team training site where they spent a pleasant afternoon relaxing and having lunch as well as enthusiastically shouting, haranguing, cat calling and in general being noisy arses. The archers got acclimatized to the noise from the squaddies as they practiced - they were learning to filter out the noise. This was Korean preparation for what they has seen at the Beijing Olympics four years earlier where the crowd was extremely partisan making a lot of noise when non-Chinese archers were shooting. Ironically, during the London games at Lord's Cricket ground, you could have heard a mouse far .. err .. cough when ANY archer was shooting. Same respect was heard at Paris. During the men's gold medal match in Paris, we think some of audience weren't breathing it was that quiet during shooting. Do archers need this level of silence? Silver medalist and god tier archer Brady Ellison has gone on record as saying that he doesn't mind the crowd being hyped and noisy. He'll do his thing no matter what and that's a great expression of his mental preparation and of distraction shooting in particular. If distract you, noise does. Weak, your game is.

Now usually when on or around the line, AGB etiquette expects you to respectfully be quiet when others are shooting .. Hmm! .. Archers are a social species in the main, if a little clique-y. So you will hear the drone of conversation all the time. This is a good starting point to you filtering potential distractions out - even with the louder archers. However, at other times, you will also hear loud comments deliberately intended to make other archers laugh or put them off. You will occasionally hear singing. And then there have been farm yard animal noises usually when the targeted archer is at full draw. These are more intrusive and are ideal for more extreme distraction shooting practice as blanking out the idiocy will significantly improve your focus. If you can tune out a badly harmonised rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody going on behind you then you are well on your way to never having an issue getting distracted again.

Obviously there are other distractions like Kim's insect attacker above or being carelessly contacted by other archers coming off the line. However, if you've practiced with the most common irritant (noise) it should stand you in good stead for everything else.

To sum up, so much time and energy is spend on form and fitness and kit and tuning that the mental game is often completely overlooked. Distraction shooting can be a major technique in your toolbox for improving your scores .. and ensuring dodgy humour doesn't result in a 10 minute search in the grass due to laughing at time of release. Worth considering we think, if only to stop GA's usual suspects putting you off with their antics.

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"Distracted from distraction by distraction" ...  T. S. Eliot