Had my first real brush with target panic yesterday... had no idea what was happening until I described it to some online archery peeps.
An inability to hold at draw, even when I knew my aim was off, my aim locked too high on the target physically unable to bring my aim downwards to my mark only to loose the arrow too quickly.
Produced my worst score of the year, half of my personal best. #archery
it makes this previous post interesting to me however... I thought I was purely having a mechanical issue... but it might have been the first stages of what I felt yesterday:
OK session back out, kept finding my arrows dropping short but also flying point up. Looks like my nocking point slipped a bit down the string. Annoying but the risk of using movable nocking point knots. I should get them pinned down. Still managed to hit my minimum score target however so reasonably happy. #archery However I've got next week off! So going yo get in as much shooting as the weather and my feeble mortal form can manage.
so next batch of shooting? training montage at the 40 yard practice target (closest to my point on range which is around 45 yards).
slowing down the whole shooting cycle to force each step correctly and keeping at it until I can move when at full draw again.
I can totally empathise with this.
Target panic is real. I gave up competitions because of it when I shot recurve.
I was talking to a top level shooter on Sunday who gave up compound and switched to bare-bow because of it.
This video (the excellent Sjef van den Berg and cohorts) may help you:
8-bit Archer
Essjay (she / her) 🏳️🌈