I'm keeping an archery journal, where I record information about every daily practice session. Where, when, weather, distance, equipment, number of arrows. But more importantly: what I worked on that day, what went well, what I need solutions for, what I learned, what I'm wondering about. I'm finally finding this type of journal record helpful instead of tedious.
Practicing used to be just another thing to check off my list. The main thing I cared about was how many arrows did I shoot. Don't get me wrong, shooting lots of arrows is extremely important. But I wasn't really getting anywhere with either my form or my mental process. Sure I would work on my form, but what I was doing was mostly trying to force myself to do one thing or correct one thing, and getting easily discouraged when it didn't "happen." Another problem was that if I noticed something wrong, I would switch to working on that. I would often switch among form elements several times in a practice session, without making progress on any of them.
Some form elements take a lot of time and effort to get right. Keeping both shoulders low has been an issue for me from the beginning, and continues to be an issue (Coach corrected the position of my left shoulder just yesterday). It's also frustrating because with this I still have trouble really sensing whether or not my shoulders are as low as they can be. I think they're doing fine, then that's the one thing Coach corrects. Frustrating.
What's different now is that I focus much harder, while at the same time being a bit easier on myself. I ask for form, and picture it, instead of always just trying to force myself to do it right (although I still do that too!) I try to refine my awareness, and if I can't get it right, or it's not going well, I don't get harsh with myself. If I get harsh, my mind will veer away from the topic at every chance. I become allergic to the topic or form element. What it feels like, actually, is like trying to force two magnets to come together when they have the same polarity. You can force them to touch, but the moment you relax your concentration, they spring apart again. So any kind of harshness or self-criticism has the exact wrong effect, causing me to lose ground instead of gaining it.
I'm gaining ground by setting small goals for every practice, and then feasting on the results. What I mean is that I acknowledge the progress I make, and those acknowledgments build up and give me a sense that I'm getting somewhere. I feel as though I am eating, taking in nourishment, instead of gazing at the feast from afar. I experiment, and record the results. Lots of things I try don't work. I simply move on to the next thing.
I'm also enforcing my new habit of doing a scoring shoot once a week. I score at 30, 50 and 70m. So far my scores are not exciting, but that doesn't discourage me. I need practice with things like relaxing and emptying my mind, appropriate for scoring and tournaments, but not for other kinds of practice necessarily. And I need practice with aiming off in windy conditions. And I need practice dealing with the focus and emotional issues that come up when I score arrows, whether they are good or bad.
Today during the strengthening exercise I noticed that adjusting my hand position on the grip brought my arm away from the line of the string. This has the potential to help me with the recurring problem of the string hitting my arm guard. That problem drove me right up the wall when I first realized how prevalent it was. But at some point I got a grip, and after trying the two things I knew to correct it (neither of which worked), I made a mental note to get Coach to help me with this, and turned my attention to other things. That was really the most recent emotional meltdown I had and it was very minor and I corrected it quickly. (It was one of the things that finally got me to switch to my highest-poundage limbs, because the stronger the limbs, the less I hit my arm.)
Anyway, tomorrow early a.m. I'm scoring arrows at 30m at PSE, and I'm going to try adjusting my hand position. This is something that happens very early in the shot setup, so I'm confident it won't interfere with my practicing emptying my mind and "letting go" at the end of shot execution.
I can't wait.
Comments