hy I’m Hooked on Traditional Archery

Tell me what you guys see. What did you notice? How about this one? What did you notice? You noticed me pulling back the bow, releasing the string. Simple, right? I'm just shooting a bow. Simple. That's the thing about it. It is simple, yes, but it's also insanely complex, and that is why I love traditional archery. And what I mean is, yes, it is as simple as pulling the string back and releasing, but all the steps that go into it, and the journey that I've taken, and I know many others have taken to get to that point of decent accuracy and everything, is, it's just, it's just undescribable. First thing is consistency. The idea with archery, the idea with anything being consistent, is you want to do the same thing, the same way, every time. Now that feat is not possible because of human error. That makes sense, human variable, that makes sense. But the goal for me is, and goal for any real archer really is, maybe not everyone, but is to be more consistent, is to shoot better, shoot better group. That way is when you go into the woods, you are a better shot. Or if you go to a competition, you can score higher. Or if you're just shooting in the backyard that you're hitting the target, because frankly, it's more fun to hit the target than to not, okay? That's when the traditional archery, or just any archery journey, begins, is how do you get better? Millions of ways to shoot a bow. And I want to stop here and make this very, very, very clear for everybody, is as long as you are enjoying archery, enjoying shooting a bow, you're not hurting yourself, and you're not, and if you're hunting, you're practicing an ethical shot, meaning you're practicing that shot, and you're getting better, and your goal is to be as ethical and as precise as possible, then I don't care how you shoot a bow. I don't care if you shoot barebow, Olympic, compound. I don't care if you're shooting string walking. I don't care. As long as, I don't care if you're instinctive, any of that, as long as you're having fun doing it, you're not hurting anyone, and if you're hunting, you're practicing an ethical shot, then I'm all for it, okay? So for me, my journey, what I went through is, you know, you shoot your first couple shots, you hit the target. Great. Awesome. Love that. Okay? And then you learn some steps here and there. Anchor point. That way, as you know, I'm going back roughly the same distance every time, so I'm getting the same power, the same trajectory, the same landing roughly every time. Left and right might be off. But you start learning some of these things. And then for me, what I learned was burn a hole in the spot, instinctive style. Burn a hole in the spot. And once I kind of figured my basic form down, that worked great. I mean, I was burning a hole, and with that, I was pretty accurate a lot of the time from a pretty short distance. But then I had some inaccuracies, and this is where the mental side of archery really kicks in too, is my whole mental focus. Tom Clumb talks about your adult brain and your two-year-old brain, your subconscious. My adult brain, my main brain, the thing I'm focusing on, what my power is going to, because we can only really focus on one thing at a time, my power and my focus is going to that spot. I am talking about Superman laser beaming that spot. It is burnt. I don't even need an arrow, right? I'm just burning through that. And then when I'm doing that, I don't think about my form. I just pull back and shoot. Okay? That worked really well for me for a while, but I would get these flyers that just weren't consistent. So then I'm like, okay, let's shift that. Now I kind of went to a gap-style method, so I'd get my aim and get my subconscious going, okay, that shot looks great. So now I'm focusing on my form. My mental brain is focusing on my form. I'm holding the bow, and then really the anchor, obviously, and then obviously the biggest one for me is my release. My YouTube channel is called At Full Draw, because for me, my biggest hurdle that I've had for my shot is my shot begins at full draw, meaning my subconscious handles everything else, and at full draw is the most important part for me. I guess it's not the beginning of my shot, but it's the most important part for me. It's where my mantra comes in. It's where everything can break. I think the release is, like if I have a bad arrow, nine times out of 10, it's my release. One time out of 10, it's because I torqued my bow. But a bad release or a bad shot now that I'm focusing on my form, it feels like it's on me and not, man, I'm burning a hole, and I just shot to the right. You know why? Well, I'm focusing on consistency with my form. This is what I like to do, and it's fun for me. Again, nothing wrong with just burning a hole in the target. Nothing wrong. It works for me a little bit, but not as well as others. So this method's worked a lot better for me. My consistency's gotten a lot better, where now I'm focusing on my form, my release. My release I've spent months and months on. I'm still spending time on. I just still occasionally pop out of my face, you know, instead of just pulling straight back. I'm still working on that. I have to get sidetracked. But the mental aspect of archery, so I'm now focusing on my form and getting my form right. So what is my subconscious doing if it's doing the quote-unquote aiming, right? Well, my subconscious will go, that sight picture, that full draw looks great. Shoot. Let go, dummy. That is perfect. You will, if you let go of that arrow, man, I'm telling you, that's a 10 rate. Awesome. Let's do it. Okay. I do it. Not a bad shot. Cool. That works. Let's do it again. I do it again. Oh, man. That one went to the right. I plucked it. Well, why did I pluck it? I'm working on my release. I know how the release is supposed to look. Why did I pluck it? It's because I'm almost doing what's called a snap shooting. And it all can be related to kind of the main subject of this video, or one of the main subjects of this video, which is target panning, snap shooting and target panning. They're going hand in hand here. Why I say that is my subconscious is telling me that that shot looks great. Right? So I let go. Well, if I'm not fully transitioned, okay, if I'm not fully back to anchor, and I'm not fully transitioned into my back, or if I rush any of it, because it looks good, it looks good. Go, go, go, go. Looks good. Then I could potentially snap shoot and potentially fly away from my face or have a bad release. Now some people can snap shoot great. Not me. No, no, no, no. Not me. I'll shoot one good shot, like out of 100. Okay. So I need, I need to relax. What I love about this whole subconscious thing is it's getting control over my own body. It's getting over my own mind, really, is I look at that every time in my head. I have a mantra now. Every time I look at that, I immediately tell myself, no, do not. Because I pull back and I get there and I look and I go, that's it. That's it. And I go, no, do not. No. Just no. Not. I will not shoot at that first, the first go ahead. I will not do it. No matter if I even feel ready, there are times my subconscious like, dude, you're, you feel good. You're, you're intentional. You're good. No. First, the first time my brain says, let go. Dude, I'm not going to do it. That's helped me a lot because then I can actually focus on, okay, let's get that transfer. Let's pull, pull, pull, pull. Let's get, let's get that. Let's get the release. Let's get the follow through. Let's get everything else going. That's worked for me. Do I do that every time? No. That two year old brain, that subconscious brain of mine still wins sometimes. But I've noticed a big increase. So I'm making this video to kind of talk about that. And I want to talk quickly about, and then let's just talk about my shot process. But I also want to talk about target panic. Maybe this helps people. Maybe it doesn't. When I use the word target panic, I, and this is all related, it's all related. When I use the word target panic, I don't mean I'm aiming at that target and I, oh, now I'm thinking, oh, now I'm nervous. No, no, no, no. When I'm using target panic, and I might be using the wording correctly, I mean my body is my reaction. Okay. So if you have a gun, loaded gun, you pull the trigger, what happens? Well, if that round goes off, there's going to be a kick of the gun. My body knows that. So I'm going to tense up. Okay. Same thing with the, and that, that could pull you off the left, pull you off the right, pull you up. It could, it could veer the shot a little bit. Same thing with archery. If I know I'm about to release that arrow, there's an explosion. Might not be as impactful as a gun, but it's an explosion. So if I'm not, if I, if my brain is, is not ready for that and I can, you know, basically anticipate that, you might see a creep. Or you might see, you know, really creep or collapse. That's kind of that version of target panic. So to avoid that, my natural state is to get the target, okay, release now. The second it looks good, go. That's snap shooting. That's how my brain kind of counteracts that. So by telling it, no, I beaten the beast, right? Okay. But now I'm sitting at that target and now I'm getting a little anxious because I beat it. Now it's in my head that I beat it. Now what? That's where the pulling through has helped me out a lot. I beat it. I go, nope. Okay. Now I'm still have that aim. I'm not worried about aiming anymore. My whole focus is once I'm here, my entire focus, keep steady and to pull back and through. The string releases from my fingers and I go, that's how I'm beating it current. The cool part about archery and the cool part and the reason why I went through all this in detail and rambled forever is because I love talking about the mental side, the physical side and everything like that. The mental side is so cool that I don't have to really focus on aiming anymore. My subconscious does it. Tom Clumb describes it as when you're driving, you don't think about every little micro correction to stay in the lane. It just happens. And a really good example of that is if you're driving and you have somebody in your, in your conversation, you're talking to them, you're having a full on conversation where most of your brain is involved in this conversation, but you're still driving on the highway, right? Because your subconscious brain has done it so much that it knows how to kind of correct itself. I use that subconscious part to aim for me. I get a good picture that looks pretty solid. My brain, my subconscious brain, it just feels right. It's just like, that's it. That's what I need. Now I will use gap shooting at longer distances, but up to 20 yards, it's a lot of instinctive. I'll look at the arrow tip, the left or right, but a lot of it is just your brain tells you that looks good, right? That looks good. Some people will have a point on of that or, or they'll have monuments on their, on their riser. But for me right now, if it's between, if it's under 20, I just kind of subconsciously go, I get my left and right going. And then from there, my up and down, I just kind of know, because then I can use the rest of my brain to focus on my form, which has really reduced my flaws. This whole video is a bunch of rambling. I love to teach. I'm not a teacher, but I love to teach my job. Currently, I love teaching you people that want to learn. I love learning myself. I love anything to do with being a better version of myself mentally. I absolutely love that. I love archery. I love making content. I'm throwing it all together. I love rambling. So I'm rambling here too. But you know, the last thing I want to just say is a shot for me. This could change. This is change. It's ever evolving. I'm always trying to improve. I'm always trying to get better. But my current shot is, I kind of get my position set, my subconscious knows that I know where to stand. I have my feet at the right spot, and my shoulders kind of where I need them, have my loose grip on the bow. I have addressed the string the same way I always address the string. And then I pull back, hit the anchor, close my eye, pull through the shot. Again, tell myself I'm going to shoot a bear shaft here. Also bear shaft tuning while I'm here. ADHD is going crazy. Same thing though. I'm going to do it all the exact same way. I'm pulling back, hit the anchor, transfer, say no to that first shot, and pull through to the second one. Maybe this is just rambling. I'm not sure. Maybe this has helped somebody. I'm going to be trying to make more and more content like this of maybe less rambling but more focus driven. But the idea is I just, I want to maybe help somebody somewhere hopefully learn something. If I can do that, I feel accomplished. So if you guys are interested, leave a comment, follow or subscribe, whatever the heck it's called. I'm just going to be out here shooting arrows, talking to myself, talking to you guys. Just try to get better each and every day. Be more a part of the traditional archery community, which is amazing, and just better myself. Thanks for watching.