Shooting the hinge; more practice PB's and my first competition

Have shot a new practice PB of 686 for a 70m 720. Some really great shots, some mistakes still but it felt really good. Also coupled with a slight tweak to my stabilisation to move the COG forward a little.

I shot the hinge on the first day of the Surrey FITA weekend, on the 70m 720. Conditions were far from ideal, and got blow off for a 4 and 6 on two ends. However, it showed real promise in hard conditions, and without those gusts I would have been close the to leaders.

Unfortunately the first day was abandoned due to the weather, and was unable to make the FITA due to family issues. I now look forward to the Andover FITA Star, hopefully the weather will be calm and I can really test my progress at competition level.

Another PB...

Shot a 680 FITA 720 @ 70m. A PB by one point. Again shot the hinge. Some iffy ends and about seven 8's shot in total, but they were made up by some blistering ends of 60, 59's, 58's.

I know the poorer ends are just getting to grips with shooting the hinge properly, but already I am putting in better groups and scores after just a few hours using it. I know I will get better with it and am excited about using it. I just need to relax and keep pulling and it will dump them in the X.

My aim is a little steadier than when using the trigger release. I may also set the hinge a little faster as well. But overall, progress is good.

Finished the night with two 10 arrow ends @ 70m. Put 16 in the 10, 4 in the 9.

Southampton 720 & H2H

I went into this wondering what was going to happen. If it was flat calm I felt I could be on for a 670+, but if the weather lived up to its forecast then how would I deal with it? Well, the weather certainly lived up to it, and I really struggled over the two days. In the end I shot 617 and 614, about 50 points down on my previous competition PB's.

The first day was a very strong left to right wind and driving rain. On some ends I was being blow across 3 targets. I didn't help that being soaked through I was very cold and wet, and I found it hard to concentrate.

The H2H was the new set system, and despite getting knocked out in the first round, I took it too a one arrow shoot-off with the archer who ended up in third place, with him hitting the X and my shot just below the 10.

I felt that my draw length was still too long, so I took the opportunity after the first day's shooting to shorten my d-loop (easier than changing actual draw length) just to see what affect it would have. I was hoping that it would allow me to brace myself a bit more and prevent me coming off the back wall which happened a few times when I was fighting the wind.

The second day started like the first. Whilst no rain, the wind was just as strong but this time it was the worst kind of swirling wind that changed in all directions. On a few occasions the flags were pointing in one direction but the groups went the other way. The first 3 dozen arrows went very badly, I shot 299, with one end a 42, where I was blown from side to side and shot a 4 and a 5.

The second 3 doz was better and I put in a 313. The big difference was I added an extra long rod weight and this seemed to stabilise things up a bit (although it was a little front heavy). By this time I had also really opened up my stance to about 45 degrees to help stabilise against the wind.

In the second H2H, I went out again, losing 4-2 (two draws and one loss). However, by this time I started to get to grips with the wind and just fully relaxed and I shot some really nice groups and some good end scores.

Over the two days, when the wind died down, I was shooting some really great groups. However, I really am now motivated to learn to be a good windy shooter, and will now practice whenever I can in bad conditions because I can't rely on good weather.

My trigger usage was good throughout the weekend. I have ensured that the placement of the release aid is more consistent in my hand and because of this I have been able to wrap my thumb around the trigger. The release now sits firmly on the middle pads of my fingers, rather than in the first crease. Apart from a couple of half-punches on the first day, I shot pretty clean shots.

One thing about shooting the Monster is that it is very easy to creep off the back wall, and when fighting the wind and tensing up, this happens a lot. This is something I will be working hard on over the coming weeks.