Cleaning Up Part 1 I left out part of my answer in Part 1 in that I didn’t address the “geezer factor.” There is an old saying in sports, “Father Time is undefeated.” This acknowledges that we do not just keep getting better as we age. Our archery “careers” follow an arc as they say. We get better, better, better, then worse, worse, worse. This, of course is due to the deteriorations of age. But those do not have to be looked at as limitations, just additional variables instead. My friend and part-time mentor, Pat Norris, is still winning championships, and even made the USAA World Championshi ..read more

I love getting requests for post topics as just coming up with things to write upon I hope you are interested in is the hard part for me. And in a comment to “You Win or You Learn,” blog follower Robert Shelfer gave me a bunch of topics. Here is his comment: “Hello Steve, This past weekend my wife, two friends and I did the Washington State Archery Association Safari Championship. My wife is the youngest at 75 years. Bill, Fred and I are 78 each. This is the second safari that we’ve done this year and there are several more field shoots coming up. This is our second year shooting the field gam ..read more

“Amass possessions, establish positions, display your pride: Soon enough disaster drives you to your knees. This is the way of heaven: do your work, then quietly step back.” —The Tao Te Ching Archers can fall into this trap by “amassing possessions” in the form of acquiring championship medals, establishing their positions in rankings, and then displaying their pride. The admonition above is “to do your work then quietly step back,” that is to be humble. Let others sing your praises. Athletes can be brash, in fact I appreciate braggadocio, but only if it is backed up. I was a big fan of Muhamm ..read more

My colleague and friend, Markus Wagner, a certified mental coach in Germany mind you, commented upon my last post, including this tidbit: “What I want to say is just: We tend to remember more easy those things which went wrong. Our bad habits, our errors and mistakes. Well, it is good to look at them. BUT more important is to remember our good things.” This is oh-so-true. And there is a good reason for it. Evolution has created in us a superior memory for the dangers in life. If a rattlesnake almost kills us, it could be disastrous to forget the danger of rattlesnakes, so we have a better me ..read more

You have heard this cliché before, I suppose. It conflicts with reality a bit but the message is valid. It is designed to take the sting out of losing. When you lose, realizing that there is learning involved, learning that will make you better and possible end in winning! But, is that really the case? I will argue that for most archers it is not. First, I argue that you can learn from winning, not just losing. In fact, you need to learn how to win and then having won, you need to learn how to do it again. Learning to win, in fact, requires you to win, so you know the experience, what it feels ..read more

Since I have been thinking about archery books, another warning came to my mind. It was stimulated by this listing on eBay: The Book of Archery: Being the Complete History and Practice of the Art, Ancient and Modern by George Agar Hansard for the Low, Low price of ₤54.84 (approx US $68.19), Shipping ₤20.46 (approx US $25.44) And my warning? This book, which I purchased a copy of long ago (not this version, but a previously published version, used) was published in 1840 and is in the public domain, which means you can get a copy of the text of this book . . . on the Internet . . . for free ..read more

As frequent readers of this blog know, I will bring to your attention books that are not worth your attention. How I know that is so is often supplied in the blurb (the material provided that is supposed to convince you to buy the book). Here’s this book’s blurb (on Amazon): Archery: Advanced Archery Tips & Tricks SALE! 50% OFF! TODAY ONLY. BONUS FOR READERS IN THE BOOK!! EVERYTHING you need to know about Archery is in this book Here Is A Preview Of What You’ll Learn… How To Become Really good at this What you should be aware of… Tons of useful tips… Tricks you won’t learn anywhere else Mu ..read more

I have eBay send me a list of the new postings of archery-related books every day. I have commented before that there are scammers out there. On today’s list I found these books we publish for sale. I include their asking price and then, in parentheses, our current MSLP for a brand new copy. Shooting Arrows—$20.95 ($14.45) Archery! Class Instructor Guide—$44.49 ($24.95) The Complete Archer’s Guide to AER’s recreational Archery Curriculum—$20.95 ($14.45) Professional Archery Technique—$20.95 ($19.95) The Principles of Coaching Archery, Vol 1—$30.49 ($14.95) The Principles of Coaching Archery, V ..read more

We have all seen young archers performing in competitions who were just “Lights out!” Golfers talk about youngsters really being able to putt well, but that characteristic goes away with age. There are myriad other examples of how youth seems to be an incredible asset. But, then, why is experience so important? I have commented many times that “Experience might be the best teacher, but it is brutal.” I ran across this quote which explains why experience is such a brutal teacher: “Life is the cruelest teacher because it gives you the test before it provides the lesson.” —Vernon Law, MLB pitcher ..read more

I have been emailing back and forth with a colleague in Belgium, trying to work through a student’s Recurve tuning problem and I experienced my coaching juices flowing again. So . . . I am open for remote coaching should you need any as an archer or as a coach. I am not charging for this service, but if we work together substantially and you want to show gratitude, my PayPal account is the same as my email address. (I used this process when I first start remote coaching since I was just learning the ropes of remote coaching and it seemed to work fine.) So, if you have a coaching or shooting is ..read more