I shot the Arlington Fairfax Chapter-IWLA World Archery Indoor Tournament in VA and took first place in my division. Shooting a 280 and a 281 for a 561. I set a new record for this event. I was however not pleased with my shooting. I am still shooting too many nines most of the are just barely out of the inter ten ring. I must tighten my group. Any ideas George? I will shoot videos today at practice to send to you. By the way I have scheduled a lesson with you in April. It will be for my first quarter lesson since I could not get it scheduled in our first quarter this year. Looking forward to seeing and working with you.

Monday night practice getting ready for the NFAA tournament this coming weekend. First video for you to comment on George.

Monday night practice getting ready for the NFAA tournament this coming weekend. Third video for you to comment on George.

Monday night practice getting ready for the NFAA tournament this coming weekend. Second video for you to comment on George.

Monday night practice getting ready for the NFAA tournament this coming weekend. Target from tonight if you want to comment on it.

Getting prepared for the NFAA State and Regionals at First Flight this weekend also the Nationals in Cincinnati OH. I am shooting fairly well just need more Xs.

On February 23rd and 24th I shot the GA 50 US National Indoor Championship. I feel good except for an injured knee. I shot fair but not great 555 day one and 557 day two for a total of 1112. With this I took third at the tournament. I had a equipment problem the second day which I should have found sooner. My arrows kept going high. I kept adjusting my sight but eventually found my scope was lose. Tighten this and removing the other adjustments got me back to center. I am so close. Most of my nines hit the outer ten ring if I can just shrink my group 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch I will hit a lot more 10s.

My target from the league shoot Thursday evening. This is just from the shoot. I changed targets after practice before the league shoot. This is Lancaster scoring so 330 possible and I shot a 307. Good but not great and it is a PB for Lancaster scoring. I have been trying to work on moving my shoulder back instead of moving my hand to my face for anchor but I am not sure I am doing it correctly. I need to shoot a video.

Last nights target. I have been hanging my targets at different rotations to cause me to shoot different patterns. This is 27s back at 20 yards. Far to many X misses but a fair number of hits. I had trouble focusing and thought about stopping early but I wanted to shoot so I worked on holding and focusing on center with a correct follow through knowing I am having trouble with my general focus. I am not sure if this was bad but it was what I did.

Good practice last night. Arrows outside of the ten ring were all from sighting in. This is from ten yards with a 120 second clock. The JOAD class was shooting with the clock so I did also. They also were told to let down at three different times and wait for 15 seconds on the clock to shoot. I did this also. I was working on holding on and focusing on center and when the release goes off to follow through.

This is a target from a drill I have been working on at ten yards. For this drill I have been working on holding and focusing on center and not having any movement when my release goes off except follow through. I feel like this is helping me. There were 33 arrows shot into this target.

Thanks for commenting on the videos from the workshop. I am working on your observation. This target is from my first end at the FITA of PA tournament at Lancaster Sunday. I was shooting well and shot a 286 and earned my JOAD Sliver Olympic pin. I am pretty pleased with this both my score a PB for inter-ten and the pin. My second end was fair shooting a 279 which gave me a 565 and the gold. I will try to be better at posting my progress. Sounds like winter camp was fun.

This target is from a tournament at Boneyard Archery the weekend before the one at Lancaster. I shot a 280 for this end but the big deal for my was that in ends 5 and 6 I shot six Xs in a row earning my Six Gold JOAD pin. 
In the other end I shot a 278. I feel like I am so close but just not there.

When to Boneyard Archery Sunday. I wanted to shoot. I shot 60 arrows. The small arrow holes on the target are not mine, I had to use a used target. I shot will. Working on holding soft while not creeping. Keeping my elbow back and a soft release with follow through.

Shot the league Thursday evening. Was still not completely recovered from being sick but I wanted to shoot and I am glad I did. Not that I shot real well but it was good to shoot. This target is not bad bad. No red. But too many nines. I shot no triple tens or Xs. I shot a 284. Working on not holding too hard but also not creeping and improving my release while following through.

Well this is my Wednesday night target. I am confused and frustrated. Some of the low shots were from adjusting the sight but not even half of them. I was trying to shoot just like I have been shot for the last two nights at 10 yards now at 20 yards I am having trouble hitting the 9 ring. I really believe I and shooting just like I did the two previous night and I am a over the target. Some do hit where I am aiming them but others are way off what I am aiming at when the release goes off. I did notice that sometimes when shots were bad I had grabbed the bow instead of leaving my hand soft and not dropping my like I intended too. Once I noticed this and corrected it my hits got better. I will work in the along with the not to hard draw and keeping elbow back Thursday before league.

Again at 10 yards working to get use to a draw pulling back enough to get to the cable stop then holding there and not creeping. Also working on keeping my elbow back. I have high hopes for this for I am just pounding the X ring. This target has had 36 arrows shot at it. As part of the JOAD class I also shot 18 blank bailing. Tomorrow I will try 20 yards.

This is one of the videos they shot of me after the Shoot Wilde Workshop at Lancaster Academy - this is a pretty cool setup Thought you might like to see it. maybe make a comment or two.

George Ryals  

Jan 5

Take a look at the overhead view. Rather than moving the elbow back, you are moving your hand to your face. What was Reo’s comments on this?

Ashby Spratley  

Jan 10

I have studied the video and think I see what you are talking about. I will work on it and have an over head video shot to see if I can fix this. As far as I know Reo never looked at the videos. When I heard they were making the videos I assumed they would be reviewed also but apparently not.

Major breakthrough tonight. I learned why I was having what seemed like should have been a dead center shot would be two inches low or sometimes high. I had probably at least a dozen of those at the tournament Sunday maybe more and I just could not understand why what looked and felt like a perfect shot would hit low or high. Well tonight at JOAD I was shooting at ten yards working on my release thinking this must be the problem. I shot an arrow that looked in the sight and felt like a perfect shot and the arrow landed more than an inch low. I began to think it was the arrow so I had John examine that arrow and another one that landed true. He said they balanced the same and weighted the same. So he watched me shoot and told me that sometimes when I shot I pulled so hard on the bow that I was causing the cable stop to deflect the cable and other times I did not do this. He said this would cause me to miss like I was seeing. He asked if the SweetSpot was showing I was pulling too hard I said it was not. He suggested that I may want to lower the upper threshold. He watched me shoot several times and had me back down when I was pulling too hard against the stop. I adjusted the SweetSpot so that the level when the red LED would come on was much lower I had no trouble adjusting how hard I was pulling the bow back so that I was not turning on the red LED when holding and was immediately able to pound the X with every arrow shooting from 10 yards. I am assuming I got to pulling so hard thinking it would help me both get my elbow back and not creep. My SweetSpot will tell me if I creep and now tell me if I pull to hard also. Now I have to practice with it a lot set this way so I can shoot with the same feel when I am not allowed to use it like at USA Archery events.

We had a tournament at First Flight Saturday it was Lancaster scoring so Xs were worth 11 with a total of 330 possible points. I shot 12 Xs and scored a 301. Not bad but not great either. I did not have any 8s which was great. I feel like I am so close but just not there. Been shooting almost every day and enjoying it. Working on elbow and release. SweetSpot is back and I am working with it. I really wish I knew what to do.

This is the second end target from the Jingle Bell Rocks Tournament at Boneyard Archery Sunday. The first round did not go well. It shoot an of 8 in the second and third end then in the ninth end I somehow got my thumb on the trigger are released during my draw and shot over the target hitting the wall for a miss. I was able to recover and shot two 10s and a 9 in my tenth end for a score of 267. My second end was better. I was focusing on my shooting and shot a 282 unfortunately 3 short of the 285 I needed for the Silver but a pretty good end. I need to focus better all the time.

This is my target from practice before and shooting the league shoot. I shot my best score yet at league. A 291 with 12Xs. I believe this was due to what I did and learned the the Shoot Wilde Workshop. I should have done better but had trouble finding n the 9th end and shot a 27. I should have let down the first two shot. Next time I have trouble holding center I WILL let down. I still need to improve my right elbow and my release.

Score from league shoot. No 8s and only one end with more than one new nine in it. It unfortunately had three 9s.

Tuesday target. The SweetSpot was waiting for me when I got home yesterday. I spent a little time getting it configured while doing so the twist in the string that was making the pep sighted be misaligned annoyed me enough so that I cut the torque-less D-loop loose so I could retire it at an angle that would pull the pep straight when I draw the string to full draw. This worked well but I had moved the loop up slightly which caused me to have to adjust the sight. After the adjustments I was shooting well. My biggest problem now seems to be focus. When I am able to focus and release properly I hit what I aim at.

My target from the Sunday morning scoring round we shot at the Shoot Wilde workshop. I shot an 286 six better than I shot during our Saturday morning scoring round. I really enjoyed the workshop and learned a number of things. Was surprised to be told that my from was good, that I am getting my elbow back far enough. Reo said it could be a bit farther back but not to worry about it it is far enough back. He said my elbow does sometimes creep but not all the time. He said that I needed to move the upper nock point down so that my arrows nocks would always be at the exact same spot in my string and that he thought my draw length was too short. I bought some serving cord and retired the nock point and he put my bow on the bow press and unwound the string three turns. This changed the feel of the bow a lot more than I expected and it felt better - holding center is easier but my release feels strange. As I shot the release got better but I still need to shoot more.