Returning to the Bow

Recently I have returned to the sport of archery after having left it nearly two years ago. I left after being discouraged by the slow progress the sport required but am now prepared to attempt it again despite that past experience. I chose archery as a sport as it puts heavy emphasis on focus and discipline, and it can be done alone without requiring other players, besides this, I would be lying if I said the aesthetic of it was not a factor, I found it very cool.

When I left archery initially, I had just begun attempting to shoot the 30m range, attempting it again I expected to have to start from scratch, fortunately I find that much of my previous training has stuck with me. While I am still too rough to attempt 30m, I moved swiftly through the beginners 10m and am now rehoning my skills at 18m.

To speed this process, I have also been working on the strength of my arms, chest and upper back muscles through a number of exercises. Firstly, I have begun a morning routine of three sets of ten push-ups, and secondly, I have begun going to the gym 2-3 times a week. While there while I do other exercises as well to improve my overall fitness, I especially focus on the use of dumbbells in a number of different exercises focused on my arms, chest and back. This will be necessary for me to move on to higher poundages as I am still weaker than I was when I started, to make up for this I will gradually start increasing the amount of exercise I do.

At this time my first priority is to improve at shooting to move forward from the 18m distance to the 30m distance, as this is the minimum someone my age would have to shoot competitively. While I do not at this time aim to shoot competitively, though I have somewhat in the past, I see this as the most reasonable long term goal because I know that once I begin approaching the competitive standard my dedication and focus on archery will also begin to increase and so I can expand to larger goals. On a more short-term basis there are several flaws with my shooting that are preventing me from increasing my accuracy at 18m, I have a tendency to hold my shoulder overly rigid when I shoot, and my fingers occasionally release the arrow by plainly letting go, rather than just pulling back and letting the release happen just by loosening my fingers. At this point I should explain that archery is the art of doing the exact same thing, in the exact same way, each and every time, all with a focus on limiting how much you disturb the flight of the arrow when you release it. The first goal might seem to be just to get the arrow to hit the bullseye, but the real difficulty in archery is making sure the arrow lands at the exact same place each time, consistency is the primary focus. You focus is having the perfect technique as rigidly set in your muscle memory as breathing, from there you simply need to aim.

In light of this fact about archery, I will make my goals specific and objective by designating a single area for my shots. This area will be designated by the rings of the bullseye at 18m, I will begin by attempting to send all of my arrows to the outer red circle, going forward I aim to improve this to inner red, and eventually center yellow. Once I am consistently hitting the mark within at least the outer yellow circle, I will move on to 30m and repeat this process. I aim to move from 30m by the end of April, it being 20th of March at the time of this post.

At a larger level, through the practice of archery I hope to develop my focus and discipline, my ability to persevere through challenging activities, and as I develop and grow, to undertake new challenges.