Committed Path to Conditioned Instinct

        "I do make a distinction between natural instinct and "conditioned" instinct....When you shoot the same bow (design), and the same form, basically the same arrows, day after day, month after month, year after year, you develop a "keen" hand to eye coordination. By doing this repeatedly, you will program your mind to such a fine point, that it will be a natural and immediate flow and the precisioned response - from "conditioned instinct" - will put you right on target.

      If you use improper tackle or varied form, or a change of tackle, all of those will work against sharpening this method of shooting.  Work at it - "condition" your instinct. "   John Schulz in "Straight Shooting"

      How is your commitment to the Hill style of shooting?  I'm speaking to those who are specifically wanting to shoot a straight-end longbow in that cool, casual, fluid style of shooting that Hill manifested.  Many are the remarks and questions I've received over the years, about how to shoot and how to avoid target panic, and worse yet...how to get out of target panic.  I think the above words from Schulz are important when addressing this.  It comes down to commitment to the system.  Schulz said to use the same tackle, the same form, day after day continually through the years.  That means no deviation.  No bouncing back and forth between aiming systems, bow styles, tackle, or worse yet, shooting form changes. You have to be committed to learning the Hill system fully and completely and then staying with it...just like you would in learning any other dedicated sport or musical activity in which you expect success.

     However, most of the time, when I hear of shooters having problems, or questions about how to get out of target panic, a few questions spell out the reasons why the problems.  It usually boils down to commitment to the style.  This starts from the very first day of shooting your longbow.  You must understand the form and you must ingrain the form properly.  This has to be done in front of a blank bale at very close range without any kind of object that will cause you to "aim" at the blank bale.  You must learn that the only thing you think about in front of this backstop is your form.  The "target" doesn't exist. Your eyes are looking at nothing in clarity because your mind is focused on your form, learning how it feels and ingraining it into your muscle memory.

     Just like learning any other shooting sport, including target archery, there has to be countless hours of shooting one perfect shot after another into a blank backstop.  In firearm training the shooter uses blanks or dry firing, so there isn't the desire to "hit" anything while learning the form.  With archery the archer sees the arrows, and the eye notes the distance the arrow strikes in relation to where the eyes were looking.  It's hard to not pay attention to this, but the new shooter must.  That's why the vision has to be fuzzy while the mind is totally concentrating on the shooting form tasks at hand. 

      The Hill style of shooting a longbow is just as exacting in form as shooting a bow for tournament level target archery.  Schulz wrote " the Hill style of shooting is quite simple, yet exacting".   Read those last two sentences again.   This is not a slipshod method by any means, and the practice hours and shots have to be put in to expect any level of success.

      After countless hours of this blank backstop short-range shooting, the archer starts trusting the form, the form feels comfortable and without trying, the arrows all find their way to the center of the blurry area of vision in the middle of the backstop.  At this time, Trust starts to develop and the archer learns to trust their form.  The short-range blank backstop will forever remain the training tool, the practice area where the archer returns on a continual basis to keep the form polished and "conditioned".  

      The Conditioned Instinct comes from the body learning the form so well, and the hand and eye coordination gets so keen, that once the shooter is away from the blank backstop, he never thinks about shooting form.  Ever.  Like Hill said, once he was away from the bales, and out in the bush, he didn't think about ANYTHING but the spot he wanted to hit. That means he didn't think about if he touched his anchor or followed through.  He didn't think about if his bow arm was solid or his grip correct. All those things were ingrained at the close backstop and once committed to muscle memory, they were ALLOWED to work as they're supposed to.  He didn't get in his own way.  Like Schulz said, Hill "worked at it, and conditioned his instinct".

        Do you work at this conditioning?  You are involved in a sport that requires much practice to keep everything tuned up.  You are involved in a sport where the accuracy level placed on you has consequences and yet the practice...I mean the serious close bale practice...doesn't seem to matter.  Oh sure, you may go out and shoot arrows. You may shoot lots of arrows at a foam cube or a 3d animal or a ringed paper target on some bales with the idea of grouping arrows.  If the arrows group, you're happy, if they don't, you get stressed and your form starts to suffer.  Then panic comes in and pretty soon you're not drawing the bow to a proper full draw. Arrows are not grouping anymore to your satisfaction. So you listen to the internet teachers saying you must learn a new system and you must get more and more static in your shooting because that "Hill style swing draw method is conducive to getting TP".  

     Hogwash.

     You need Commitment to the Hill style, so much that you will love to work on Conditioning the Instinct.  You learn to love shooting arrows in a rhythmic cadence into a blank backstop with proper form, just for the pure joy of feeling a perfectly executed shot...over and over for thousands of arrows.  You learn to shoot EVERY SINGLE ARROW with your fingers touching a reference point on the way to a solid anchor.  Your face has to learn what the feel of the finger touch is and you do that on every shot, over and over thousands of times. You learn to do this so well, that one day you realize you're doing it perfectly, without conscious thought. You learn to shoot with a steady bow arm and a proper grip because you shoot the same bow, every day, every shot and you learn how the grip feels and the bow weight becomes absorbed into your muscle memory.  You get so conditioned, that shooting the arrow with proper form is as easy and unthinking as reaching into your pocket to grab the car keys. You do it without thinking one bit about how you did it.  You just do it.

       At that point, you're ready to start shooting at things away from the blank backstop, and not until.  Because once you introduce looking at a target, you're aiming.  Whether you call it that or not, your eyes and mind are working to put the arrow where you're looking. That's aiming. You absolutely cannot do two physical and mental things at one time with the same concentration. If your mind through the eyes is focused on something to do, the physical act must be done in the subconscious level. That's how the body works.  When you introduce aiming an arrow to your shot process, the physical part must by controlled by the subconscious.  That's what Schulz was referring to.  Shooting the same tackle, the same way for days, months and years so that the physical aspect of the shot is controlled by the subconscious and at that time, you can be aiming the arrow to the proper spot unhindered.  

      If you commit to learning the Hill style properly, in all it's nuances and particulars, you can be an extremely good shot while seeming to appear relaxed and casual about it.  It does take constant practice, just like any other endeavor in which you want to be good. The blank backstop is the practice ground, not the target on the bales or the dandelion in the field or the deer in the woods.  Those things are shot at with the intent to hit them, which requires the eyes and mind to focus on the spot to put the arrow.  This focus has to be so intense that the physical act of shooting is relegated to subconscious muscle memory.  You get to this place by time in front of the blank backstop learning and then reinforcing the proper form.

     If this is allowed to happen and trusted to happen, you will realize the fantastic ability to shoot an arrow into a target just by looking at it, you will be shooting by "conditioned instinct", learned by countless hours and shots ingraining perfect form.

     So how do you practice?  Steve Graf's book "The American Longbow" has a chapter on shooting tips that is exactly what I taught him to get him out of TP.  His second book "The Long Fix" delves deeper into the nuances of this style. If you need instructions further than the Schulz video, get these two books and read them.  Really read and comprehend them fully.  This is not a surface reading kind of learning. It needs to be absorbed before it can be put into practice.

      But I assure you, fellow archer, that if you want to shoot a longbow in the Hill style, with all the benefits it can provide, you can...if you commit, and practice the form so fully that it becomes "conditioned". Like Schulz said...."Work at it..." and you will

       Shoot Straight.