Hey guys,
I just picked up my first compound this weekend and got a couple hours at the range for instructions. I did smoke my forearm (rocking a beautiful bruise this week) which may have me a little gun shy.
I shot well at the range and was hitting vitals on a 3D deer consistently. The next day my shooting really fell apart though. I would shoot a solid group at 20 and then fling a wild one after 6-10 shots.
How do you guys recommend I approach my practice to become proficient by deer season in October? Should I limit myself as not to get fatigued and sloppy or should I shoot til I’m burnt out? My common sense tells me to shoot in brief sessions consistently until my bow muscles strengthen but maybe I’m wrong.
Any advice is appreciated!
It's easy to let the initial excitement let you kind of get carried away. October is right around the corner, and how you choose to spend the time between now and then is paramount.
Practice ingrains habits, both good and bad. Every day you spend practicing a bad habit is one more day you will have to spend later unlearning it. I have a 10-step pre-shot routine that I follow religiously for each shot. This helps me ingrain the good habits. If I find something is going wrong, I quit practicing until I can figure it out, no matter how long it takes.
I started shooting compound less than 3 months ago. I've learned about 100 new things since then. I am continuously reading forums on archery, watching archery youtube videos, and consulting with experts. It's easier to go to the range, get lessons, and have someone coach you through it, so that is another path to the same end if you'd prefer to do that instead.
Always quit before you get tired. If you shoot when tired your form suffers, then you develop muscle memory for bad form. I typically shoot every other day. Half of my shooting is blank bale, to focus solely on form. Don't start a shooting session if you are annoyed, irritable, sick, tired, hungry, sore, etc. Only start a session if you are rested and calm and feel fine. If you start making mistakes in a session, quit. You can't dig your way out of a hole during a session. If you become frustrated, fatigued, angry, disappointed, etc, quit and resume another day. In the beginning I would take two rest days between sessions, but after doing this a few weeks, I move it up to every other day.
You don't know what you don't know until you learn it, then you wish you could rewind the clock and do it the right way from the beginning. Initial success is deceiving. I did the exact same thing the first day I shot my bow. Driving tacks. Day 2 got worse, then day 3 even worse than that. It was about a month before I could climb back to my Day 1 success.
Your brain involuntarily slides your body into bad habits such as anticipating the shot, target panic, drive by shooting, peeking, over-aiming, gripping the riser, and other habits. I don't mean to be doom and gloom. It just helps to have an awareness of the normal progression of learning to shoot a bow, so you can focus on countering the slide into poor performance.
Don't hesitate to ask additional questions to the HT community. There is a ton of great information on here, and people are overwhelmingly generous to consider your questions.
