They’re moments when you’re told something that is so obvious you wonder why you weren’t doing it in the first place. These moments are eureka moments where something falls into place and your archery level jumps up a notch. At the start of your archery journey these moments happen regularly as you pick up new techniques but as you progress, and develop habits, they happen less frequently but they still do happen.

One of these moments for me happened a few months ago when I was told to concentrate on the end of my shot, on the moments from my arrow leaving my bow until after the arrow hit the target. It’s true that whilst in flight I couldn’t influence the arrow hitting the mark but by not keeping full concentration until after the shot landed I was effectively not concentrating on the full shot.

I’ve discovered that archery is as much a mental activity as it is a physical one. If your head is not where it needs to be you’ll shoot badly. Going back to my shooting, I had incorrectly conditioned myself to see the shot as everything up to the point where the arrow left my bow. As soon as the arrow was released I was beginning to think of the next shot and not concentrate on the arrow in flight. Which meant that even if I made the ‘perfect shot’ I couldn’t rely on my memory to subconsciously store the information about how I achieved that shot as I wasn’t giving myself the time to process the actions and the feelings I’d just experienced.

Muscle memory is a key component in archery as it relies heavily on developing consistency in every element of the shot processes in order for you to put your arrows where you want them. In order to help develop muscle memory, you need to give your mind the time to process the rhythm, movement and feelings of your last shot, whether it is a good shot or a bad one. By losing concentration half way through the shot process, because I’d convinced myself to think that the shot was over after the arrow was released, I’ve been limiting my ability for my subconscious mind to recall the shot I’d just made as my conscious mind had been thinking about the prep for the next shot.

What I’m now trying to do is see the shot process as starting from the moment my eyes focus on the target until a second or so after the arrow has hit. When the arrow leaves the bow I’m staying fully focused on the target and keeping my bow hand and release position in place until after the arrow hits. I’ve found that this approach has really helped with my consistency and my ability to self-evaluate my shots and it’s also made my overall approach to archery a lot more relaxed, which can’t be a bad thing.