Tag Archives: practice

Archery Basics, Zen Hunting

How to Conquer Buck Fever

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What is Buck Fever?

Buck fever is a state of panic brought on by an intense hunting situation, followed by a huge adrenaline surge. It’s basically your body’s fight-or-flight reaction. If you’ve never experienced buck fever, then you either haven’t seen a 200-inch buck up close or you’re just one cool customer.

For the rest of us, buck fever is a very real and formidable foe. It still haunts me today! When that long-awaited moment of truth comes, when that giant buck finally steps into the open, I feel like a little kid trembling in my boots. This intense excitement is why I love bowhunting so much. Unfortunately it’s also the reason I still miss shots on big bucks.

On my second archery hunt back in the nineties, I had a true monsterbuck step out broadside at 35 yards. Sure enough I came completely unglued and proceeded to send my arrow into the dirt at his feet.

Today’s bows are consistent tack drivers. Unfortunately we let ourselves get in it the way of their performance. The ultimate goal in archery is to eliminate yourself as a variable, and the best way to do that is through diligent practice.

How to Practice for Buck Fever

  • The most effective way I’ve found to practice for buck fever is by getting your heart rate up during practice sessions. You can do this by sprinting to and from your target. Start by shooting one arrow and then sprint to the target, pull the arrow, and sprint back. Shoot again and repeat. This will quickly get you’re your heart rate and breathing up. Do this exercise repeatedly until you are a huffing, puffing wreck. I’ll admit, this kind of practice isn’t very fun, but it’s the best way to prepare for buck fever.
  • Shooting competitively is another way to practice for buck fever. Every major city in the country has archery clubs and regular competitions. Shooting competitively and publicly puts the pressure on and ups the excitement level, especially when competing for money and prizes. Just like other adverse conditions practice, learning to shoot well under pressure is a valuable skill.
  • While hunting there are a few ways to cope with buck fever. First, try to slow your breathing. If you have time before the shot, take a few deep breaths and exhale slowly. Second, avoid getting tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is basically where you lose situational awareness because you’re hyper-focused on one thing, like the deer’s incredible rack. Instead, take a second to expand your view. Look around for any other deer that you might have missed. Whatever you do, don’t rush the shot. Most bowhunting scenarios play out slowly, and rushing things just causes mistakes.
  • When the shot finally comes together, put all your focus into following through. Hunters under pressure usually miss low because they “drop the bow” on the shot. Instead, focus on keeping your sight pin on target until the arrow hits. Keeping equal palm pressure across the bow’s grip also helps with follow through.
  • One more tip:  When a buck suddenly appears at close range, it’s common to misjudge the buck’s size amidst all the excitement. This can lead to shooting a buck you aren’t happy with. For this reason I refuse to pull an arrow until I’ve judged the buck and I’m sure he’s a shooter. Pulling an arrow creates momentum, and when you combine momentum with excitement it leads to smaller bucks, or worse, missing the big one.

Conclusion

These are the best methods I’ve found to practice and prepare for buck fever situations. Buck fever might be an incurable affliction, but it also means you’re passionate about hunting, and that’s a good thing.

Good luck out there!

Archery Basics

Advanced Archery Technique: The Relaxed State

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The Advanced Archery Technique

All suffering is caused by desire.  -Buddha

Over the past several years I’ve taught hundreds of people basic archery. Of all these students, only a handful are what you might call “naturals.” They follow instructions carefully, excel quickly, and break through to the next level at an astonishing pace.

But even these “naturals” eventually hit a wall: their accuracy plateaus, they fatigue out, and eventually falter. At this point they often turn to me and ask, “What now? I’ve mastered the basics, but how can I hit closer to the bullseye?”

As their intrepid instructor, it’s my duty to guide these students to the next level. The problem I had early on–and what my students didn’t know–was that I too was wondering the same thing! When you’ve mastered the basics–that is, when you’re executing the shot sequence flawlessly and still coming up short–how do you increase accuracy?

For the first time in my career I had no choice but to break down my shot sequence and see where potential weaknesses could set in. Here’s what I discovered.

The Problem

The thing that gets between the bow and the target isn’t the arrow,  it’s you! Every archer, no matter how advanced, goes through slumps. A few missed shots quickly erodes confidence by allowing negative factors such as fatigue, discouragement, and desperation into the shot. It’s a vicious cycle: the harder you try, the worse you do.

The Fatigue Factor

Physical fatigue is the greatest negative factor, especially for the beginner who hasn’t yet developed his back muscles. Just as he begins hitting close to the bullseye, he fatigues. But there’s also mental fatigue, caused by trying to over-aim the arrow into the bullseye again and again.  Finally there’s spiritual fatigue, the byproduct of chronic misses. In the end, all this fatigue erodes confidence and creates a downward spiral.

Zen in Archery

From the Zen perspective, all suffering comes from desire. Desire, of course, is healthy and even necessary for any activity. But when desire turns into obsession, that’s when we suffer.

In archery you suffer from your very first shot. You strain physically under the weight of bow while your mind strains to aim the arrow. And when your arrow falls short of the bullseye, your spirit strains from the pangs of failure, resulting in desperation.  In short order, your whole being–mind, body, and spirit–is strained!

I see this all the time. The student grasps another arrow, and another, faster and faster while simultaneously grasping for the bullseye which is rapidly becoming an impossible target. Very quickly he creates the bad habit of high-stress archery, which can take a long time to fix.

So, what’s the fix? It’s simple.

Instead of drawing the bow to a state of high tension, we need to learn how to draw to a relaxed state. Drawing to a relaxed state removes your self from the shot by eliminating negative influences over the arrow. Hence, your bow shoots itself. In Zen archery, eliminating your “self” removes desire, which in turn removes stress and suffering.

The Relaxed State Exercise

  1. Bring only one arrow with you on this exercise.
  2. Set up five paces from a large, blank target.
  3. Load the arrow.
  4. Stand up straight and spread your weight evenly between your feet.
  5. Grasp the string firmly and draw to your face while taking a deep, deep breath.
  6. At full draw, look up and away from the bow. Look at the sky and the clouds and the trees. Breathe out, and back in again. Feel the strength of your body as it overpowers the scrawny bow. Forget the bullseye; no one cares if you hit it anyway! Say to yourself, “I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been in my life.”
  7. Now let down the draw smoothly; don’t shoot the arrow.
  8. Catch your breath.
  9. Repeat the process, only this time, when you’ve reached your highest  state of relaxation, release the arrow. Don’t aim at the target. Just relax your shooting hand until the shot goes off. This is what a relaxed arrow feels like.
  10. Maintain this relaxed state as you walk to the target and pull your arrow. Repeat this process over and over until it becomes habit.

That’s all there is to it. You are now drawing the bow to a state of high relaxation rather than a state of high stress. You’ve turned a bad habit into a good habit.

Real Life Example

One day I approached a talented young student who was literally drawing a circle around the bullseye with errant arrows. Wide-eyed and desperate, he turned to me and pleaded, “What am I doing wrong?!” I watched him fling yet another arrow just outside of the bullseye. I told him, “You’re trying to hard.” I went on to explain that missing the target wasn’t the end of the world; that his passion for archery–the whole meditative process–was far more important than a single bullseye. I had him breathe deeply and look around at the beautiful mountains. A moment later he calmly drew his bow and sank the next arrow into the bullseye. His face lit up and he hugged me. Years later he still talks about his enlightening experience.

Conclusion

Your bow is designed to shoot a perfect arrow every time. The arrow only misses if you let yourself get in the way.

For every student that asks, How can I shoot more accurately?, there are a few others who comment on how meditative archery is; how it relaxes and focuses the mind. These students typically aren’t the best archers at first, because to them the process outweighs the result. I view these students as the real naturals, and they even prove it when, eventually, their arrow finds the bullseye with seemingly little effort.

Shooting in a relaxed state is the secret to Zen archery. On a grander scale, you might say that living in a relaxed state is the secret to a Zen life!

Archery Basics, Zen Hunting

Always Pull Another Arrow

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Always Pull Another Arrow

This is one little–but all-too-important–hunting skill that bow hunters should be practicing. It might seem intuitive that, immediately after your first shot, you should be pulling and loading another arrow. But it’s not.

The wait-and-see approach can make all the difference between success and failure. This is why you hear guides on hunting shows always pleading, “Shoot again, shoot again!”

Bow hunting is different than gun hunting insomuch that the animal often doesn’t realize you’ve shot, especially at longer distance where he doesn’t hear the shot. Sometimes the animal doesn’t even know he’s been hit, which can afford you a follow up shot!

Hit or miss, your non-bow hand should be immediately grasping and loading another arrow. It’s one of those skills that’s acquired over time through real-life hunting experiences, but rarely practiced.

Now, I don’t want to pick on my wonderful bowhunting wife, but here’s a classic example:

On our first archery turkey hunt, we called up a group of mature toms. Forever they gobbled while cautiously circling us, so we moved in on them. When the biggest tom broke the treeline, I whispered the yardage and Esther let an arrow fly…and missed. The tom jumped, then meandered off. Desperately I whispered, “Shoot, SHOOT!”, but when I turned around, I saw that Esther hadn’t loaded another arrow. What seemed intuitive to me was not intuitive to a newbie-hunter.

Practice Makes Perfect

To avoid this mistake I recommend incorporating a simple shoot-and-pull technique into your regular practice routine. Note: It’s best to use a real-life 3D animal target to help train your brain for real-life scenarios. Here’s how it’s done:

  1. Shoot your first arrow. Hit or miss, you have five seconds to…
  2. Pull, load, and shoot a second arrow.
  3. Repeat.

Pretty simple, huh? Given enough time afield, I guarantee that practicing this technique will one day save your hunt. Hit or miss, having a second arrow ready can make all the difference between success and failure.