One arrow, one life

Huh. Wow. I'm a total slug.

OK, somehow, in spite of my breakthrough at the Cal State Outdoor, I've been super un-motivated since then WRT archery. Nevertheless, here I am in Phoenix for the Papago Qualifier, working hard but trying to not try too hard :-) Not to mention, trying not to "try to relax." I'm actually really grateful that the other archers are here making it a real party, and the shoulder injury one of them is dealing with makes me grateful for what I have. Namely, my health.

I did finally sit down and map out the rest of the year, and I'm making an all out effort to give myself permission to not train flat out all the time. Because, frankly, I'm a little burned out, and while mentally flogging myself to WORK HARDER! DO MORE EXERCISES! SHOOT MORE ARROWS! HARDER! part of me goes on strike and refuses to do anything. So I end up doing less than I would if I were training at medium or even low levels. So, gotta give myself breaks, gotta give myself permission to rest. Sometimes.

Pretty in Pink

So there was this archer in California, everything she was wearing was either white, pink, or white with pink trim. She had a white hat, white arm guard, and white skirt. She had a white quiver with pink trim, white shoes with a pink swoosh, and white socks with a pink puma. She was wearing a pink shirt, a pink chest guard, a pink belt, her sunglasses had pink frames, her arrows had pink vanes and pink nocks, and her bow had a pink riser... with a pink bowstring!!! It was teh awesome!!!

yes! [fist pump]

Did even better on Sunday. Same good control and focus, with more consistency. Good score at 30m and a PERSONAL BEST score at 50m. Whoo-hoo!

The funny thing was, a lot of the time, it seemed easy. I would just draw the bow and shoot an arrow, and it would go in the middle, and I'd be, like, um, what was that? I didn't do anything! It was actually spooky, a real eerie feeling. But good!

One archer there asked another archer, jokingly, to be her coach, and he said, "OK. Hit the yellow part. As close to the middle as possible. With all your arrows." Ha ha, archery humor! We love it!

Cal State Outdoor, day 1

For the first time in a long time, I feel as though I am in control. I know what I have, and I can call on it. I can rely on it, stand on it as a stable base. That doesn't mean I have complete control! Consistency is still lacking, and that's extremely frustrating.  But I know I have something real I can tap into.

I shot some great arrows, today, and some great ends.

Now I just need to remember to check my arrows with my binoculars and then adjust my sight...

empty mind, full mind

Here's what I wrote in my archery journal today:

"Had a realization while I was meditating this morning. I have been thinking about what Coach said about the transition from setup to execution, and how one of the things you do at this transition is to "clear your mind." What I realized is that the way you clear your mind is not to try really hard to empty it, or push away intruding thoughts, but to just keep returning to the object of meditation. In sitting meditation, we often use the breath as the object of meditation. During shot execution, I've decided to try two objects, simultaneously if I can. If not, then alternating, and see which works better. One, the visual expectation of the arrow hitting the center of the target (recommended by Coach), and/or, two, the body feeling of the balanced dynamic tension in the back muscles (recommended by KiSik Lee), which in my case I feel in the lats. Both are right-brain activities. Both have worked for me on the few occasions that I've tried using them, but I've never tried to do them on every shot, to make that part of the shot routine."

This is yet another swing of the pendulum between the two poles of "empty your mind" and "fill your mind with your mental program, a structured set of thoughts, images and feelings" (Lanny Bassham).

I also want to say, several of the quotes from Rocco Mediate from his epic battle with Tiger Woods sound a lot like things that Coach has been trying to tell me:

"I’ve never been there like that before," he said later. "And I just found out what it’s all about. It doesn’t matter how you get it in. You’ve just got to get in and trust what you’ve worked on all your life. The putting. There’s no technical anything going on. It’s all make the ball go where you want it to go. It’s amazing. [...] I gave all of what I had today and I can’t complain."

When it comes to the topic of "what do you really want" or "where do you want to get in archery," being able to say "I gave all of what I had today" is near the top of the list, if not at the top.

OK, now what?

The last seminar was definitely not as exciting and challenging as the first two, but it was fun and instructive. Coach didn't ask us to use our backup bows (maybe not enough of us *had* a backup bow!) but we did some timing drills, some scrambling for equipment, some paired matches with shoot-offs for ties, etc.

I heard from the other archers that Kari Granville is organizing a series of qualifying tournaments this summer, like she did last summer. I wish I'd known; I might not have signed up for the Cal State Outdoor if I'd known. The Partner and I are still debating whether or not we will go next weekend. Meanwhile, I don't know which would be more disturbing -- if Kari didn't email me, or if she emailed me and I never got it. These email snafus just seem to get worse and worse.

Meanwhile, did a full set of archery stuff today: shot 120 arrows, wrote a performance analysis about it in my journal, meditated 20 minutes, did visualizations, stretch band exercises, affirmations, did the SPT strengthening exercise (1.5 hrs) and 0.5 hr of weight lifting. Plus the balance board. Now it's time for bed. Sigh.

trying to relax

The author of the legendary The Inner Game of Tennis, W. Timothy Gallwey, writes eloquently about the paradoxical phenomenon known as "trying to relax." Earlier this week I did another scoring shoot, this time at 50m, and it went well, again a few points higher than the last score at this distance, but again below my personal best. During that practice session, I was very dissatisfied with the quality of my focus and my mental program. So I decided that I could do better if I just focused harder, and went back the next day and did the same scoring shoot, this time really trying to solidify and standardize my mental program.

Needless to say, I scored much worse.

It's another piece of evidence that what I need the most is not more rigor, but more relaxation. But if you "try to relax" it just makes you more tense. So how do you relax without trying to? It's one of the central conundrums of athletic performance. "Trying" makes your muscles tense and overworked, but how do you accomplish anything without trying?

I don't know the answer, but I return over and over again to Gallwey, and one of the things he recommends is presenting yourself with a mental picture of what you want, then letting go and letting it happen. One way I have tried to employ this is, after I load an arrow but before I lift the bow, I mentally visualize the entire shot from beginning to end, emphasizing the form or other qualities I want to achieve. Then I lift the bow with the goal of "just shooting." I'm trying to undo the habit I developed of "working on my form" during every shot. I ended up doing this to the point where I couldn't not do it. I couldn't shoot without trying really hard to implement some form element or quality. It's hard to undo. And you can't undo it if you are fearful of shooting poorly.

Meanwhile, my back is better, I saw my doctor who reassured me that my symptoms are very mild for sciatica, and I have an appointment with The Best Physical Therapist In the World in about two weeks.

Tomorrow is the third of three seminars with my coach. I must get there early so I can see who owns that minivan with the rainbow sticker :-) Also so I can set up both the Intrepid and the Optima. Coach said to bring and setup your backup bow for this seminar. What will it be -- more balance board? More pyramid exercise? More scrambling for your bow under time pressure? Or new fun and games? It'll be hot; forecast high for Phoenix for tomorrow is 109. True, we will only be shooting until 11 a.m. but still.

learning how to practice

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.

Games Archers Play

We had the second of three seminars with my coach today -- about eight archers out at Ben Avery. Coach said we would start with the pyramid exercise. I won't give the full details as I believe this is one of his own exercises that he doesn't want published, but basically it is a stepped series of holds. We only did the first level, hold for 8 seconds before executing the shot. I was nervous and curious to see how I would perform, as I only recently started shooting with my heaviest limbs (34 lbs), and way back in March of 2007, when we did this exercise, I did terrible even though I was shooting with one of my lightest bows (30 lbs). After that lesson I went back to what my first coach calls "The Static Exercise" and is also one of the SPTs from the OTC.

Anyway, I needn't have worried -- I did just fine! Yay!

Then we did a timing drill. We were shooting 3 arrows at 50m. He started us out at 2 minutes, then cut the time 5sec at a time until we were down to 20sec total. It was very interesting to observe how I actually spend my time in my shot routine! Then another timing drill, this time your bow is back behind the white line, you are on the shooting line, and when he says go, you have to run back, get your bow, return to the line, and shoot one arrow. Again cutting and cutting the time. When we got down to the shortest interval, 20sec, I couldn't do it! And it's funny, once I did this reflex thing where I move my quiver further back on my belt, and I'm thinking, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? Finally, we did a "Last One Standing" with the same timing exercise. Mackenzie won, Gary was second. But I was happy with how I did.

Coach was in his element. It totally warms my heart to see him enjoying himself so much.

One of the archers was having trouble with her clicker, and Coach suggested using a stick-on clicker. I suddenly remembered I had one in my extra-equipment bag, and I gave it to her. She insisted on paying for it (it cost like $4) and was absurdly grateful. I hope it works out for her, I absolutely hate equipment problems.

One of the students is a real hot-shot, recently moved here from Florida -- partly to train with Coach?

A fun day! It's incredibly enjoyable and motivating to train in a group.

new target bag, new range pass

Today I stopped at PSE and bought a new target bag for practice at home. A week or so ago I started to hear this metallic sound when shooting at home. At first I thought it was the sound of one arrow hitting another. Then it happened with the first arrow in a new end--there weren't any other arrows in the bag. Upon closer examination I realized the arrows were passing right through the bag and hitting the cinder-block wall behind it! Not good for the points--one arrow the point is definitely blunted. I don't think that will affect its performance but I need to check with my coach about this. And the impact makes the nock pop out a bit. So, time for a new bag. Set me back about $45 but it should last a while. I do most of my shooting at the outdoor range at PSE anyway.

I also got a new year-long range pass for $100. In July the range pass goes up to $200! Just in time! Most of the guys in the Pro Shop barely know me because I do nearly all of my shooting early in the morning, long before the Pro Shop is open (they leave the shipping gate open for early-bird archers like me). So I also never get to sign in on the board. Maybe I should email them once a week.

I saw Alexander, he was with his student group. He didn't know that Gary Holstein had posted like a million pictures of him on his website, and he had just been complaining to Gary that Gary never took any good pictures of him and Jenny. So Alexander had to drag me to his computer so I could show him how to access them. (I linked to some of them in a previous post.)

He was also excited and proud about his student Annette Gorelik and how great she is shooting. Indeed she is, she just placed 2nd in the OR round at the Collegiate Nationals. I remember when her parents moved her to Tucson so she could train with Alexander. Now she's at college back in California and doing great. Yay!