About a year ago, after shooting Barebow successfully for about five years, I decided a new challenge was in order. I was shooting a Portsmouth of over 500, averaging around 505 and with a PB of 510. There was still some considerable way to go before a perfect score of 600, but I was well ahead of any competition on the league tables and so I began to lose any incentive for the challenge. I know, I should have kept competing with myself, aiming to get further and further up the 500's, but I was getting complacent with it. I needed a new challenge.
Que, a quick trip to the archery shop to buy sights, stabilisers, v-bars, etc. I was pretty good without sights, how much better would sights make me? Not very, would be the answer to that rhetorical question. In fact, they would even go as far as to make me worse. My first Portsmouth scored in the 480's. I'd considered that a bad score by Barebow standards, so I certainly wasn't going to accept it with a fully spec'ed up Recurve bow.
I trained! I trained hard for three months and went to my first competition with a full Recurve. I scored 524! Bonus! I've beaten my Barebow PB. It's all uphill from here. Taking advice from another archer, I attached a clicker to the bow. I attached it two days before the next competition. As you can imagine, that didn't work so well for me. I was back down in the 470's and it had been a very hard felt 66 arrows (including sighters). I was gutted.
I spent the next nine months battling with the sights, the clicker, the consistent anchor, the lower draw force line (not to mention a recurring shoulder injury) and I was done. I couldn't get to grips with Olympic Recurve at all. It's not like I tried it and thought, 'Nope! This isn't for me'. I really tried it. I spent a year trying it, and must have shot thousands of arrows both at club nights and in the garden. Olympic Recurve really isn't for me! I didn't enjoy it. I never enjoyed it as much as shooting Barebow. It just seemed like a lot of hard work for not a lot of gain. I was beginning to dislike archery. I needed to go back which, ironically, is probably going forward. There's a philosophy in there; we won't dwell on it.
With that in mind, I stripped everything off again. I took the bow back to its Barebow basic, and bought myself a new shooting glove (I had been using a tab whilst trying to get to grips with Olympic Recurve).
I must admit, my 'instincts' are a little rusty. If you go for a year without shooting, that will happen. Certainly, the muscles are strong. That's not a problem. Swimming, cycling, archery; they all help keep the muscles strong. The instincts, however, are not. My arrow groupings were on the target, which is good, as I feared they would be literally all over the place. And then I placed this grouping in the target, and everything about these three arrows just worked. I knew the moment I released the arrows that they were good. Perhaps there's hope yet for reviving my Barebow archery career.
That is the kind of shooting I was use to in Barebow archery. Ironically, I very rarely managed it with Olympic Recurve. Keep in mind that this was just one end! The others tended to occupy the red and blue some more. One arrow even missed the target completely! I maintain it was bent, although, when tested, it was as straight as an arrow; no pun intended. Perhaps the bow was playing up! Surely it can't have been the archer?!
Anyway, I now know I've still got it. I know I can get it back. So the journey begins...
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