Monday 14th March 2011

Run Time

1.4km - 6min 3sec

@ Sefton

12 x 6 arrow ends @ <8m, blank

Total 72.

After attending the seminar yesterday held by Simon Fairweather, the Australian National Head Coach, I tried using his 'new' methodology today.  In keeping it light with his philosophy, I also didn't shoot an excessive number of arrows since changing form without dropping poundage and shooting a high volume invites injury to your door.

It was interesting to hear and see diagramatically, along with his demonstrations using a thera-tube the biomechanical posture and form that is slightly different to the more common-place alternatives.  While it isn't exactly revolutionary, the changes and differences seem to be quite simple really, elementary.  Of course, getting to them and making them is the harder part as many people, especially older established archers are quite resistant to changes, especially if they have spent years fine tuning their particular method.

For me, it wasn't a huge leap as the action was quite similar to my current one, with the incorporation of a 'Kyuudou' style of draw that utilizes the torso rotation and pulling of the arms simultaneously apart.  The slight differences in how the foot position and shoulders align up however are the points that I am working with.

What I have kind of realised with my 12 ends is that realistically, how you get to the final position isn't that relevant in terms of the final alignment and how you shoot there, since it's just an alternative pathway.  I can do this three different ways and it feels the same once I'm there.  The difference though is that Simons method has been thought through to be the most low-risk injury scenario *provided* that you actually work from a low shooting weight to your final shooting weight.  If you jump straight in, you're just as likely to harm yourself as you would doing it any other way as the muscular groups and behaviours are more than likely weak (unless say you shoot Kyuudou also).

I didn't feel particularly weak, but I did feel at one point the 'strain' that was mentioned in regards to changes in how the body loads up.  The shot didn't quite seem terribly different but my release hand behaviour did change as expected.  Since I was mostly shooting blank (except aiming at arrows on the target already), its hard to fully determine how I might be able to sustain this when shooting at a face, which I hope to do later.

Points for me to work on is rotation of the hips to follow the torso to restore back to foot position.  Ensuring the bow shoulder comes all the way back and straight and maintaining a more centered posture.

Its hard to determine however if I am maintaining the right line of forces through the arm as I have no mirrors or someone watching, and while I could set up a camera, its quite fiddly and also a little challenging to get the propler 'from above' angle required.

That said, I will stick with it this week and shoot the QRE on Saturday with this method if I can and see how it feels.