Tokyo Olympics...

Archer

Interesting comment, and if I can possibly risk boring the hell out of you with an answer...

Olympic archery is a bit of an unusual sport, in that the bow hand has to stay very stationary, while the draw hand on the other side of the body is moving continuously during the shot. It may look in videos like they stop, but if they do it's sort of poor form - the shot should be one continuous motion. There is a device on the bow called a clicker, and the arrow goes under that little piece of metal, and when you draw the arrow through it, it will come to a point when it drops off the tip of the arrow, and clicks against a plate on the bow - this is the signal that you are at the right tension, timing, etc. and you are good to shoot. Not my video, but a good basic overview from Crispin himself:

This is with a bow that weighs maybe 6 pounds, but the draw weight (the tension on the string) when at full draw may be in excess of 50 pounds, held with just three fingers. It's very fine motor control of that draw weight and perfectly balancing that with the push of the bow arm that is the key. You don't really pull the bow with your arm muscles once you get past the very early part of pulling the string back, but with mostly back muscles, and by moving the scapula on the draw hand side, pulling those together and expanding the chest slightly. It takes tremendous strength and control to do it well.

So the difficulty, particularly mentally, is keeping that draw hand side moving at the risk of pulling the bow left or right, and the sight coming off the center. If you are near the part of the shot where the clicker is going to release, and the sight gets pulled off from the movement of the draw hand, the tendency is to stop pulling, which is very bad. I struggled with this hugely from a mental perspective under pressure, and I would stall out right near the point of executing the shot when the arrow was about to come through the clicker.

This is similar to the yips in golf when putting, and in darts they call it "dartitis" (not sure who thought that one up!), I think it's the yips in snooker, and in archery it's commonly called "target panic." It's the ting that any archer absolutely dreads having.

When I had that under control I was beating lots of people, and when it wasn't I was losing to lots of people. On the shooting line at most events, you have someone right beside you, and I had a very bad habit of shooting when someone else's clicker went off. Then at the Arizona Cup one year, and archer from Ireland was chatting to one of my team mates, and mentioned this issue. He showed me what hew as using, which was a "thumb clicker", so it was a wire with a pad on it the contacted my thumb, so when the clicker went off, it didn't make a sound, but tapped my thumb. There was a guy in Sweden making them, so I ordered a couple, and that greatly improved things.

So yes, it's very mentally demanding, and the people who are highly successful, like Crispin who has a bronze medal at the world championships, can control this far better than I ever could.

Cheers, Al

studeb

shooting and bowls are probably similar to archery, muscle memory and mental ability..

studeb

To add to this, most individual sports at this level have a huge mental aspect that is not really mentioned by commentators. Swimming, rowing and track it is pacing and knowing your race, shooting and bowls are probably similar to archery, muscle memory and mental ability..

Archer

And a great day for Damien Warner, who wins the decathlon with a new Olympic record, and breaking the 9,000 point barrier! 👍

Archer

Congrats to Japan for winning the gold in baseball, defeating the US in the gold medal game. I'm sure that was a big one for the whole country! 👍

Cudos to France as well for pushing the US in the gold medal basketball game - it wasn't an easy win for the US.