Practicing with Purpose - Part 2

How to Practice Using The List (… with Purpose) .. Note—Please read Practicing with Purpose - Part 1 first otherwise this will be confusing. Steve

So, you have sat down and made a list of the things you would like to improve (I suggested using your shot sequence as a guide). Now it would be most effective if you could assign the number of points gained through each change but I have never figured out how to do that other than intuitively. (If you figure it out, please tell me!)

Whichever issues you want to work on first, go on the first page as #1, #2, and #3. The rest go on the next pages. You may have been told to never work on more than one thing at a time, and that is correct if you mean simultaneously. But you can work on these three things as long as you work on them one at a time. Maybe 15 minutes of work on #1, then 15 minutes on #2, then 15 minutes on #3. If you get bored (drills are boring!) switch to another item, but you may only work on these three … don’t even look at #4, etc.

Each of those things need to be focused upon and the guiding principle is that shots taken can only be evaluate upon whether you did the new thing correctly. Let’s say you are indoors and working on a new bow grip, say with the three outside fingers tucked alongside the grip of the bow. You are focusing so intently on you your grip feels that you accidentally loosed an arrow while it was pointed upward, the arrow glances off a heating duct and barely reaches the target but, nowhere near target center. If I were your coach I would ask “Was your grip right?” and if you said “Yes,” I would say “Good shot!” The only feedback allowed is based upon whether the new thing was done and done correctly. Good shots are based upon doing the new thing only! This is why this phase is often done sans target face and up close to the butts. After fifteen minutes of doing this, you switch to #2 and try to retain the grip you are working on, but your focus has to be entirely on the change you are making in #2. Your grip may waffle but that is of no account. (This intense focus is taxing, so take breaks!) Now, here is a very important point: “You are never, never, never to shoot an arrow (practice or competition) without reviewing The List first” (just before the first arrow, not every arrow). You must do this religiously because your old way of shooting has much more practice behind it than your new way(s). If you “just warm up” before shooting, you will revert to the old ways and undermine the teaching your subconscious mind has received.

Not being perfect in archery is hard on the ego.

You are Not Perfect: I suspect you had figured that out by now, so there will be some backsliding. To counter that, adopt a single goal for a practice round. Use a single notebook page for this (I use a small one that fits in my quiver). Write the goal at the top of that page and the numbers of the ends down the left side. Before you shoot each end, you will read the goal again and after each end you will give yourself a score on the goal. For example, your goal may be “I will shoot with my new grip (full mental program, etc.) on 95% of my shots.” After each end you place tick marks next to the end number for each successful execution (│││) and at the end of the round you tote them up to see if you met your goal. If you did not, the next time lower your goal to 90% or 80% or whatever you can do. Once you accomplish your goal, up it a little before your next practice round. (We want to always meet our goals to establish in our minds that we are “somebody who meets his/her goals.”) This seems like a lot of work … because it is but everything focuses on getting better and this works!

Practice with a Wider Vision: There is a great many things that take up practice time: tuning arrows, tuning bows, breaking in new bowstrings, etc. So, equipment issues, the mental game, shooting awkward shots (field archery) .. all kinds of things. For example, when I first shot the Las Vegas shoot, the target butts were brilliant white and brightly lit. All of my practice ranges had either straw (buff colored) or uncovered foam (grey) butts and were dimly lit. I was shooting Barebow and I found that my finely tuned crawl had to be modified during practice, then modified again on Day 1 … and on Day 2 … and on Day 3. My sight picture was different in the three different locations I shot in and it was disconcerting. I made a note to put an old, white bed sheet up and add a portable light to my practice butts so I would be thus affected the next time.

Make Notes! Too many archers try to keep everything between their ears. This is a mistake. Take notes regarding equipment issues; tips people give you; venue quirks (never shoot indoors next to a kitchen, they will be banging pots and pans preparing lunch!), etc. Be Smart! I suggest that when one of my students has met one of his goals on The List that he line it out but not obliterate it. (Then he adds/promotes an item from the pages underneath to become one of the new three items.) By lining item out so they can still be read, the archer has a record of his progress. Items will come back around (another trip through his/her shot sequence to get even better) and the same item worked upon can be found lined out above, telling the archer that “he/she did it before and he/she can do it again!”

I hope this helps!

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Steve Ruis is the author of many books on coaching archery and maintains a blog for archery coaches at archerycoach.wordpress.com. (its free and well worth a visit) He is the former editor of Archery Focus magazine.