Coaching and stabilisation

Last week a friend (hello Dave!) and I saw Liam Grimwood again for some outdoor coaching. I am pleased to say there was little wrong with either of us, but I spent a lot of time looking at the stabilisation of my bow.

As a result I have ditched the Fuse long rod and Doinker side rod in favour of a Doinker Fatty 33" and B-Stinger 10" side rod, with lots more weight.

The old set-up had too much rubber between the rods and weights, and this reduced the effectiveness of the stabilisation. This mean that the end weights were moving independently of the bow, therefore the weight was not acting against the movements of the bow.

This has resulted in a far superior hold, and the extra weight is not noticeable due to the better balance. In fact I could add more weight, and will play around with this when I can get hold of some more.

We also worked in a paper tune and the big left tear has been reduced by moving the rest a little more and tweaking the hand position, so its a little nearer the middle of the hand, but still not touching the life line.

We also discussed mental approaches, and Liam gave some tips about shooting, such as using music or commands in your head to distract the concious mind, and keeping a "Good Shot" percentage tally to focus the mind on the shot and not the score (more on that later).

Practice update

After the struggle at the weekend in Southampton, I was keen to get out and build some confidence in my shooting. Tonight at the club was flat calm, with zero wind, not even a breeze. I just wanted to get back to 90m and be hitting the gold, and I did just that.

My release aid usage and alignment was excellent, and this resulted in some great groups, which helped build my confidence back up.

I also changed my stabilisation set-up as well. The old set-up was great when things were going well, but in windy conditions or when I am not shooting so well, it was not as forgiving. It did not have much torque resistance for those not so good shots.

The changed set-up has an extra long rod weight, but I have gone back to two side rods, both extended so they are now 14" each with several end weights. Both of them are very splayed out and pointing down to lower the bows CoG. The bow is much harder to torque, and this showed up on my groups. The balance is not perfect yet, but I will work on this over the coming weeks. I plan to change my long rod to a longer, lighter and stiffer version as well.