Accuracy Expectations - How It Affects Self Image and Performance!

I wanna talk with you about accuracy expectation and how target size affects your self-image. One of the things that I teach as a coach is for people to really take note and take pictures of when they're good. And this is all about imprinting a self-image that you are the best archer there is, period. And photos of amazing groups you shoot are ways to imprint that. If you go through and you look at those all the time, which I have my students do prior to events, go into your folder, awesome groups, and just sit there and look at the type of groups you can shoot when everything's going good. But the target you choose helps with that expectation of accuracy. And here's an example. This is the target I've been practicing with here at the beginning of the year. I talk about the power of four. This is actually a target. This is the mid-range target. And we have a lot of different targets and they all have a purpose. And I'm not here to sell you a target today, but I'm here to talk with you about why these sizes are important. Because me practicing on this mid-range, even though this is actually a target that I've developed for training from 20 to 40 yards, I'm actually right now just trying to get some rhythm and trying to get some cadence and trying to build up my self-image as well by practicing on this target. I'm rusty. I need to develop some skills. I need to develop some stamina. It's the beginning of the year. But this is the one that I started on. But the reality is this is the one I have to be on. This is the size of the dots that I would be shooting if I was competing at Vegas still. So although this is what I need to be, which these Xs are literally smaller than the inside of this, I started out on a slightly bigger target because this plays into the factor of, one, you're gonna be able to trust your float a little bit more. I'm moving around more. So I'm trying to have a dot to where I'm not seeing that movement as much. So I chose something that is a little bit easier and lets me limp into the position that I need to start at. So I'm gonna work towards this target next. Likewise, when I go outside and I start shooting long distance, I love big dots. You guys have seen these size dots. If you think about archers that shoot at 20 meters or 90 meters, those dots keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger the further you get away. The proportion and the ratio stays equal. So by taking a big target and putting it where you can trust your pin moving around and you feel good about that and more arrows are going in the middle, that's the target you should be on. If you don't have a lot of space, that's why this is a minimized version of this so that you can shoot really close, five yards, and you can work on that. Sometimes if people are struggling with target panic, they go to a small target where their pin is the size of that green circle at 20 yards. And as soon as you move off of it, you've already starting to develop that anxiety. And when you have poor groups on a target, it's a reminder that you're shooting poor. When you have a bigger target and your arrows are tighter within that target, it's gonna give you a positive self-image and that's critical for you to build. On the bag targets, if you have one, keep that in mind. If you're up close, if you're in the basement, work on the small dots. That's what they're there for. But if you start to back up, work on 20-yard dots, 40-yard dots. If you're worried about your pin on a dot, the squares sometimes really help people in being able to move around. And then obviously the other side of this incorporates some of these same ones, the mid-range dots and the large dots. So you have to choose the type of target that is gonna give you a positive self-image. This is critical. When you shoot good groups, take a picture, put it somewhere where you can look at it again and imprint accuracy. And the target you choose decides whether that can be positive or whether that can be negative, even though you're shooting the exact same.