Sunday 14 March - Saturday 20 March

A good week overall and finally broke through the 1000 arrow mark shooting 1063.

Arrows shot:
Sunday 144, Monday 160, Tuesday 160, Wednesday 224, Thursday 80, Friday 157, Saturday 98
Total Arrows Shot: 1063

Work Scores: 567, 570, 570, 578, 561, 562, 568, 566, 573
Malvern Portsmouth: 566
Malvern Worcester: 282

Shooting really confidently, and more and more arrows are good shots. Reference point nice and positive, keeping front hand relaxed and down into grip, drawing grip not deep and relaxed, standing up straight bum and tum in.

Sunday 7 March - Saturday 13 March

Arrows shot:
Sunday 70, Monday 144, Tuesday 72, Wednesday 90, Thursday 72, Friday 144, Saturday 144
Total Arrows Shot: 808

Evesham FITA18m v3: 530
Work Scores: 579, 572, 565, 553, 578, 565, 574, 572
Malvern Wrocester: 284 (new PB)

County Championships Success

After a couple of weeks practice at work went into the championships feeling pretty confident about shooting form, so just wanted to settle down into shooting. Got there quite early, and was funny to hear all the people maoning about poor scores, injuries, equipment not working. There I am with just my bow and arrows and a eagerness to just shoot well, and enjoy myself.

Started off a bit tense with arrows in a group to the right. Resisted the temptation to adjust the sight as it had been in the right place for the past few weeks. On target with R Crich as well, and was ahead for the first couple of dozen, plus 3rd palce on leaderboard. Maintained third place throughout, and once settled in was always catching those up ahead.

Finished on a tournament PB of 530, joint 3rd WMAS (though behind on Golds I think) but got the C classification medal, and 2nd CWAA only 2 points behind P Williams.

Sunday 28 February to Saturday 6 March

Arrows shot:
Sunday 144, Monday 144, Tuesday 72, Wednesday 108, Thursday 72, Friday 144, Saturday 144
Total Arrows Shot:828

Work Scores: 552, 532, 564, 554, 545, 565, 569, 562, 574
Malvern Fita18 v3: 538

A slight refinement on form

I noticed that my thumb seemed to be interfering with the alignment on the jaw. So this has been modified so that the thumb is purposefully tucked down. This meant I had a much more positive reference between the tab platform and the jaw, giving a more consistent alignment as well. Increased my work practice PB, but will update my past week's figures after today's session.

Training Update

Managing to keep training on a regular basis. Twice a day during the week, and a double session on Saturday and Sunday.

At work using the bow with the limb bolts wound in one more than for regular shooting. At Malvern I certainly noticed that the shooting seemed a lot easier after winding it back out. Scored a 538 FITAv3 so very chuffed with that. A few pointers to take account of after Wednesdays session:
- Stand out straight, but relax, no puffing the chest out.
- Fingers nice and apart from the nock, might have to modify the finger spacer to maintain this.
- Had a really positive reference on the jaw line

Finding time

Practice is a good thing, but finding the time can be difficult sometimes. Currently my lower body gym sessions seem to really take it out of me, so after that on a Tuesday and Malvern on a Wednesday I keep failing to do my follow up gym session on the Thursday. I need to do this otherwise I just can't fit all of the sessions in (well unless I spend Friday evenings in the gym which wouldn't go down too well).

Overall though practice is going very well. In total over the past week I have managed a total of 714 arrows (sat-fri) with another 144 yesterday as well. Managed 2 gym sessions, and going to put another one in today to get to my 3 for the week. Need to make sure I do Tues, Thurs and Sat otherwise everything else goes out of kilter.

Did a FITAv3 at Malvern scoring 525 (15,23,16,4,2 average 8.75), with a follow up 36 arrows scoring 319 (13,11,7,4,1 average 8.86)