Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of the Hill Style

       

Since it's officially 50 years ago that the Bicentennial Flagshot bows were built, please check out the previous Bicentennial blog story on a special bow with some added information.

        Happy 4th of July, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the USA!  In honor of those who gave all so that we could enjoy shooting arrows out of longbows, make sure you do shoot some arrows and may each arrow shot bring some added joy to your celebrations.

       Some thoughts on the Hill style of shooting and tackle...maybe more of a reminder and some encouragement than anything else.

       The Hill style is a complete system of tackle and shooting equipment that was the culmination of Howard Hill's efforts to combine different techniques and tackle available in his day into something that worked for him in getting an arrow into the target or animal under a wide variety of shooting situations. He was a practical, common-sense sort of guy, and knew that most tackle would shoot better than he could, so his efforts were in perfecting the simplicity of shooting an arrow rather than trying to use more complicated equipment.  Somehow that ideal approach is lost on a large majority of arrow shooters today.  Hopefully, this blog has opened up some archers to the beautiful simplicity of shooting arrows accurately with the Hill style.

       Shooting a longbow well, using the Hill style, demands attention to detail when working on the form in front of a blank bale.  The form has to be ingrained without the stress of hitting a target. Once it is ingrained, then the attention shifts to having fun shooting arrows and allowing the mind and body work together, unfettered, to put the arrow where the eye is looking.  There is always the time needed in front of the bales, keeping the shooting form polished up and sharp...but don't let that approach of shooting into a target butt create the target shooting mentality.  There is a difference between the two disciplines.

       We have to shoot often to keep up the muscles and hand/eye coordination. Most of us don't have  open countryside to launch arrows.  We're forced to shoot in a rather confined space if we want to practice.  That's fine. Just don't resort to endlessly shooting for "tight groups". That's target shooting mentality whether you're at the range or in the backyard.  Instead, practice a "roving" mentality even if it's in the backyard.  Put up a large enough backstop that you can suspend a target in front of it a few feet.  Like a ball on a stick to imitate a squirrel on a limb.  Or a bale of straw or stuffed gunnysack on a sawhorse to replicate a deer body.  Or perhaps a dangling strand of rope or a stake in the ground that you try to split. Shoot from various angles, distances and body angles. Anything that gets you shooting at something that isn't plastered on a target butt.  Anything you can shoot at that doesn't involve shooting arrow groups to quantify accuracy.

       Learn to build confidence in your shot.  This starts from shooting a good shot, and realizing that once you've done it, you can do it again, and every shot from that moment forward, will be shot with the confidence that you will do it again.  You may miss, as we all do, but you will never shoot another arrow without the extreme confidence that comes from knowing that you have done this and will do it again right now.  That was something the great golfer Jack Nicklaus once said. He'd made a difficult putt to win an important tournament at the beginning of his career. He used that putt to prove to himself that he'd performed a difficult shot under pressure. He realized that he could make any other shot he needed to under great pressure as well and that mentality carried him through his entire career. It was the mindset that he'd done it before, and could do it again right now. Sure, he missed lots of pressure shots through the years, but he accomplished  many great shots and great wins with that mental approach. I'm quite sure that Hill had a similar approach in shooting arrows and since I adopted that mentality, my shooting good shots under pressure has greatly improved. 

       You have to learn that you will never get a shot arrow back and there can be no regrets.  If you are not prepared to accept the consequences of a poor shot, then you should probably find another sport. Poor shots are not necessarily measured by arrows that don't stay in a tight group, or arrows that don't find the kill zone of an animal large or small.  Poor shots start with poor concentration on the target to hit, which allows the mind to drift, and the built-in ability of each one of us to use hand/eye coordination to shoot an arrow is short-circuited. Concentrate and trust is supremely important and they are built by knowing your form is reliably good based on hours of blank bale shooting.  We are humans with a very complex body that can perform extremely difficult tasks every day without one bit of intentional thought, because those tasks were repeated over and over without being thought of as a chore.  They were fun, or necessary, and, well...just done without thought. We didn't think about how we did them, we just did them. And we do these daily tasks with supreme accuracy when you stop and think about it. So many nerve impulses and muscles to the smallest degree all working together to do what the mind said to do.  So why should we shoot an arrow any differently?  Learn to shoot with proper form and then just shoot.  Shoot thousands or millions of arrows without overanalyzing each shot. Just let the body understand the process and let it go do its thing.  You will shoot a longbow in the Hill style all the better for it.

         Go have some unfettered fun this weekend, shooting a bright-fletched wood arrow to the mark, even better if it's from a Hill style longbow and drawn from a leather backquiver. Get in the spirit of Hill and the countless others before and after him who've been drawn to the simple act of shooting an arrow from a bent bow. Enjoy the liberty and freedom of this Hill style of shooting and tackle without any of the encumbrances forced upon you by trendy, perhaps even tyrannical shooting instruction. Make a conscious decision to live a free archery life and to always

        Shoot Straight.