Being Fluid is not a snap...pt. 2

    To follow up with part 1, being fluid...

    The natural tendency of archers is to practice, and perhaps practice what I am saying in these blogs to try and improve their Hill style shooting.  Let me stress...do not allow arrow groups to dictate your confidence level, or your self-approval of accuracy necessary for shooting game.

    John Schulz said he'd leave the discussion of target archery to those who were authorities on that subject and I will do the same.  It is very hard for archers to practice shooting and not allow the target-based archery influence their shooting.  The measure of competency is arrow groups and their size at any given distance.  Once a person is shooting certain size groups, they deem themselves accurate enough to hunt game.  The distance they start spreading out the groups is the distance they are taught to not shoot any further at an animal.  It's bad ethics, they're taught.

    Schulz said in his video..."I came upon two bucks at about 60 yards...one bedded under a fir tree...and as I made my shot, I elevated a little too much, flat missed the first buck.  He broke and ran downhill.  The other buck broke to my left, and as he did, I drew an arrow, swung around and shot...and collected one of the biggest bucks of my archery career..."  Did anyone catch the distance?  A running shot around 60 yards.  Did he shoot it through the heart? Maybe, maybe through the lungs, or liver.  Don't know.  But he killed it.  He wasn't Hill shooting haphazardly back in the day, before ethic police were judging every game shot distance.  This was fairly modern times.  Was it an ethical shot?  Sure, it didn't wound the deer.  He didn't use a tracking dog and trail it for a mile or two.  How many of today's hunting stories we read on the internet or in print, say "the shot was further back than I wanted...we gave the animal time...we left and came back in the morning..."  Do those sound like ethical shots?  Were they believed to be ethical when the arrow left the string?

    When we shoot, we must above all, have confidence we can hit what we are looking at.  We don't have to have confidence we can do it every time, or that 99% of the time our arrows will group together at that distance.  No, we must have confidence we can hit the target, right now.  Because we've done it before and we know we can do it again.  Revisiting the basketball player analogy...he doesn't wait until he can hit 99.9% of his shots from all over the floor before he plays his first game and throws his first ball at a basket for score.   He plays the game and shoots for baskets relying on confidence that he's made baskets before, and he can do it again, right now.   

    When we work at the bales, working on form and start seeing the arrows going where we are looking, it needs to instill confidence in us, that we can do this.  We can shoot fluid and smooth and rather quickly and know the arrow will hit close to where we are looking...because we've done it.  We've done it enough times that we believe we can do it again, right now.  We MUST NOT judge our level of competence for hunting accuracy on the fact that we are grouping arrows.  We MUST judge our competence for hunting accuracy on the fact that we totally believe that the shot we are facing, right now, we've done before and we can do again, right now...and then we do it without any more thinking about it.  We don't let negative thoughts in.  We don't worry about outcomes we can't control, such as animals ducking, swerving, jumping or dropping, branches swaying, wind blowing.  All those things that can turn an ethically approached shot into a less than desired, less than ethical shot result.  We must do the best we can, with the best tools available and that is not more tech gear or tighter groups.  The best tool is our mind, our confidence, and our ability to allow the body and mind to work together to shoot without conscious thought at the moment of truth.  We must allow the body and mind to work together, just as they have for thousands of shots at the blank bale and that "right now, right here, I can shoot that spot I'm looking at, I only have to do it one shot, this one".    That approach starts during our practice. That building of confidence in shooting blank bale, and in shooting while roving and stumpshooting.  If we know we can shoot a stump at 30 yards or 40 yards because we've done it lots of times before, then we can also shoot a deer's chest at 30-40 yards because we've done that shot.

    I believe that is the confidence that a hunting longbow shooter has, like Hill had, and Schulz had in shooting that running buck.  He'd practiced and knew he could do the shot, or he wouldn't have shot.  We read each season of guys who have a target-shooting-influence routine they go through each shot, fail to make a good shot on an animal.  At the moment of truth, there are too many distractions, of which Schulz talked about in his first book, that take the mind off the spot to hit.  Add to that the distraction of thinking about a shot routine that must have all steps checked off in order to "control" the shot correctly before the arrow is released...it's a wonder they hit the deer at all, let alone "a little far back".  This also goes for guys shooting compounds with sights.  It's a common story.  

    I know from experience that the more we divest our minds from clutter at the moment of the shot, the more we rely on our ingrained swing draw shot form and we allow it to work without short-circuiting it with extraneous thoughts, the better we'll do when that animal gets in front of us and as a result, the more ethical the shot.  So practice this way.  Shoot each arrow with complete confidence that you'll hit the spot you are looking at.  Sure, the arrow may miss,  but you do not dwell on that.  You only know that this shot, right now, I will hit that spot...let the arrow go and watch it hit the spot.

    Also...shooting with some speed and fluid form is not a recipe for TP as is told by "experts" today.  If the form is not learned and adhered to and trusted, it can lead to distrusting the shot process of the swing draw, fearing a miss, causing the body and mind a disjointed effort to shoot an arrow and surely, the result will be a panicked shot.  Then because of that shot, it affects the next and the next.  The old adage is if you can't stop the shot and hold it on target, and not release, then you have TP.

   I say nonsense.  The LEARNED, CONTROLLED, Fluid, Relaxed, Swing draw and release way of shooting a longbow is a complete unit, not separate parts, and is akin to swinging a golf club or casting a flyrod and line.  If anyone went up to Tiger Woods and asked him to stop his swing half way down to the ball, with control, then finish the swing and be on target and expect results or else it was TP,  that would be foolishness.   Or if you stopped a flycaster mid-stroke and expected control and accuracy, same thing...foolishness.   The motions are a complete package from start to finish.  There is not loss of mental control because the motion is not stoppable. The person executing a golf swing does not have TP because they cannot stop the swing on the downswing.  Neither does the flycaster have TP because they can't stop the cast with control.  The verified Swing Draw Longbow shooter does not have TP because they cannot stop the shot process with control.  The entire motion is the shot. All the parts, the sum total, make up the whole and there is no separating them.  They are learned as a unit and performed as a unit and trusted to work as a unit.  The more we are told they are separate parts to the shot process and each part must be controlled and executed properly or the shooter has TP...I say firmly that is target-shooting based instruction and is best left to those people who wish to shoot their bows in a target archery manner.  Good luck with that.

    For the rest of us, the Hill style longbow, Hill style swing draw shooters, shooting in a relaxed, controlled, carefree, fluid manner is as far from TP as it can be. But it must be practiced and ingrained into muscle memory and the subconscious as a complete shot unit, all the parts working together in a fluid motion, and then trusted to work as practiced.  With that...

     Shoot straight.