Ground Practice

 90% of the practice shots I take are on the ground, not on my horse. I ride my horse 6 days a week, and I only shoot off him maybe twice a month. I'm sure I'll shoot off him more during competition season, but at this time I don't want to drill on him. Joe still looks forward to that moment in the arena when I pick up my bow and I don't want to do anything to change that. My riding sessions focus on everything in between the shots, another blog post for another day. I want to be fully confident in the shots I do take from my horse's back, so I put in my hours of ground practice each week in order to become a better archer, and worthy partner to my war horse.

What should the idea archery practice session on the ground look like? I've been practicing 3-5 times a week for the past year and I really have no clue. I know what I'm doing is working for me at this point in my progression, most days I'm making it up as I go. I have a goal of shooting 500 arrows a week. Most of my practice sessions are 100 to 120 arrows depending on how many arrows I have available to shoot with. These days I'm shooting with 59 practice arrows, so 2 rounds is 118. I had 60 a few weeks ago, until 1 met with the neighbors stone wall. When I first started to shoot over a year ago, I had to slowly build up to 100, I remember my left shoulder getting tired after 60 shots. These days I feel like I'm just finding my groove at 60 arrows. My goal in practice is to improve something, I don't always know what that is until I start shooting, but I should be more accurate at arrow 118 than I was at arrow 1.

I jumped into archery with no direction other than YouTube and really no idea what an ideal practice should look like. I had a set of arrows, a bow and a target bag, so I stood in the back yard and aimed for the bullseye. In the beginning a good practice session was when more than one arrow hit the bag. Over time more arrows made their way to it, with a few inching closer and closer to the bullseye.

My first target 

 In June of 2019 I took my first clinic and was introduced to NASP targets. I was a bit taken back at how much happier my eyes were shooting those colored circles. Within a week my suburban back yard range had 2 new Rinehart NASP targets. I also came back from the clinic with a new tool kit of practice exercises. All of the exercises addressed "target panic" something I didn't know existed but was experiencing quite often in the back yard. I mix in some of these exercises throughout the week along with others that I made up on my own. I look forward to every practice session and feel like I'm missing out on the days I run out of time and daylight.

The day my Reinhart targets arrived, they were beautiful before I filled them with holes!

Don't shoot at the bullseye. 

Some of my favorite exercises include those that involve intentionally shooting at  areas of the target other than the bullseye. The first one I learned was to see how fast you can shoot the colored rings in order, starting with white and working your way to yellow. It's a fun game if you have 2 people shooting together. I often take it a step further and try to shoot 12:00 white to 6:00 white hitting all the other colors in a vertical line in between. I quickly see if I'm shooting high or low, left or right and I can make adjustments. My adjustments usually involve an over correction, another correction and eventually some level of improved accuracy. If my boyfriend is watching me practice he will call out colors and times on a clock "3:00 blue, 11:00 white", it often surprises both of us when I hit the marks he calls out. Sometimes he waits until I'm fully drawn before giving me my target, no chance for target panic there! There are all kinds of variations I can use to hit parts of the target other than the bullseye. It's much harder to hit a specific point of the target like 4:00 black than it is to hit that big yellow circle in the middle. I always get a laugh at how many times I "accidentally" hit the bullseye when I'm aiming for something else. It's like my brain is yelling "please let me aim for the middle, I know I can hit that!" 

 

Practice exercise from this week 12:00 white to 6:00 white. You can see my left to right corrections.

Walking and shooting 

By far my favorite way to practice on foot is to mimic the courses I might encounter in a mounted archery competition. I have a hip quiver that holds 20 arrows, I know I've shot 120 arrows if I empty it 6 times. I set up 4 targets in the yard with a front shot, back shot and 2 side shots. I walk a line forwards shooting at each target in order and then walk the same line backwards shooting the same targets in reverse. My goal is to hit the bullseye in this exercise. Even at the walk the targets come up fast. I've had to fight my body to keep walking while I'm drawing and shooting. Walking and shooting is one of the best ways to tune up my blind nock, I don't have the time to look down before the next target and it would seriously increase the risk of falling on my face. My back yard is on a bit of a small hill, the terrain changes makes it all the more interesting. My brain is so much happier shooting and walking than it is standing static at a target, it doesn't have time for target panic and after a few arrows I start to find my load, draw, shoot rhythm syncing up with the speed of my walk. It is incredibly Zen. I started the walking practices over the summer and was really pleased with how well it cleaned up my shooting off my horse. I progressed from just hitting the target from the back of my horse to hitting specific points on the target from my horse at the walk, trot and lope. I'm also much more willing to take a shot in the saddle because I know I can do it from my ground practice.

 

Front Shot, 2 side shots and a back shot. 

 

One of the things I appreciate about my backyard set up is the absolute freedom to just shoot and figure it out. I know I'll want instruction in the near future, but right now I'm developing a feel for my set up, stance and shot cycle each time I pick up my bow and step into the back yard. Right now it's close to 4:00pm in December and I'm looking at maybe 30 minutes left of daylight. Plenty of time to get another 118 arrows in!