Concentration

    "The single most important thing you can do when shooting at a game animal is to concentrate on the spot:

     "When a fella tells me he missed an animal, shot about that far over his back, I tell him he was looking at the whole animal. Concentrate on the spot..."

     And there we go.  Another thought-provoking lesson from John Schulz.  Concentration, the thing we usually think about the least in the search for good shooting.  It's easy to find time addressing all the different points of good Hill style hunting shooting form, but how often does one think that the accuracy issue is in their concentration?  Concentration on the spot to hit must be total at the moment of truth.  Schulz said to try and black out everything else.  If that is the case and everything else but the spot to hit are blacked out, then there is no thinking about anchor point being reached, back tension properly followed, release and follow through perfectly done.  No preshot routine to check off before the arrow can be released,  no notice of where the arrow tip is pointed.

    I'll always remember the first 3 arrows I watched John shoot in person.  The bales were about 20-25 yards away.  Three arrows went into a tight, feather-touching group in the center of the center bale.  First shot, the arrow went away to the spot. "John, you didn't reach your anchor."  This statement posed by my companion. "I didn't?", he replied.  "No", says I. "You were about 1" short of your face".   Second arrow touches the first.  John looks at me. "Did I touch anchor?"   "No", I replied again. This time he was about 1/2" short.  A determined look got on John's face, a steely glare in his eyes.  Third arrow into the group with the first two, all feathers touching.  John turns to me..."Did I reach anchor?"    "Yessir, you did".  I replied, seeing with my eyes that his fingers were about the same 1/2" away from his face........at the same split-second that his arrow head was pulled all the way onto the shelf the same way his other shots had been.  He'd reached anchor without anchoring.  Huh?

      John's shot form was so ingrained, and his concentration on the spot to hit was so intense, that he didn't know if or if not he'd touched his anchor on his face, but his body knew what full draw felt like and compensated to draw the arrow fully to the head as he'd practiced.  The mind took over the shot, made all the necessary adjustments in the form, and the full power of the bow was realized and the arrows went were he was looking.  Perfect hunting shot form.

    What a great lesson on concentration.  He later told me when I asked him if he'd ever paid attention to the arrow tip and where it was pointing.  I asked in reference to Hill's split vision instructions.  John said Hill never once discussed split vision shooting with Schulz. That in itself is pretty amazing considering all the shooting they did together.  Schulz also said to me, in all seriousness, "I know the arrow tip is there, but I choose to not look at it".  That is in my opinion, a great judge of how great his concentration was on the spot to hit.  When our concentration is that good, we are allowing the mind and body to perform at their practiced, muscle-memory best with no interference by our conscious attempts to think through the steps of the shot.  Sure, Schulz told me his initial thought to jump-start the shot was to downswing his bow arm to preload, and after that, there was no more thought.

     Our thinking, as Hill instructed in "Hunting the Hard Way" was to NOT think too much over the shot.  He said at the time of the shot in the bush (hunting), all the focus should be on "aiming" the arrow.  If he didn't mean to see the arrow tip in split vision, then I gather his "aiming" comment to be the concentration on the spot to hit.  This instruction is in the same book that also contains instructions of split vision shooting.  You've got to know what audience he's writing each sentence for.  He was selling books and instructed a widely different audience.  He wrote something for each to take from the book, to take the part that applied to the individual's archery interests...hunting or shooting targets.

     Going back to the basketball analogy again.  If a player has put in the time on the practice court, and trusts his form to get the ball into the basket, then during the fast-paced action of the full court and shot opportunities, he is absolutely not thinking about his form. It's all look and shoot, total concentration for a very split second. Acquire the target and throw without thought.  It's amazing how often the ball goes through the hoop with all the activity going on to hinder the shot accuracy.  Then he gets fouled and has to stand at a predetermined distance and shoot with all eyes on him, lots of time to get the shot off and lots of time to think.  It's at this moment that is the hardest for concentration and shooting those pesky free throws are really tough.  Some players never do very well with them their entire career.  What was the difference?  Hunting form versus shooting targets form.

       When you shoot at the close bales, ingraining form, that is the time to work on thinking through the shot.  The distance is close and accuracy isn't the theme, proper form is.  Once you get away from the close bales, every shot that is of any importance for accuracy, whether it's a stump out roving, or a squirrel on a limb or a deer standing right "there", should be shot with such great concentration that you do not know if you reached full draw and touched anchor or not.  You will have to trust that you did.  Schulz trusted that he did...and he did whether it looked like it or not at his anchor point.  If you watch the Scott Dobbs Youtube version of Schulz's video, it's of good enough quality that if you look close and pay attention, his arrow is drawn fully to the head even though his anchor looks varied and floating.  He is at full draw.  His body know what it feels like and his concentration is such that he's not thinking about it.  He told me that the greatest shooting on the video was not the aspirin shot.  It was the shooting for speed, because he shot each arrow in a fluid, natural way with no time for thinking about anything but the spot to hit.  That's concentration.

     Work on your "concentration on the spot".  Once proper form is learned and can be trusted, black out everything else when you're shooting away from the bales.  Away from the bales, you are now "in the bush (hunting or roving)" and at that time, as per Hill, all concentration is on shooting the spot.  NO thinking of any other aspect of form.  Trust your form to work.  And after the shot, don't analyze if you reached anchor or not.  That's thinking for when you're back at the close bales.  Go out and relax, be fluid, shoot with utter joy and freedom.  Shoot with total concentration on the spot,

    And Shoot Straight.

For those of you that didn't know this copy of Schulz's video was available, here's a pretty good one. 

https://youtu.be/nMMrSC1mBOY?si=gr4rBb8J5VbP41nG