I shot well at JOAD last night. I am working on taking my time to shoot the shot I want and not releasing the arrow when the shot is just ok. I shot two rounds with the Prevail during the first JOAD session the switched to the Faktor for the second session. I needed to prepare for the Smack Down but also for the Pin shoot next week on my Olympic bow.

Also I got a medal for placing second
in my division at the at the 2017 Indoor Early Bird tournament at The Archery Program at Bull Run.

Since my last post I have been working hard on improving my consistency in my shot routine believing this will improve my consistency in shooting Xs. I am shooting in the upper 280s Vegas and upper 270s US Archery scoring. I have come so close several times to shooting a 280 at a tournament to earn my Bronze Olympic pin which has been a goal of several weeks now.

I am shooting the First Flight Smackdown Saturday which will be a good practice for me and I will have another chance to go for the pin on Sunday at HNS Archery Championship Series #2.

My bow is shooting beautifully I just have to focus and let it happen. My main focus both days will be take as much time as I need to shoot the shot I want. Sometimes after I shoot I ask myself 'Why did I take that shot?' because as soon as I do I know it was not the shot I wanted. This is something to work on.

All of the parts of my new bow came in. John gave me a good price on it and I was glad to buy it through them. However every time I buy something big like this there are always things that happen that delay the delivery. This time the string maker First String made the first set of strings too short. When John ask them they said they thought he made a mistake and ask for a string that was too long, this delayed the bow a week. A whole week with the riser and limbs sitting there because the string was too short. They finally sent the right length string but the put clear serving in the middle of the string instead of blue. So john did not charge me for the strings but we got the bow put together. I told John if they would make the Blue and White strings with Blue center serving and clear end serving like I ordered I would be glad to pay for them. I know this was not Johns fault but every-time there seems like there is just something and once I have decided to buy something I do not like having to wait.

The bow herself in beautiful she is a Hoyt Faktor 27 Recurve Riser in blue with
Hoyt Faktor Carbon X-Tour Bamboo Recurve Long Limbs @ 34 pounds. I have added the 2 three ounce weights to the riser. She has FUSE Carbon Blade ES Stabilizers front and dual to rear FUSE Carbon Blade ES Stabilizers all three in blue. She has an Axcel Achieve RXL Recurve Sight with Titan X-Vision Recurve Aperture Scope, she also has an AAE Free Flyte Elite Recurve Arrow Rest, an AAE Gold Micro Plunger and an AAE Gold Micro Clicker. I have added 16 ounces of

Fuse Carbon X Taper weights and a Fuse Flexblade Stabilizer to the riser. I added LimbSaver Recurve Broadband LimbSavers to the limbs and X-Spot Tiger Striped Whiskers to the string. THe bow is beautiful to me and shoots very well also. I am shooting Easton X-10 Pro-Tours @ 430 with 120 grain points and Spider vanes four fletched.

Shot this at the league at First Flight

Two days ago during practice at JOAD I figured out something. Even though I start out my grip correctly and place my bow in my hand where it should be most of the time I am rolling my hand forward during the time when I am raising the bow so the my bow it pressing against the area of just muscle and skin between my thumb and forefinger instead of resting against the bone below my thumb. Once I caught this the stability of my sight picture has improved a lot and I have been hitting

the X more often. I still do not have the consistency I desire but this is progress and something I can fix.

I made it a point of making sure I was still hold my bow properly the rest of Tuesday JOAD and during Wednesday JOAD. I did find much to my dismay if I was not paying a lot of attention to this I would revert back to the improper grip.

Thursday night before league I was working of making sure I was gripping correctly. During league I shot 90 for the first three ends, then a 10, 9, 9 and on the fifth end a 9, 9, 9, all a half inch right above the 10 ring. I was baffled and raised my sight but walking back to the shooting line I realized I had let my grip go back to the wrong grip. I put my sight part the way back to where it had been and focused of using the proper grip and my score improved. I shot a 291 with 10 Xs and 11 tens. So converting the 11 tens to nines for US Archery scoring by subtracting 11 from 291 and I get 280 which would get me my JOAD Olympic Bronze pin.

I feel fortunate that I found this grip error and know that we all have to self coach ourselves some but do not believe it is very efficient. John, Leslie and Brian are all good but all are mostly interesting in working with the kids.  I really need to find a personal coach. I had high hopes for George "Griv" Ryals at ALC The Archery Learning Center but I have either email of messaged him five time and gotten no response. This has been most disappointing so I am planning to try to find someone else I can work with. I am surprised with how much trouble I have had finding someone to work with. Christine Harrelson seemed like she would have been great but was only interesting is occasionally letting me take a class from her, John, Brian and Leslie are all good but are very busy with all the kids. I know it is a youth program but there is an adult part of it and there is nothing else in the area I can train in. Now I try to work with George Ryals and just get ignored.

The Indoor Early Bird Shoot - Bull Run Archery

Got up and hit the road for 7:30 AM to shoot The Indoor Early Bird Shoot at Bull Run Archery in Centreville VA. The building must have 'Time Lord' technology because it is bigger on the inside. When I arrived and looked at the building I thought no way could there be an archery range in the. When I went inside I was directed to go downstairs and sure enough there is an archery range in there downstairs and it is much larger than the building above. It is a nice range but could use better lighting and more room for archery's with bow and the spectators. Also they have a very none standard clock. It took me a while to figure it out and on my second end I almost ran out of time having to hurry my last arrow getting it off with one second showing but I did manage to shoot a nine at least in spite of rushing. The clock starts with a display of 210 which looks like two hundred and ten seconds but it is two minutes and ten seconds. Normally clocks display 10 seconds to approach the line this display 120 seconds. This clock starts with 210 and after it counts down the 10 seconds to approach the line goes to 159 - one minutes and 59 seconds. There is nothing wrong with this except it is not normally done this way and was confusing to me.

I shoot well and had a good time the folks I was shoot with this time were some what annoying which is unusual I am normally comfortable with other archers, may be it was me. I did however make myself ignore the unpleasantness I felt and focused on my shooting and my routine. I had changed my D-loop to a torque less D loop and I like it but it does make the bow feel a bit different. I had to make major changes to my sight elevation and it seemed like I had to change my anchor, not completely sure about that but my anchor does feel different when I am sighting the target. I am not making excuses for not shooting as well as I wanted just commenting on changes I noticed.

I did not make my goal of breaking 280 which I need to get my JOAD Olympic Bronze pin. I was close in the second round and was shoot well until the 9th end. I am puzzled by my scores that end. All my shots felt good and correct but the first much to my surprise was high and in the 8 ring. with one end to go this sealed my fate this tournament.

I have reread "With Winning in Mind" and working on applying those techniques which did help me. I will continue to work with them. Also I have bought and am reading "Finding Your Zone" due to a suggestion from the archer Lexi Keller.

I will be at it again next weekend at Turkey Shoot at Boneyard Archery in Madison NC. My goal is to shoot 300. May goal is to earn my JOAD Olympic Bronze pin. I will work this coming week at practice to settle my shooting down and get to shooting inter tens with every arrow.

Turns out I won the Master 60 plus division, this cam in the mail 11-14-17.

Third Quarter US Archery Virtual Tournament

Below I have copied the results for the 2107 Third Quarter US Archery Virtual Tournament.

I took 2nd place and apparently also third place. I shot a Tournament at Buttermilk Creek which they said if we wanted they would put un in the Virtual tournament for $10 so I enter myself not realizing it would be the same event I shoot the Virtual with my home club Raleigh Revolutions. I assume it went through because they spelled my name differently for each entry.

Last night I got the certificate for shooting second - I wonder if the third place certificate will end up at Buttermilk Creek JOAD and if they will send it to me?

I am pleased that for this second place I outscored three others even if one of the three was me. LOL

John Morgan RENO, NV Wasting Arrows

320 Pts11172

Ashby Spratley iii GARNER, NC Raleigh Revolution

297 Pts8103

Ashby Spratley Buttermilk Creek JOAD

294 Pts694

Jeff Schutte HUDSON, MI Tri-State Hawkeyes JOAD Inc.

283 Pts785

Gary Tietsort WALDRON, MI Tri-State Hawkeyes JOAD Inc.

229 Pts06

Pin Night

Pin night but since I got a pin last wednesday tonight is just a chance to practice with the clock and shoot for score. I would have really liked to shoot for a pin on my bare bow but if I had I would have missed an interesting experience.

I was shooting Ok but not well. I really feel I am capable of better scores. I shot a 261 which is low for what I have been shooting lately, I am usually in the high 270s. But the miss in the third end cost me. It was due to an early release of my release. I had several of them tonight and at least three of the 8s were due to them.

After the round I adjust the release one quarter of a turn harder. It feel a bit harder to fire I just hope it will not cause movement when I shoot.

After the round Leslie took all of the score sheet and set us up for a elimination shoot off. My score was such that I was not in the first elimination round but I did shoot against the winner of that round it was Mark. We tied with 28 each an X and two 9s for me and I won the one arrow shoot off. I am sorry but I do not remember the names of the others I shot against. Next was one of the young men, he shoots well but I beat him with two Xs and a 9, next was a young lady who I am pretty sure is an adult but is pretty young, she also shoots well. I really did well against her 3 Xs my final opponent was an adult male who also shoots very well I beat him with and X and two 9s for a 28 to his 27. I won the shoot off. A new experience for me and I am sure winning helped but I really enjoyed the whole thing.

I could feel my tension of the competition but I did not feel nervous and just did my shooting routine and keep telling myself "you are just shooting do your routine" and I felt calm while shooting. I shot well during the elimination better than I had been shooting all night maybe I need pressure to shoot well. There was no award or anything and I did not expect one this was just part of the training to get ready for tournaments.

One strange thing did occur which let me speachless. John addressed the whole JOAD class announcing the I and Sasha had won, Sasha the recurve. The he asked me how many times I had practiced since last Tuesday, which was six and how many arrows had I shot during those practices which was a minimum of 60 and averaged around 120. He then made a point that I had shot so well not because I was an adult, that the younger folks really had an advantage, and not because I had a better equipment but because I practice almost every and I shoot more than 500 arrows a week.I know he did this mostly to encourage the other JOAD archers to practice more which is a good thing. I was just surprised by his praise but it was pleasant.

The new adjustment on my release did not seem to have any dilatory effects and I did not have any early releases during the elimination round.

Cub Run Archers Fall STAR FITA

Cub Run Archers Fall STAR FITA was a fun shoot. The place was smaller than I thought it would be but it was big enough and the lanes were not crowded.

I went there to compete and to shoot for my JOAD Bronze Olympic pin. I shot OK not as well as I had hopped. I shot a 552 out of a possible 600. I shot four 8s and way to many nines. I use to be happy when I would shoot a nine now I think of them as one down. I won my division, I also came in last in my division. I was the only archer in Male Masters 60Plus division. I did however score higher than 3 of the five archers in Masters 50Plus and better than 4 of the seven Cadets so I am OK with how I did and will enjoy getting my medal or whatever they give out.

I did not however shoot a 280 in either of my 30 arrow rounds so I did not get my pin.  My first round started poorly and despite my efforts to pull it around I was not able to do so. My second end was going well until the third end where I got an 8 because it should have been much better than an 8. The young lady to my right had a habit of swing her Olympic bow down and to the left in an arc when she finished her last shot of the end. She had hit me twice before but each of those time I just let down and started my shot over, Leslie would have been prod. This end she did it and hit me right as my release went off and she did cause me to jump when she stuck me with the end of her bow. But there was nothing I could do the hit and my release were at the same time. There is no way to know for sure but if you look at my score card most of my ends were one or two tens and nines. This was the first or second arrow of the end and I believe it would have been a ten so this archer most likely cost me my pin. I miss the pin by 2 points. This was pretty upsetting but I am sure it was not intentional so I said nothing to her, she did apologize each time for hitting me. It is just annoying missing that pin again.

Thursday night league at First Flight Archery was fun tonight. I did not shoot as well as I had hopped. I started out very well but the could not sustain it. I shot two 8s and way too many nines. Never thought I would not like shooting a nine but now I just think of one as one down. I came in in about 4th place Mark shot a 195, Leslie a 193 I think and there was a 192 also. Not a problem I just have to keep working at it and I will get better. I have been trying to work with Griv from the Archery Learning Center in GA but have not been able to get him to reply to my message or email. This is a bit confusing because I think this is how he makes his living so why ignore. I really would like so help getting to the next level. I just do not have much luck find a coach.

Pin night - pin nights are split this month due to the first of the month falling on Wednesday so the Tuesday pin night will be next week. I am going to ask again if I can shoot for a pin on my bare bow, likely they will refuse but I will ask. Tonight I shot my Olympic Recurve bow. There are two JOAD classes on Wednesday and I usually shoot through both of them. So there are to chances for me to pin. My first round did not go well. Some of my arrows landed well but others were nowhere near where I thought I had aimed them. I needed a 190 and shot like a 178 I think. I did not photograph the target like I normally do. My second attempt was going a little better but not well enough but just after the half John told me I needed to rotate my right shoulder back and get my right elbow back and inline with the arrow. He talked me though want he told me and my clicker went off way too early. I have been adjusting my clicker for a while trying to get it to go off so I could shoot where I was aiming. To rotate my shoulder and straighten my elbow I had to change the clicker a lot but after doing so it did seem easier to stay on target while I expanded to the clicker and then shot. As one can see my last three ends scored a bit higher than the first seven ends. Except for the first end which I have no explanation for I shot a X and two nines so close together the arrow shafts were touching. I did break 190 for the first time with my ORB and got the 3 star pin. After the session I got John to come back and go over the changes in more detail while trying to create a memory for how it felt. I am hopeful I can repeat this form and it help be be more consistent with my ORB.