Heart Pounding - Head Spinning

[Flying Whale]

Having done a number of sports to a quite a reasonable level I did not expect to get nervous. At my firt couple of competitions I was fine. Slight anticipation, but nothing amiss. And I sot well. Better than I had been doing in practice.

I thought I had it cracked....all I had to do now was improve through practice and the competition scores would follow. For a while it worked, but recently I can not even get close to what I can do in practise. I don't feel nervous, I just don't shoot well. It may in fact be the opposite. I meet an wideing group of people I know and like, and I am not nervous. I immensely enjoy going to tournaments., it is the driving back I don't enjoy, when I know I have not shot nearly as well as I can.


In a couple of weeks our county has arranged a series of seminars on psychological aspects of archery. I am interested to see if anything strikes a chord.

[Anna K]

Thanks for the advice! I'll try it out next week :-)

[geoffretired]

I used to feel like Kae decribes at the beginning of this thread.
Plus,at the start I shot better than most beginners which starts to produce a kind of tension. Not wanting to make a mess when something better is expected of you. Eventually something horrible set in and I couldn't aim for toffee!
However, getting over that has given me a whole different outlook on my shooting. It is like having a jail sentence lifted/reversed. All shots now are done with a decent aim and I feel good, just being able to shoot without the fear makes me appreciate what archery is about, for me.
I don't worry if my technique needs refining, I'm working on that.
Can I aim and shoot a fairly well executed shot? 90+% of the time ,yes!
Sorry to ramble, but I think the context is important to my post.
When I go to competitions, I know what I am going for. To shoot arrows in the way I see as good, for me, at my level. I have no influence on any one else's score;so there's no point in worrying about that.
So, my advice is to know exactly why you are going to the competition. What really matters? If it is winning, it would be necessary to shoot better than everyone else.

[pHz]

only done one competition but after a few minutes adjusting to the newness of it all it felt like just another shoot to me - but then i do have a pretty calm and composed personality anyway (didnt help my shooting though) - other first timers from the club reported butterflies / sweaty palms / etc

slainte rob

[narrowboat]

Originally Posted by pHz

only done one competition but after a few minutes adjusting to the newness of it all it felt like just another shoot to me - but then i do have a pretty calm and composed personality anyway (didnt help my shooting though) - other first timers from the club reported butterflies / sweaty palms / etc

slainte rob

I think he means me.i could walk through town naked and not batter a eyelid but as soon as i stood on the shooting line sweaty palms ,it didnt help the other bloke was a ****,all i asked was who shoots first as he had shot a lot of comps and new the routine, all i got was a grunt ask a judge

[geoffretired]

Must like talking. It would have been quicker to say, "Me" or even "You".

[WhitehartFB]

Originally Posted by Murray

I used to get very nervous, particularly at indoor competitions for some reason. So much so I'd be physically shaking and feeling a bit sick, even on the drive to the tournament! BUT the more you do the less it gets. Personally I'm like you - have a chat, have a laugh while setting up the kit, then settle down to some visualisation and set my mindset towards getting into a single-minded, focussed zone.

Outdoors it has never been a problem and indoors initially I never suffered (infact at my first big shoot GD500 I shot 574). But when I started to realise I could win the aprehension during sighters and shooting the first dozen got worse and inevitably I could never get the 15 or so points back. The reason was identified as "a fear of failure", indoors I expected all my arrows to be in the gold and used to see indoor shoots as points lost each end not gained.
Now I use visualisation and breathing techniques to overcome this.

[Adam]

Schme is right - having a routine helps. Experience helps too, so shoot as many comps as required to get a good feel for them - though experience isn't a complete solution as even the best still get nervous.

If all else fails, just remind yourself that the other guy sh**s through the same hole as eveyone else. Should help to keep things in perspective.

Adam

[pHz]

Originally Posted by Adam

If all else fails, just remind yourself that the other guy sh**s through the same hole as eveyone else. Should help to keep things in perspective.

could always use the old public speaking technique of imagining everyone else naked to make them psychologically less threatening

since ours is a mixed sport might also get you into trouble if you have TOO vivid an imagination

slainte rob

[english_archer]

When i turn up at a competion i know I have ony one person to beat myself ,I never let myself worry about what other people are doing or shooting thats just back ground i treat every shot like its the only one never look at my end totals ( unless im scoring) the score can take care of its self once the arrow is in the target I cant alter it so why worry about it ?. Up to now this has seen my p.b.s steadily climb so i guess it works for me.