I'm still new to all this.....but another thread got me thinking...

Are we really shooting instictively?  Or, are we learning a particular sight picture (from a particular yardage) and ingraining that to memory?

I catch myself in 3D shoots judging yardage.  Why?  If I shot instinctively, why would it matter?  I shoot every day....even if it's 60 arrows.  I shoot from varying yardages, but I will shoot a quiver from each yardage, most days.  Some days I mix it up.  But I "think" I'm learning (ingraining) the sight picture for certain yardages.

Your thougts?

After I switched to trad only, it took me a couple years to stop counting my steps from the target back to where I was going to shoot from.

Now I don't even consider it. I just shoot.

I think we are good learners  

If you will do a search, you will find your answer.

Instinctive shooting doesn't mean the literal meaning of the word(born with the ability to shoot the bow)...it refers to a shooting style that is 'instinctive' like.

Instinctive is basically subconscious aiming.....and yes, your subconscious learns the sight pictures of varying distances based or repetitive performance. (practicing from different distances).

There's a great book, and some posts if you do that search, from Jay Kidwell on instinctive shooting....well worth reading both his posts here and his book.

There are many shooting styles, and all work for different folks, just find the style that you like the best and/or fits you the best.

Best of luck this fall....

Wow....did I ever goof this one up...went looking for it as I moved it off the Powwow and forgot to click the box to email the topic starter about the move....so I moved it back to the PowWow and back again....bit it was on a different forum.....got an email from the topic starter....sorry about that.

I started out gap shooting even though i didnt know what it was.Now after several 10s of thousands of shots later i dont put a number on yardage.Something just pops in my head and says thats close or thats far.It doesnt happen when hunting just target shooting. The last 3or4 deer ive killed i didnt have any idea what the yardage was.My hunting partner always asks me how far the shot was and my standard answer is 15 yards.Then he paces of 26 or 21 or 18 yards.Short answer is were really good learners.Some of the guys that tell you they never aimed have been doing it so long they just dont remember.And by the grace of God someday we wont either.Thanks,Jim

I think it's akin to wing shooting with a shotgun.  It's a learned behavior utilizing experience, technique, and muscle memory.  I would venture to say those who are good wing shots probably are good archers too.

Since you are a golfer too I find a lot of parallels in archery and golf.

Both Asbell and Kidwell have fine books on this subject. The coined phrase "Become The Arrow" is explained in Byron Fergusons' books and videos. I like to think my style of shooting is a combination of these three great archers.

... mike ...

Like Terry said....  it is a name only.  It is a learned response like anything, but it describes a particular style of shooting.  It is only a name.
ChuckC

I think it is just like as a kid you played baseball and would take a ball and toss it to someone. Now did you and or I count the number of steps to see how much push to put on the toss, No, so we learn from doing it. I have a quiver of a total of 8 arrows in it, I take one arrow at a time and start at different yardage to the target and just shoot one arrow at a time. If it does not hit the target I want, I try to analyze the why, most times I come up with I did not get a good ancor, or the old saying of aim small miss small or pick that spot.
After 25 yards I just hope and poke.

Bill

Bill, Dan Quillian used the baseball analogy regularly when explaining "instinctive" shooting. He also referenced what a quarterback does when he throws to a receiver in motion. He doesn't analyze the throw, he just does it based on plenty of practice.

Yes, it's learned. Paraphrasing what Terry said, we don't come out of the womb knowing how to shoot.

Instinctive shooting is shooting at a subconscious state of mind. Because it is subconscious it's called instinctive shooting. The subconscious mind can be extremely accurate, for example when you catch a ball your subconscious mind calculates how far, how fast, and which direction to move your arm, the timing with your fingers, etc in an extremely short time. To do this with the fully conscious mind you would take a lot longer to calculate where to move and tell your arm to do so. Instinctive shooting can be extremely accurate because your mind can calculate things so accurately and quickly.

We all judge distance, unless we shoot with our eyes closed.  We either estimate the actual distance, in yards or whatever, to the target, or we form a mental image and let our subconscious minds set the proper elevation of our bow arms.

If we actually estimate distance, we will shoot over or under the target if our estimate is off.  If we let our subconscious minds set the elevation of our bow arms, we will shoot over or under the target if our subconscious minds set the wrong elevation of our bow arms.

The question is, would we be more or less likely to shoot over or under the target if we mis-estimate the actual distance, or if our subconscious minds set the wrong elevation of our bow arms?  The answer probably varies from person to person, depending on how good someone is at estimating distances, which is why we have gap shooters and instinctive shooters.

Very well put McDave

Shoot in the dark and you'll find out if your shooting is truly instinctive.

I kind of like the way that Howard Hill described this as "Conditioned Instintive".

Basically after shooting many many times, your brain automatically sends signals to your muscles as to where to correctly position the bow and body without the "normal" thought process. It happens from building on prior shots.

exactly. When was the last time you thought through the dozen or so actual steps involved in shifting gears in a car? You don't, you've done it enough that you just shift.

Like was said before. Practice in the dark.

I like to hunt at night when possible. To practice for this I put a target inside the house, aim a laser pointer at it, remove girlfriends cat from target and throw her out, turn off all the lights and shoot at the dot. Even when you can't see youre bow, hand or arrow you'd be suprised hwo well you can do.

I like to shoot in the dark too, but I'm usually shooting at something I've shot at before, or at least know the distance to.  Under those circumstances, I usually do pretty well.

I'm pretty sure that if someone blindfolded me and took me to a strange place, and then took the blindfold off and told me to shoot at a laser pointer, I wouldn't do well at all.  First, the point of light could be 10 yards away or it could be in the next county; I would have no way of knowing without any other points of reference.

Darrell Quidort did some experiments along these lines and reported his results in MBB III.  He was convinced that you need points of reference other than a single point of light to shoot accurately instinctively, and I believe he's correct.

Oh, of course. I was doing it more as an exercise in not using the arrow as an aiming device.

I think that everyone sees and uses the arrow to aim with to some degree. Take a handful of arrows,choose one and either bend it or put the tip on so that it's fairly crooked,drop it in your quiver with the others so not to know when you will be shooting that particular arrow,then start shooting.I'll bet that when you get to that arrow, you will be able to see in your peripheral vision that that arrow is not exactly straight.  

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