I posted this to an archery forum and then thought it might be good on here as well.
Ok first off I am not a coach and to be honest I really don't enjoy coaching, mainly because it really hacks me off when someone asks the way to somewhere and when you tell them where it is they immediately go in the opposite direction. So.....
I had a spare hour or so the other evening and thought I would pop over to the club (because at 7pm on a Wednesday nobody will be there) and spend a quiet hour just working on my release (which to be honest has got a bit raggedy over the winter). When I walked in it was right into the middle of two members (no that is not a euphemism) discussing whether a bow was twisted/out of alignment or not. Basically the owner of the bow was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his groups in the middle of the target as they kept drifting further and further to the right, this had been ongoing over the last year or so and his sight pin was soon going to disappear if he moved it any further to the right. As I walked in he asked me if I knew how to tell if a bow was twisted, I said that it was more likely a limb alignment issue and indeed that was the case which was easily sorted.
But as he had been shooting the bow for two years and the adjustment screws were snug with no play I told him that he if he was shooting OK with the bow a year ago then that was not the problem. "Ah! it's my sight then, look how far you guy have your sight pin from the riser mine is much closer, do you think it need changing for a better one?", I told him to stop worrying about his bow and look at his form and release, "but that can't be the problem, I practise four time a week shooting about a hundred arrows each time" he said. Now we get to the problem he does indeed shoot lots and often, but he NEVER shoots a round or even scores an end so has no way to quantify how well he is shooting, we have all I am sure shot a round at at the end found that we have score much higher or lower than we expected and he was pretty much estimating over a years shooting!
I then watched him shoot an end, his bow arm was good and to be honest he has a pretty good form, but his release was not good and his arrows were 15 to 20 cm off to the right of a 60cm face at 25m, I asked him to do me a favour and just work on one thing. When he released could he make sure that his hand touched his ear, just touched it nothing more definite than that, his next three arrows were a group on the right hand edge of the face. "OK now I just need to move my sight", I told him not to but to just keep shooting slow and steady making sure that hand touched that ear, about four ends later he was putting three arrow in a fist sized group at nine o'clock red/blue. His main problem was that he had no reference for his follow through so as his hand came off the string it was moving away from his face but not always to the same degree.
By this time I had to go (having shot no arrows), see told you I don't like coaching.
I was told by my first coach that the unless you move something on your bow the only thing that will change is you and I have always looked at myself first when things start to slip, ninety percent of the time the solution is to slow down and go right back to how you were taught to stand, look, draw and release the bow. I see so many archers chasing their arrows around a face, shooting, spotting, adjusting, shooting, spotting, cursing, adjusting, shooting....you get the idea. If they shot three arrows before spotting then they might find that they have a group that is high, low, left or right of the gold and then they can adjust, but if they just have three arrows spread around the face no amount of adjustment will help because they don't know which, if any was shot well.
You cannot adjust you sight without a group, if you have not adjusted your bow, then any change in your shooting is almost definitely you and quality of practice is far more imprint than quantity. Shooing a hundred arrows badly will only increase you stamina and ability to shoot badly, shooting ten arrows well will improve your shooting.
I hope that within these ramblings there is something of use to someone, but if not at least I have let off a bit............
