Saturday 30th July 2011

@ Easton Yankton

Hot, not too humid, light breeze, clear skies and sunny.

2x 8 arrow ends @ 70m, 122cm unscored warmup on unofficial practice range

3x 3 arrow ends @ 70m, 122cm  warmup

6x 3 arrow ends @ 70m, 122cm Matchplay (2 matches of 3 ends)

4x 6 arrow ends @ 30m and 70m, shooting new clicker and fingertab.

Total 67

Today was the Hoyt World Open matchplay event.  I was seeded 27th after the qualifying FITA90 yesterday.  My first match was against gt, one of the engineers involved in developing the Easton X10 arrow.  I won the match, and was then put up against Dan Schuller, who came 6th in the FITA90, so when I lost, it wasn't really a big deal.  In terms of execution, I did fine against gt, but lost it completely against Schuller.  I think it is because in the matchplay format there is such a long wait delay while other matches in other divisions happen and it was hard to stay 'warm' and concentration was pretty challenging.

Got to work on bowarm, hand pressure, finger pressure, and confident bringing through the clicker.

Friday 29th July 2011

@ Easton Yankton

Hot, humid a little, no real wind of note, very sunny

6x 6 arrow ends @ 50m and 30m, 80cm 5-ring unscored to check settings and warmup on the unofficial practice targets

3x 6 arrow ends @ 50m, 80cm 5-ring official warmup

FITA Short distances.

Total 126

Shot the short distances.  I struggled a bit at 50m in expanding, and my clicker was still shifting backwards, thus making it harder to draw.  I am really looking forward to being able to set it solidly using the AAE microclick clicker plate.

At 30m however, I did struggle some too but really tightened and put pressure with the thumb to help with expansion and really put the shot through.  

Overall, I had a really good shoot today, a 298 for 50m and a 346 for 30m.  Comes to 1188, so I was really happy with it :)

I had a pretty good time, just need to work on 90m more.

Thursday 28th July 2011

@ Easton Yankton, Target Range

USAA Target Nationals Day 1

Comfortable, overcast with light to medium breeze settled down to light wind of really no note.

3x 6 arrow ends @ 90m warmup

90m and 70m

Total 90

I was pretty unsettled at the start of the day, wasn't able to get into form and suffered for it.  I think also because the shooting is staggered into two flights, the time inbetween made it hard to stay in my usual shooting rhythm, so things were a bit off.  I had a terrible 90m, with a miss in the first two ends, suffering my score greatly.  I did come back with a 236, which is okay for me at 90m, but definitely a little lower than I was hoping.

In the 70m, I really tried to focus my shooting, and concentrated on the arm and fingers, especially finger pressure.  It paid off, and while I did have 5 or 6 bad shots where I just simply had held the shots too long, the rest were solid execution.  I was very happy with the result, much more confident and finished up with a 308 for 70m.  It placed me down on the list at 24th from 48 competitors, so a great place to be.

Tomorrow I am in the afternoon session, and I hope that the weather isn't too bad, and I can stay concentrated through it to finish strongly, a mid 1100 would be great.

Wednesday 27th July 2011

@ Yankton

Thunderstorm showers, light breeze at start of day, turned sunny and hot

4x 6 arrow ends @ 70m, 122cm unscored warmup

28 target NFAA animal round

8x 6 arrow ends @ 90m, 30m, 50m, 70m, 122/80cm spots sight setting checking

Total 100

First time shooting the NFAA Animal round today.  It was interesting shooting yardage at animal pictures with marked score zones.  I finished with a 551, with a 560 being a full round, but 588 being the perfect round.  Still a reasonably good score, but put me at 6th in the end.  It seems like it was a bit of a tight race for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, with only a few points between them.

I then went across to the target range after registration and practiced a little, made sure my sight settings were on the target reasonably.  I got to meet Kik-Sik Lee, after being introduced by David Rowson and Marie Hulbert.  My settings worked well enough I thought so I decided to not stay out in the heat any longer than I needed.  They are setting the shoot in two sessions, morning and afternoon, and rotating on the second day.  In addition to this, they are shooting two flights, AB and CD as the line only has enough space for 2 people at a time.  They seems to be over 70 targets on the field. so should be interesting.  I know at least one person on my target, Josh Hinson from Florida who I met during my time at Easton Newberry, so it should be interesting to see how we go against each other.

Tuesday 26th July 2011

@ East Yankton

Hot, light breezes, humidity rising, cloudless

2x 4 arrow ends warmup

Rushmore Range, Hunter Round

Total 120

Shot better today, felt better in execution but there were still weak moments during the round.  I made two separate mistakes today, one with using the wrong sight setting, and a shot after a premature click before I made it to anchor, simply just lack of focus, possibly due to tiredness and the heat.  I started in the morning not feeling 100% right, but not quite feeling sick, but was okay once we got around on the course.

In terms of everyone elses scores, I shot a 491 today, and caught a few points up from yesterdays points against some of the others as I saw a few of them shot 480's.  It means it might very well be a rather tight finish line tomorrow, with the Animal Round being last.

The hunter round target faces were white centres and black elsewhere, so a much smaller dot for focus, and in yardage marks of a variety, not necessarily in 10 or 5 yard marks at all.  I was making guesses at how much to cut to compensate for the lower angle (even though the whole course is rather flat) and I did okay.

Monday 25th July 2011

@ Easton Yankton

Hot, humid a little, light breezes at times.

4x 4 arrow ends warmup

NFAA Field Round

Total 128

I was assigned to the Badlands, one of three field courses they have here (Badlands, Rushmore, Crazy Horse) in addition to the Dakota range that was at Gavin Point Dam.  The NFAA round consists of 4 arrows, on a variety of yard distances up to 80 yards including fans and walkups.  Their target faces are also different to the FITA versions in both size and style.

In any case, it was a long day since the NFAA round is 28 targets instead of 24.  I shot reasonably, but discovered that I wasn't engaging my back properly, and it was affecting the quality of my shot significantly.  I powered into the shot and improved somewhat in the second half, but I did lose quite a lot of points this way.

I ended up with a 471, though it should have been a 481 because my shooting group let me shoot two arrows on the wrong target face even though they even spotted them for me, since in NFAA, unlike FITA, first up on the line shoot the bottom targets instead of the top, and I stupidly shot on the top -_-..... oh well.

Tomorrow is the Hunter round with different faces and distances again.

Sunday 24th July 2011

@ Gavin Point Dam, Dakota Range

Cooler but still quite warm, not much wind movement.

Marked Field

Total 78

I didn't shoot very well.  I realised only afterwards today (Monday) that I wasn't engaging my back properly, which would explain why my sight settings were dropping low in a lot of the shots and I was rather shaky.  I attributed also some of it to being in the same shooting group as Brady Ellison and Jake Kaminski.  It was really good to watch them shoot, very smooth actions, but it was also good to see that they were human, with poor shots, and lack of concentration with Brady using the wrong sight setting, and also shooting on the wrong spot on the 20cm target.

I finished with a lower score on the marked than the unmarked, but both Brady and Jake did too so I didn't feel so badly.  It appeared that their marked field course wasn't really set right in terms of distances.  Still, good experiences.