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Is it all in my head?

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BillJ:
I just took a trip to beautiful Montana.  While there, in addition to watching elk, mulies and mountain goats in Glacier National Park, I met Dave Windauer of Shaefer Silvertip Bows.  He graciously showed me around his shop, and let me shoot a couple of his fantastic bows.  Now I'm not much of a shooter, but with those bows, I felt like Howard Hill.  Spectacular groups.

I returned home and for the last couple of days have returned to my routine of flinging arrows from my Jerry Hill longbow at anything and everything I can find in my 10 acre property.  

Put simply, I have been lights out!  Everything I shoot at I hit.  Leaves are toast at 20 yards.  The center of my foam block is on borrowed time, and to top it off, tonight I put an arrow dead center through a starling at 40 yards.  That shot didn't deviate 1/2 inch in any direction from where I was looking.

SO, is it possible that shooting those great Silvertip bows boosted my confidence enough to make that great of a difference in my shooting?  That's the only explanation that I can think of to explain the sudden improvement.  Same bow, same arrows, same aging body, but suddenly better shooting.

Discussion?

BillJ

JC:
Once the mechanics are ingrained, I think the mental aspect of shooting is THE major determining factor in how well we do/don't hit. Confidence is the primary mental aspect in my opinion, but stress effects my focus/concentration and that has a big effect to.

Sometimes, a run with a new bow will get you shooting very well. Not sure why that is but I suspect it has something to do with your brain "getting back to the basics" because your body is not 100% comfortable with the new bow and your mechanics revert back to "what you know".

Certainly no expert here, just my opinion.

**oneshot**:
Archery is a mental game, along with alot of other sports.  How else can you drill a baseball sized hole in your backyard target at 20yds and then miss an entire elk at 15yds.
Thats what seperates the pro's from everybody else in their given sport.  They've conquered that six inch space between their ears.

mike g:
Yes....Archery is 90% mental.
Yesterday with my new HIll bow....My string serving was to small for my nocks on my arrows, so after a couple shots came off my string....  :scared:  which is very scary, I started loosing confidence....
    I had my Uncle come over and re serve my string....And then we went back out to shoot....What A differance, I was hitting the bull pretty good, At this point I hav'nt even tried 40 yds yet, we went bak to 40yds and my first shot was in the bull....
    I even shot a group of 3, one arrow from around 20-30-40 yds, all in the bull....
    Confidence is the Key to good shootin....You must think your the best Archer there is.

ber643:
That is scary when that happens - for a second there you just know your bow is in pieces at your feet - from the horrible noise.

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