some rambling about the target panic issue I'm having with #archery because talking through a thing helps you understand a thing.
human brains are cool and weird and have a habit of automating tasks and actions to the sub-concious... this is really useful for a ton of things and tends to be how we develop skills and talents... when we're able to offload complex actions from our conscious mind to our unconscious... reducing workload on repetitive actions to let us focus on active decisions.
for the most part? this is really beneficial but there are some downsides...
when it comes to physically demanding actions the brain will not only automate specific actions and decisions... but also try to optimise them... it takes some decisions out of our metaphorical hands and begins to take shortcuts in how we handle and process information and make decisions... this is often to protect us with rapid reactions to external stimuli... flinching or ducking something thrown at us for example.
where the downsides kick in, particularly for archery, is that this tendency to shortcut and anticipate can take important decisions away from us... that drive to automate can make it really hard to resist and control specific activities, particularly when that involves a physical response...
this, in my case at least, is the root of my target panic...
to cut a long story short my brain has linked aiming the arrow and releasing it into a single mental trigger and it's annoying as all heck...
so when I come up to full draw I'm essentially unable to hold my aim "on" the target I'm looking at without loosing the arrow, even if I'm not physically in the right position...
if I aim "off" the target I have no issue, but the moment my brain sees the point of the arrow lined up with where I want to shoot? the hand lets go.
the solution is essentially needing to break that connection between aiming and releasing and rewrite the process my head is responding to and... well it'll suck 😅
general rule of thumb seems to be that it takes around 2000 arrows to get through it and reprogram, the focus being to avoid shooting a reactive shot entirely... for some it's faster, for others it takes longer and, this is the bit I'm dreading, you need to stop shooting otherwise until you can break that mental trigger...
which means it's going to be long, boring and not at all fun process.
but I'm fairly sure I'm not going to properly enjoy myself until I get that control back.
so... I'm going to be buying a new bow riser at the end of this month. that's something I've been planning for a while and I'm not diverting that plan.
but I'm going to try that "pause" and reset as a drive to get this drilling process done.
I've set up a target on the back of my shed and I'm going to try and spend most evenings doing an hour of drill weather permitting.
8-bit Archer