The Natural Archer

Another week of archery gone, actually I've only practiced on one night this week due to problems and after the awful shooting at the end of last Sunday I was determined to pick myself up and get my eye back in.
Now with the darker colder evenings less people are coming to shoot on some nights, which in all honesty I find quite good for shooting, there isn't alot of noise so you can focus on what your doing and your not worried about people hitting your arrows, or being squashed by people being either side of you.
It was interesting shooting this week, I didn't score my ends* but I could see I was mostly keeping inside the red rings, I don't know why but my arrows don't seem to like the gold much, they'll shoot all around it and only on occasion stray into it. But the end of the night I was getting pretty tired and quite hungry so my shooting started to go off, pains in body areas (why I only went down one night this week) was making me think too much. Looking at the time I only had about 20mins before I'd set off home, so decided to relax and just shoot randomly, not aim not line up try to get the shot right and not really care where they land, as long as they are in the boss. Note I said boss not the target. (the boss is the thing you stick the target onto, usually straw).
So half heartily I grabbed my bow and shot 6 arrows, quicker than normal and without thinking or aiming, and to my surprise they all hit the target. Not only did they all hit the target the majority were reds and golds, so I did this for 15 minutes and was amazed to see the same outcome, though the shots did get worse towards the end as I was thinking about shots more trying to adjust to better the next arrow. Really just shows that archery is a sport that you need to relax and enjoy rather than pushing yourself all the time, and getting annoyed at the odd stray arrow. But its funny how you can not care about it and do well, I'm assuming this is because of body memory, do things often enough and your body remembers how....Its often interesting to note you're body will tell you your doing something wrong after you've done archery for a while, and you know what shots are going to be bad, before the arrow hits the target, sometimes even before they hit.

Anyhow, monthly medal next week, so stay tuned and see if a tale of a hero, or of woe.

*An end is where you shoot 3-6 arrows then collect them.