Schulz...."You're Thinking Too Much..."

      Before you go on and read the second paragraph of this post, I'd like you to do something.  Grab anything that you can grab within reach and toss it underhand or overhand at an object 6 or 10 feet away.  The pocketknife in your pocket...a crumpled piece of paper from your desk...the soda cracker packet on the table beside your bowl...or the dog toy laying at your feet. Anything, it doesn't matter.

    For those of you who followed the instructions, good job.  What was the reason the rest of you didn't follow them?  

     The reason I asked you to perform the simple task was to emphasize the fact that I believe no one who tossed the object gave any thought to how their form looked while doing it.  They didn't think about their accuracy level, or analyze pre- or post- results.  They just looked and threw.  I'd also venture a guess that most of the objects either hit the target or came awfully close, with no warmup.  Why?

     Why indeed.  Well, we're built that way.  Our natural ability for hand/eye coordination combined with mental imagery and space awareness allows for us to do all sorts of accuracy-required tasks without any analysis of how and why we do them.  We just do them.  Shooting a longbow in the Hill method as taught by John Schulz is of the same approach

     I was attempting to shoot my very best Hill style form in front of the discerning eyes of Schulz and was concentrating hard.  I thought I was shooting pretty well, grouping my arrows in the center of the middle straw bale.  "Nate..." says John... "you're thinking too much"...   I hadn't said a word, was just shooting and what impressed him to say that?

     My concentration was written all over my face.  I wasn't smiling and having fun.  I was working.

     "Smile,  this is fun".  Schulz gave me a dose of reality with those words and we moved away from the bales to start shooting through brush, flowers, grass stems and the like.  He recognized that the longer I was in front of the bales, trying to group arrows, the more I was thinking of my shot, of my form and all that goes with it.  The longer I shot at the bales, too far away from them to be focusing totally on blank bale form work, the more I was digging myself into a target-shooting hole.

      The words that I was "thinking too much" have been the criteria for my shooting ever since that day.  I realized there is a fine line between shooting for form at the close bale, shooting for fun at a target and shooting for success in the roving lands or game fields.  It is very easy to slip into a dogmatic approach to shooting as well as we can, with the results measured in arrow group size.  Archery hunting, which is one of the uses of the longbow, is a first shot endeavor. Arrow group size does not matter at all.  The ability to shoot an arrow right now, where you are looking, with confidence is the priority.  

     Hill said in "Hunting the Hard Way" that he believed it was easy to learn to shoot a bow quickly, once the archer was accustomed to the proper form, and that it was possible to shoot more accurately by shooting quickly because there was less time to think.  The less time thinking about how and why one shoots a bow, while he is actually shooting, the better.  Too much thinking is bad for concentration on any given operation which one is trying to do, provided of course that the archer already knows what he is doing.  Hill's words, not mine.

     Just like tossing the object in the test above, wherein you didn't think about how to do it, or analyze afterwards how you did it, shooting an arrow from a longbow in the Hill style needs to be approached the same way.  Thinking about a litany of things to accomplish pre-release of the string and analyzing what you may have or may not have done correctly is a task strictly reserved for shooting at close range at a blank bale when all your thoughts are focused on form.  Once away from the practice at the blank bale, even if there is now a target of sorts placed on that bale, you need to switch your thinking mechanism "off".    Hill said that at no time while making a shot in the bush (and we can substitute 3d range, hunting shot, roving shot or backyard fun shooting) did he ever allow himself to think about the mechanics of shooting.  He must have reinforced this thinking in his teaching of Schulz and Schulz passed it along to me.

     Our desire to shoot well and hit targets with accuracy drives the thought process of shooting arrows...but we do all sorts of accuracy-laden tasks each day without absolutely no conscious thought.  We just do them.  How?  By committing them to our subconscious ability and trusting our hand/eye coordination completely.   We wouldn't throw that rag into the waste bin if we were thinking we may miss. Tossing the paper wad into the trash basket as easily as touching your finger to your nose required no pre-toss routine.  You just did it. You allowed yourself to do it.  By trusting your ability and allowing it to happen, it did.

      We shoot thousands of arrows (or should) ingraining proper form at the blank bale.  We should trust that our innate natural ability can take that learned motion and apply it to putting an arrow where we are looking at twenty yards without a single mechanical form thought.  We have to learn to stop thinking so much and trust it to work.  Don't think about all the things you need to do to make the shot and don't think about all the things you may have or may not have done during the shot and don't analyze why the arrow may have missed.  Just shoot again without thought, and again, but not for a group.  Change your focus after the first shot.  Change your shot distance, your shot angle, something.  Don't stagnate by shooting arrow groups. Keep your mind fresh and focusing on different targets.  Even if you are shooting in a confined small backyard space.  Look at different spots on the backstop to shoot and take a couple of steps forward, backward or sideways before shooting each shot.  But absolutely don't think about the how and why of your shooting once you move away from the close, blank bale form shooting.  As often as possibly, go out for a nice roaming rove and shoot all manner of distances and targets and don't think about how you're doing it.  Just look where you want the arrow to go and shoot it.  The more we allow the mind to register the target through our eyes and direct our hands to the proper positions and then witness positive results, the faster and better shots we'll become.

     The day that John told me to stop thinking so much, was the day that my longbow shooting changed direction for the better.  I'll always be thankful that he called my attention to this, and he could read it in my demeanor and focus.  He jarred me to a new way of looking at my shooting, the proper Hill way of shooting.  I don't always shoot perfectly, I do miss.  John said Hill missed shots too, but would just grab another arrow and shoot again. I do the same.  I just shoot another arrow and allow the mind to direct it to the mark.  I trust it to happen and it does.  That's the beauty and simplicity of it all.

       Stop thinking too much and allow yourself to shoot better.  Condition your instinct and trust it to happen correctly and it will and then you will...

        Shoot Straight.