Thursday 29th October 2009

@ Sefton

Cloudy, warm.

2x 18 arrow ends @ 18m blank

Total 36.

Tuesday 27th October 2009

@Sefton

Cloudy, chilly.

It has been raining for a while over the weekend, so the weather is still in pretty poor shape.

5x 6 arrow ends @ 18m, 40cm spot, no scoring.

Total 30 arrows.

Thursday 22nd October 2009 - Afternoon Session

@ Sefton,

Sunny patches, warm, some light gusts of wind.

20x 3 arrow ends @ 18m, Indoor scoring 40cm Spot.

Set I: 275

Set II: 272

Total 60 shot.

Thursday 22nd October 2009

@ Sefton

Early, very cloudy and grey, dark and rain-like.

20x 3 arrow ends, two sets of 10 @ 18m Indoor.

Set I : 30 29 28 29 26 27 28 27 25 28 = 277 Rating of 81

Set II: 28 27 29 28 28 25 28 26 27 27 = 273 Rating of 77

Total = 550 Rating of 79

Incidentally, reflecting the rating back to a FITA90 score, it is a 1193, 1157, 1177 respectively.  It appears I'm back to my relative zone because my highest was 1186.

Fairly happy with today's shooting and using the open ring.  Some ends were a breeze, but others were still a slight struggle, I think more to do with posture and how I set up the shot than anything else.

Wednesday 21st October 2009

After some discussion with some people I respect on their knowledge and opinion, I have decided to switch over to using an open ring sighting method.  I had tried this a long time ago on compound with a little bit of success, and previously also on recurve without much success at all.  Now that the rest of my shooting skills have come up some, it isn't unreasonable to return to this method to try to eliminate other form issues, which at the moment is over-aiming.

So with this in mind, I removed the aperture disc, with the fibre optic pin in it, and the o-ring seal that held the disc in place.  My titan recurve scope is now an open ring, and I must say, on a 6-10 ring spot of an indoor face, at 18m, it is huge.  I see an incredible amount of gap space of the white, and the actual target butt.  Not to be distracted though, the key aspect is to just focus on looking at where you want to shoot, the gold, the middle of the gold.  Thus, that was how I aimed for the round.

@ Sefton, hot, slight gusts, bright on the face, shaded slightly on the target.

1x 6 arrow end warm up

10x 3 arrow ends scored Indoor round.

Total 36.

I scored a 265, only one point down from yesterdays shooting.  Amazingly so, and while it felt strange initially, the arrows didn't really do anything too unexpected at all.  In terms of the breakdown of ends it went as such:

25 27 27 28 23 23 26 28 29 29.

For the breakdown, while there were no 30's, the 22's became 23's.  The rest were fairly similar in consistency.  Some of the ends were very easy to shoot and relaxed, but once I stopped shooting, I could feel my subscapularis muscle aching slightly, indicating I was putting more into using it, which I think is a positive sign that I am aiming less.  In addition to this, my sight mark went up 1 full dial, as the arrows were going into the 8 ring high.

It is too early really to say off one session, so I shall continue with the open ring and see where it gets me.

I also found, that with the bow, since I took off a lot of excess weight yesterday, the wind pushing it is much more noticeable, while in a real indoor there would be no wind, so I am undecided in regards to re-attaching the weight or not.

Tuesday 20th October 2009 - Afternoon Session

After having a chat via Facebook to another archer about my motivational lacklustre, I developed a new goal, which is to shoot a 280 Indoor round.  To put this into perspective, if I shoot a 280 round consistently, it would put me 2nd in the Australian National ranking.  For compounders however, it would have to be a 300 minimum to be competitive.

So, I went back out and put in a proper round.  Two sets of 3 arrows warmup, then 10 rounds of 3 arrows scored.

My ends came to be:

22, 30, 28, 28, 26, 27, 28, 30, 26, 22

For a total of 266.

Thus, total arrows shot was 36.

Tuesday 20th October 2009

@ Sefton

Warm. Sunny.

3x 16 arrow ends @ 18m, blank.

Total 48.

Nothing major to report but after removal of excess weight from the bow, I felt that I was able to shoot the first 32 without problem at all, fairly smooth action through and good control.  At the end of the third end, there was a near pass-through, where the point of the arrow penetrated out the back of the target, but was not a complete pass-through.

Other than that, my motivational levels and causes to shoot are waning...

Thursday 15th October 2009

@ Sefton

Calm, bright, warm.

5x 12 arrow ends @ 18m, 6-10 40cm spot scoring.

1x 12 arrow end @ 18, blank.

Total 72

Shot another Indoor round today, yet again a 523.  Finished poorly with a 100 end, was throwing a lot of points because I wasn't strong to hold steady the bow weight while trying to bring through the clicker.  Having the heavier stabiliser is definitely working my arm since I can feel it, but it is also causing some posture problems with me leaning backwards post release.  This I could see through the shadow on the ground.  However when I was shooting the last end of blank, without aiming, I was able to keep my posture steady, so it related back to the aim and over-aiming, leading to other problems.

Tuesday 13th October 2009

@ Sefton, Bright, Sunny, Windy with gusts

10x 6 arrow ends @ 18m, 40cm 6-10 spot, scoring

1x 12 arrow end @ 18m, blank

Total 72.

Shot another indoor round today in the gusty winds early in the morning.  Scored a 523.  Towards the second half, I started to not worry about the score or aiming but focussed on the action through the release, and while it improved, I found that my natural aim was not too bad, still scoring 50 ends instead of with high aiming concentration and only scoring 53-54.  I think if that I can get my action through the clicker and release can be improved, then focus can be shifted slightly back to aiming later with a better form increase of points.

Sunday 11th October 2009

The weather has been pretty bad lately in Sydney, thus I haven't done much shooting.

@ Sefton

Some light wind, cloudy and bright spots.  Impending rain.

6x 6arrow ends @ 8m, 40cm 6-10 ring face.  No scoring.

I put in a quick few ends today to test out the Ron's Rod stabilizer that I repaired yesterday.  It felt good, the glue bonds didn't seem to have broken or separated.  It was heavier than my longrod (Easton SS) but felt quite solid in response.  I also managed to bust two more nocks, so I am now down to sixteen arrows since my order of nocks has still not eventuated from the Beiter factory and suppliers.

Thursday 1st October 2009

@ Sefton,

Warm, starting to heat up, no wind to speak of, bright and sunny.

10x 6 arrow ends @ 18m, 40cm 6-10ring spot.

Total 60.

Shot another indoor round, scoring a 527, including a lowest end of 49 and highest of 55.

Not very consistent, had problems bringing the arrows through the clicker, and realised towards the end it was because my head position is creeping forwards.  Most likely due to over-aiming the smaller spot size and not keeping posture up.

527 score comes to a 70 rating, so it is still okay, not the best.