100 Arrows a Day for 2022

 

I have committed to ground shooting an average of 100 arrows a day for the 2022 calendar year. I had a goal during the off season to improve my arrow handling in hopes that I will be able to get 3 successful shots off during tower runs in 2022 competitions. I also want to be more precise in my shooting, not just hit the bullseye, but to be able to hit any specific spot on a target. 

The “off season” should have started in October with my last competition taking place at the end of September. Instead, I found my practice time getting set aside as the daylight grew shorter each day. I had gone from shooting several times a week to maybe once a week through November and December. I recommitted to my practice schedule on January 1^st. I brought my bow with me to the barn so I could shoot in the indoor arena on days that it rains. If I stick to my commitment that will be 36,500 arrows shot in the year. The goal is an average which means I don’t have to shoot every day. The majority of the arrows will be from the ground. Right now, I shoot off my horse twice a month, and I don’t shoot 100 arrows at a time off him.

A missed day can be made up by adding more arrows over the week. Today is the February 6^th and I’m sitting at 3,926 arrows shot so far, I have taken days off and according to my spreadsheet, I am 126 arrows ahead. Yes, I’m tracking each arrow in a spreadsheet. There is something incredibly satisfying about logging my daily arrow count and seeing that auto sum add up. I also jot down a few notes about where I practiced that day and anything that stands out. One entry reads “Outdoor arena, shooting left”, another reads “Backyard, walking targets. Had some really good shots!”. I also have an arrow incidents column and an arrow fatalities count. Here is what I’ve learned so far in shooting 100 arrows a day. I fully expect to have a “things I learned by shooting 100 arrows a day for a year” post. I’ll be curious to see how many of these learnings will still apply.

You can never have enough arrows, EVER!

When I haul to competitions I always wonder if I have brought enough arrows. How many is enough? At the most I might carry on the hunt track is 10, or maybe 12. Do I really need to bring 50 arrows? Yes, absolutely yes, I do! I always end up losing some, breaking one and then there is the anxiety over which ones to shoot in competition. More arrows are always better. That same rule applies to shooting 100 arrows a day. While I’ve only had 7 total that could not be recovered (fatalities and MIAs) out of 3926, I end up repairing an average of 10 arrows a week. Mostly inserts with tips that get stuck in targets, nocks that break and feather fletchings that fall apart. I set them aside in the “surgery” pile each day and work on them over the weekend. I prefer to shoot in sets of 30 or 40, across 2 targets. If I’m shooting sets of 40, in 3 rounds I’ve hit 120 arrows for the day. The more of those I break, the more sets I need to do to hit 100. Yes, I know that 100 is 100 no matter how many sets I must use to get there. I prefer less sets so more arrows it is!

Archery Playlist – it’s a thing!

I want to enjoy my practice time. The last thing I want is to be the reluctant kid at a piano being forced to practice scales repeatedly. If I’m not having fun, I’ll quit every time. Last summer I spent 5 days at the Amazon Gathering. It was mounted archery camp for a group of kick ass women! We had ground practice sessions every day. One of my Amazon brethren always had a Bluetooth speaker with her playing different playlists when we were shooting. It had never occurred to me to pair archery with music. I found it lightened the mood in the group and would find people dancing while they shot. I came home and immediately put together a playlist. Since then I’ve played music during every ground practice. My playlists are upbeat, an eclectic mix of genres, tempos, and rhythms. They are all songs I know and can sing along to. It doesn’t take long before I find myself moving my body to the music. I lose my stiff stance as I get out of my head and into my body. I forget to overthink the target and I just shoot at it. Swaying in rhythm to a song is a much closer match to riding a horse down the track than standing still in front of a target. Within the song tempo I find my “load, draw, shoot” rhythm, which translates well under saddle. Having my playlist makes my practice session fun, it gets me out of my head and the time flies by when I measure it in songs instead of minutes.

Break the practice session down into different exercises

I have been playing with an exercise I call 4 corners. I shoot 5 arrows at a specific corner or quadrant of the target (yes, I know, round targets don’t have corners). To start I’ll shoot 5 arrows at the upper left, then 5 arrows at the lower right, 5 arrows at the upper right, 5 arrows at the lower left. The last 5 arrows are aimed at the bullseye. It only took a few days before my groupings got tighter and I found myself smiling at how many arrows I could put close together. It also makes that big yellow circle in the middle seem easy to hit. Another exercise I do involves walking the targets. If I have multiple targets set up, I’ll set up a back shot and a front shot and walk them like a course. My goal is to get 2 arrows in each target, 3 depending on how long my line is between them. This one is not only a test of my arrow handling, but my ability to keep a walking cadence and now slow down when I’m coming up on a target. The music helps keep my feet moving. The other exercise I’m mixing in right now are what I call “Katie Squats” after the amazing woman that taught them to me. She brought the exercise home from one of her trips to Hungary. You go down into a squat loading your bow. You don’t come up out of the squat until you are loaded. Draw on your way up, and then shoot at the top of the squat. If you bobble or drop your arrow, guess what, you stay down in the damn squat until you are loaded. That exercise had done more to improve my arrow handling than anything else I’ve tried. My quads hurt a little less every day, so hopefully I’ll have some new muscle definition to show off this summer. I both love and hate this exercise. When it’s good, I hit a rhythm and my accuracy improves immensely. I think I’m so focused on the squat I don’t have time to get tripped up by the target. On the ones that I fumble at the bottom of the squat, there is a whole lot of swearing going on. When I break up a session into different exercises, the variety keeps my attention, and I often opt for another set of arrows before calling it a day.

It is working

Today I shot off my horse for the first time in 3 weeks. Joe was lovely, giving me a slow steady lope down the track each time. I set a side shot follow by a back shot. I saw a big difference in my ability to confidently load my bow at the lope between targets. I was also better about moving on from misses, if I missed a target, I didn’t let it distract me from hitting the next target.  Today is day 38, and I’m still in love with my practice sessions. I’ve added on a new exercise for February that I will blog about, it is all about shooting under pressure. Stay tuned for more updates on the 100 arrows a day commitment.