More PB's tumble

I shot a partial FITA (90m,70m and 50m) and a Long Metric this weekend and have once again wiped away my old practice PB's.

If I had completed the partially shot FITA with just an average 30m score, I could have been on for a 1320+ FITA. If I was to shoot 50m and 30m and plug in the Long Metric, I could have had around 1340+.

It seems unbelievable I am talking about this level of scoring, even in practice. Even taking into account tournament conditions, I will still be looking at comfortable MB scores. If I add up all my practice PB distance scores that works out at 1352, on the dot for GMB.

Todays Long Metric of 658, is about 20+ points ahead of my usual practice scores. This was all down to relaxing fully the bow arm and had, maintaining back tension and being confident on the trigger. I had also sorted out some travel issues on my release aid.

It seems that the coaching I had had a few weeks ago from Liam Grimwwod has once again contributed fully to my scores increasing.

More PB's broken, all down to coaching

Today I shot a 30m Frostbite round and 3 doz @ 90m. After last Wednesdays Portsmouth PB I was feeling confident, and despite a few dodgy shots at 30m, I shot a practice PB of 355/360.

With this I decided to score a 3 doz @ 90m, and shot a 325. This was totally unexpected, and have never got near this in practice or competition. In practice I have shot 315 but this was a one off, I am typcially around 300 - 305 on average.

The 90m was achieved by relaxing and expanding the top half and chest. This had a great affect on alignment (not in a collapsed position) and really steadied the aim to the point where there was almost no movement on the scope's dot on the gold at times.

So thats three relevant distances shot in 5 days, all PB's by some margin, and all down to applying the principles that Liam has shown in my coaching session.

Finally break the 580 mark

I shot a Portsmouth round for the first time since getting coaching from Liam. Due to the weather shooting has been limited. However, taking into account all I was taught and trying to apply that to my shooting, I broke the 580 point barrier by shooting a 581.

Lately my average Portsmouth scores have been low to mid 570's, but hitting 581 was no fluke. I could feel the changes working and apart from a few dodgy shots, it felt good.

The biggest change was making the release aid trigger a little lighter and allowing the relaxation to execute the shot, rather than pulling on a heavy trigger like I have done in the past.

The other change was to really focus on aiming, and getting that dot locked onto the X. I am really looking forward to the indoor competitions with confidence.

Coaching from Liam Grimwood

I had a 3 hour coaching session with Liam Grimwood and it proved to be very useful and a good confidence builder.

Liam identified a few areas with me and the bow that needed tweaking, but thankfully nothing major. This included adding about 1/8th inch on my draw length so that the string just touched the tip of my nose, opening my stance and moving the grip onto the correct part of my bow hand (was just touching the life line).

As for the bow, we paper tuned my indoor setup and got the arrows flying straight at about 1m. This was achieved by bringing in the centre shot and tweaking one of the yoke cables to just lean the top wheel a bit. This meant that the string will track a bit to one side during the shot (only a minute amount).

We also looked at my stabilisation, and added some weights to the bottom of the riser to stop the riser waggling at full draw (riser is top heavy). All of this had a remarkable affect on my aim which was rock steady, but the biggest affect was using Liam's release aid.

My Choc Addiction release is on its last legs, and has up till now had a very heavy trigger. I tried Liam's Just'B'Cuz release with a lighter trigger (but not a hair trigger). This was far better, alowing me to just rest my thumb on the trigger and just relax, without having to pull hard, which meant my front shoulder would rise the more I pulled. This really steadied my aim, and I was drilling the X on the FITA 18 target I was shooting at.

Liam was very pleased with my release technique, and said this was a good as it could be, with no issues. This has given me real confidence.

Overall I am delighted and really look forward to training hard with this new set-up, and would suggest to anybody to book a session with a top pro, its money well worth spent.