Set Yourself Up For Perfect Practice

This time of year, putting in tons of reps and everyone's asking how many reps do I shoot? What's my end count? How many arrows per round? How many arrows for the day? I can tell you I like to look at the weather first. Look at my HuntWise app, try to look at the wind. When it's dead calm like this, I am planning my shooting. I know not everyone can do that, but I certainly do that and I used to do that even before archery was my only job. So you have to look at when is practice gonna play in to you not having anxiety because you're battling horrible weather because listen, that will do it. Once I'm out there, I really try to read my body. Usually as I'm working up in stamina, I am working on the power of four, doing four arrows per round. So I'll sit here, I'll try to do four arrows. If that isn't a problem for you, you can up that count. You can go up to six arrows. And then once you're able to make six shots without really struggling on those last shots, and that's something that you have to monitor, you kind of push it a lot like when you're lifting weights and you're getting to that point where you're trying to kind of feel tired, feel a little bit exhausted at the tail end of that round. So that's what I'm trying to do. I wanna put a little bit of pressure on myself in regards to physical pressure and have a little bit of wear, but I don't want it so much that I'm making a crummy shot. The other thing is as I up my numbers or up my distance, the further I'm walking and walking back, I have a longer break. So if I'm shooting at say 65 yards down at the elk from this position, if I'm down there shooting that, then I might shoot six to 10 arrows because I'm walking all the way down, walking all the way back. Whereas when I'm indoors and I'm only going 18 meters and back, power four normally does pretty good. The other thing you have to monitor is how focused are you on each and every shot? I really like to visualize every shot in the morning. So when I come out, I try to pretend that this is the only arrow I get to make. And when I'm doing that, it's less reps. But when I really start feeling like I'm in my rhythm, then get higher numbers of reps. You have to learn to read your body and read what you're doing. I always tell people, tell my students, when you're shooting good, shoot. Reinforce good habits as much as you can. If you're struggling and you honestly just aren't making good shots, then in that case, take a break, fletch some arrows, work on some equipment, do something like that, and it'll be a better use of your time. Like right now, if I'm putting them down there like that, I'm just gonna keep going. Because when you're shooting good, you wanna shoot. All those are just epoxy over top of good form, just solidifying everything that you're working on. It's okay, Lou. Yes. And let's take one down to that boo. Oh, that is smoke. Last but not least, when I was competing on the team and I really focused the most at long distance, long distance practice will be a magnifying glass on your mistakes. It will totally, the chip shots are so easy when you're practicing long. When I practice long and I really wanted high numbers of arrows working on stamina and long days, I had two targets 90 meters apart. I would shoot 12 arrows down, go down and pull, 12 arrows back. If you get to that, you are in archery mastery. And the hot air balloons in Indianola are flying.