Instinctive Shooting

[DRT]

That cross eye dominant stuff is tough.

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[Black Ice]

I too am left eye dominant, yet hopelessly right handed, so I shoot right handed.



I shoot my bow exactly as you described.



Rick

The guy who runs the range and was telling me what I needed to do said he would come out and see what I was doing wrong when it wasn’t 45 degrees and raining. I haven’t given up but until I have someone watching me I am going to continue shooting like I always have. It was pretty frustrating missing bird after Bird.


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[Black Ice]

Instinctive Shooting

That cross eye dominant stuff is tough.

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Being a hunter it’s never been that bad. I’ve never been a great shot but I would say I’m slightly better than average. The problem may be trying to become a really good shooter.


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[KenWood]

Ok. After some thought......... it may be kind of weird but for elevation, early on, I would pre draw aim. In other words, I would put the point of the arrow at a guesstimated gap below or above the desired impact point. After that, at full draw, a gap meant nothing. Also in my peripheral, I would line up for windage. It’s all automatic now. I still put my bow all the way up and draw, but I don’t really consciously pay attention to the arrow. If any of that made sense I’d be surprised. Self taught people have to figure it out their own way I guess.

[tradtiger]

I've stayed out of this thread a little bit because I 'm relatively new to archery, say 5-6 years. I will say that I consider myself pretty much purely "instinctive" as shooting goes. After reading Rick's analogy to driving where a new driver is basically aiming the car in their lane, I was thinking about that and recalling that my Dad told me to align the hood center ridge on the right-side white line as a check, but, really, just look straight ahead to the center of your own lane at the farthest distance possible. Both things work, and it's a pretty similar concept to instinctive bow shooting.

Another analogy that parallels trad bow shooting for me is shotgun shooting quail. I have been a fairly deadly shot on those. Pretty regularly could get two on a covey-rise, almost always nail a single, and once got five on a rolling covey rise that came my way. It's all about cheeking the gun and letting your brain see the moving bird and just shoot. No time to think about it or aim, per se.

With a bow, you cheek the string at anchor; your bow hand makes the vertical adjustment for distance. Simple. The target's not even moving 40 mph! What makes it simple for the brain is the hundreds or thousands of arrows shot from varying distances -- with the same anchor and release.

Oh, and each bow and arrow combination will be a little or maybe quite a bit different.

It occurs to me that archers who grew up mainly as shotgun shooters may be more inclined to be instinctive bow shooters, as opposed to rifle shooters who want a more definitive sight picture, akin to a rifle shot. Two totally different processes, to me: point and pull vs. aim and squeeze. This sounds imprecise, but actually the shotgun/instinctive bow shooter is still only as good as the fine-ness of focus on the spot he wants to hit. Gotta take Dead Aim, no matter what!

[tradtiger]

I too am left eye dominant, yet hopelessly right handed, so I shoot right handed.

I shoot my bow exactly as you described.

Rick

Explains a heck of a lot, Rick. Never knew you were cross dominant. Of course you would want to use an aim point. No way to trust what you're seeing from a purely instinctive perspective.

[DRT]

I never could golf. I tried. I had a coach. He gave up and told me to stick to baseball.
I guess I can't be good at everything.
That's why I don't worry about my score vs others score at shoots or if I kill the biggest buck at the lease. I try to do the best I can at what I do. If I stink so bad at it I'm miserable I'll take up something else.

Every now and then I have a few shots that make me wonder if I shouldn't try golf again. [emoji4]

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[RickBarbee]

Explains a heck of a lot, Rick. Never knew you were cross dominant. Of course you would want to use an aim point. No way to trust what you're seeing from a purely instinctive perspective.

I only close that left eye when hard aiming, and then only close it right before the moment I drop the string.

When shooting instinctive, like when shooting at moving things in the dark, I shoot both eyes open.

Rick

[Black Ice]

Instinctive Shooting

I never could golf. I tried. I had a coach. He gave up and told me to stick to baseball.
I guess I can't be good at everything.
That's why I don't worry about my score vs others score at shoots or if I kill the biggest buck at the lease. I try to do the best I can at what I do. If I stink so bad at it I'm miserable I'll take up something else.

Every now and then I have a few shots that make me wonder if I shouldn't try golf again. [emoji4]

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I watched the last couple of holes at the masters and saw all the people standing next to where there were driving and was like hell naw. I would have killed the first three people immediately to my right.


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[tradtiger]

I only close that left eye when hard aiming, and then only close it right before the moment I drop the string.

When shooting instinctive, like when shooting at moving things in the dark, I shoot both eyes open.

Rick

You've obviously learned how to make adjustments quickly and on the fly despite the complicating factor of cross eye dominance. Being a good athlete implies good hand-eye coordination, and the dedication to practice thousands of shots under all manner of conditions is certainly invaluable. Remember, Howard Hill was a collegiate athlete at a very high level before he ever became the world's greatest archer. You might protest, but I think you are close to that level.

[tradtiger]

I will add that to shoot purely instinctive relies on not only solid form at anchor and release, along with accurate bowhand placement, but it takes mental focus -- which is not always the same from day to day. For instance, using 3D shooting to illustrate, maybe one day a person has laser focus -- call it 12-ring type focus; on another that same person may only have 8-ring, kill zone focus.

I can definitely imagine where a go-to, tangible aiming system could be more consistently reliable for those times when the mental acuity is just not as sharp to simply shoot precisely where you look.

[SwampRabbit]

My instinct is to shoot using a frame of reference which is usually my sight window of my bow. I shoot enough so that I can determine what that picture should look like when I am staring at a point of focus. I don't measure gap, I see gap and that gap is either good or it isn't based on experience shooting at that distance.

I lack depth perception. I have a lazy eye. therefore I have always used references to judge distance or how to handle trajectories.

I don't mark my riser, I don't look at my arrow. I just have to know the distance one way or another and then recall what the sight picture should look like at my normal anchor, etc. Over time, some of these things are subconscious. Sometimes I have to make a conscious judgement call.

Some folks call this gap-instinctive... I'm good with that.

[Mike Murphey]

I'll throw my two cents into this....Rick is right on several points....I draw the bow but I always look down the arrow not trying to use it as a gap but as I call it the flight of the arrow....When I'm shooting very good, I can see a line from my arrow going to the spot I'm aiming at. I don't think distance but I look down the arrow as much as possible and see that line to the spot of aim....
It seems to work for me....

[RickBarbee]

My instinct is to shoot using a frame of reference which is usually my sight window of my bow. I shoot enough so that I can determine what that picture should look like when I am staring at a point of focus. I don't measure gap, I see gap and that gap is either good or it isn't based on experience shooting at that distance.

I lack depth perception. I have a lazy eye. therefore I have always used references to judge distance or how to handle trajectories.

I don't mark my riser, I don't look at my arrow. I just have to know the distance one way or another and then recall what the sight picture should look like at my normal anchor, etc. Over time, some of these things are subconscious. Sometimes I have to make a conscious judgement call.

Some folks call this gap-instinctive... I'm good with that.

Yep. You get used to what things are supposed to look like at different distances in your "sight picture", and you learn to place the object you are shooting at in the appropriate spot in that picture for the perceived distance, Not necessarily knowing the distance, but simply remembering what that thing looks like out there however far it is.

Kind of like gaping with your "minds eye".

True GapStinctive however is actually "split vision", where you are intentionally using the arrow to aim to some degree.

I'll throw my two cents into this....Rick is right on several points....I draw the bow but I always look down the arrow not trying to use it as a gap but as I call it the flight of the arrow....When I'm shooting very good, I can see a line from my arrow going to the spot I'm aiming at. I don't think distance but I look down the arrow as much as possible and see that line to the spot of aim....
It seems to work for me....

I do that too. Used to do it all the time.

I call it "shooting, or following the arc".

After you've shot the same setup for long enough, you get to where you can actually imagine that line/arc pretty accurately.

Rick

[jerp]

"You get used to what things are supposed to look like at different distances in your "sight picture", and you learn to place the object you are shooting at in the appropriate spot in that picture for the perceived distance, Not necessarily knowing the distance, but simply remembering what that thing looks like out there however far it is."

That is a good description. We may think we are "focusing on the spot" to the exclusion of everything else but subconsciously there is all kinds of data being fed into that computer between our ears. If you were led into a totally dark room and asked to shoot at a tiny lighted spot at an unknown distance I bet it would be hard to get close. Without the input of "what size things are supposed to be", perspective, where your arrow is, I bet it would be hard to shoot anywhere close.