Why More Practice Could be Making You WORSE

What if the way you've been practicing is actually making you worse? Not just holding you back, but wiring your brain to miss, especially when it matters most. At first, it works. You start shooting, you get better and better, your pen movement settles down, but eventually you hit a wall. You either get to the point where you stop getting any better, or you actually start getting worse and you can't even explain it. But why? Some days you might shoot great, while other days everything just feels off. Maybe it's 9 out of 10 shots that are perfect, but then you just have that one shot that just doesn't go where you wanted it to. The worst part is it usually shows up when it matters most. I've seen this exact pattern in hundreds of archers, and it always seems to follow this same progression. The crazy part is, it's not random. It's something you might have actually been training into yourself without even knowing it. Think back to when you were first taught how to shoot a bow. What were you told? Draw back, align your sight with the middle of the target, and pull the trigger. Seems simple, right? And early on, it works. Your pen isn't quite as steady as you want it to be, but you draw back and as soon as that pen hits the middle, you pull the trigger and the arrow goes there. So naturally, we think that's archery. Get the pen in the middle, and we make the bow go off. Now I've seen this exact pattern across hundreds of archers, and it usually looks something like this. At first, you improve rather quickly. And even though your progress might start to slow, you're still pretty confident in your shot overall. And then eventually, you hit a wall. Now here's where it gets tricky. Some of you might feel like you don't struggle with this at all. You can hold your pen in the middle, your shot usually breaks clean, and more times than not, your arrow usually hits where you're aiming. But then there are those moments where the shot doesn't break quite like you expected. Maybe it's slightly rushed. Maybe it felt like it went off with your pen instead of through your shot. Maybe it hits a little high, a little low, and you can't explain why, but you brush it off because most of the shots are good. But that's still the same problem. Just a more controlled version of it. Or maybe it's that, say, 9 out of 10 shots are perfect. But then there's that one shot that just doesn't make sense. Especially under pressure. Especially when it counts. You try to focus harder. You aim harder. You try to be more precise. And it just seems to make everything worse. On the severe side, you might punch the trigger, come out of your back wall, or even just flinch. But probably more commonly, it's more subtle. You might not fully realize it or understand it, but the arrow just doesn't quite go where you wanted it to. For some of you, you might even get to the point where you can't even hold your pen on the target when your finger is on the trigger. Your confidence drops, you start getting frustrated, and you might even think about giving up. Now here's where most people go next. You hear that, maybe it's my release. So if you were shooting a wrist strap before, you might end up going with the thumb button. At first, it feels amazing. You instantly start shooting better. You think, this is it. I've fixed it. But then, a few weeks later, a few days later, or even just a few shots later, you end up right back where you were. The same problem, just a different release. So now you think, it's me. But the truth is, it's not. There's nothing wrong with you. It's because of how you've been practicing, and almost every long-term archer and bowhunter goes through this. If you're around a lot of archers and bowhunters, somebody might say, try a hinge or try a resistance release. Despite your discomfort with it, you decide to try it. You watch a few videos, or maybe you learn from your buddy how to activate it, and you think, this might actually work. Yet long-term, the same thing that was happening with your wrist strap release, and even possibly your thumb button release, is now happening with your hinge. You might get yourself in a pressured situation, and you start forcing the hinge. You twist it off like a trigger, or you blow through your shot completely. You might even shoot a few shots on a resistance or a tension release, and think very quickly that this just isn't for you. You're back on the same pattern again, just worse. Frustration builds. You either learn to accept it, you start searching for a way to fix it, or you might even consider just giving up. You either think that you are doing something wrong, or that there's just something off with your shooting. What if neither of those are actually true? What if this is something that you have been training into your shot the entire time? Because that is exactly what has been happening. You are training a reactive shot tied to your sight picture, meaning you are shooting based on what you see, not on how you execute. From the very beginning, you've been teaching yourself, when the pin hits the middle, the bow needs to fire. And at first, it works. But the more you practice like that, the more your brain starts to think that the bow has to fire the moment the pin gets there. And the problem is, you can't hold your bow perfectly still. None of us can. So what do we start doing? We start holding just off of the target. We start trying to time our shot as soon as that pin crosses the middle. If this is you, you might just hold right beneath the bullseye and struggle to bring it up. At that point, you're not executing a shot anymore. You're reacting to a sight picture. Once that connection is built of the pin being in the middle as the bow needs to fire, that is where anticipation starts to show up, either really big or even very small. Flinching, punching, jerking, or maybe it's entirely unnoticeable. You just have slight misses that you cannot fully explain. And here's the part most people do not recognize. The more you practice like this, you are not fixing it. You are reinforcing it. So you practice more trying to get better, and you just end up getting worse. This cripples us in our most defining moments when that opportunity that we worked so hard for finally presents itself. We draw back. The buck stops. We try to bring our pin to the vitals. And the moment that that pin hits fur, we force the shot, resulting in a high, low, or just misplaced shot. We've all been there. And if you haven't, you've just likely not hunted long enough. The fix for this is actually simple. But where almost everyone struggles with it is being able to do it consistently every single time. If we learn to execute a shot that surprises us, that breaks the connection between our sight picture and our shot timing. But here's the problem. You can fully understand this. You can even do this a few times or mostly even shoot this way. But doing it every shot while aiming under pressure when it actually matters, that is where almost everybody falls apart. With that said, if we simply just try to hold our pin on the middle and slowly squeeze the trigger of our shot, we really struggle to do it consistently. Why? Because we have trained ourselves over and over again that the pin in the middle means fire. We might be able to do this when we just remove our sight or close our eyes and blank bail. But what good is that going to do us if we can't transfer that over into aiming, especially when those shots really matter? Some folks are able to consciously think themselves through this. And for those that can, I applaud you. It takes an incredible amount of willpower, concentration, and determination in order to do this. For the rest of us, including myself, words alone and our conscious thinking will not allow us to do this consistently every single time, especially in the moment of truth. You want to have so much confidence that when that moment of truth finally shows up, all you have to do is focus on exactly where you want to hit and the arrow goes there. If you felt this and you're serious about fixing it, you need more than just knowing what to do to fix it. I'm building a step-by-step system that shows you exactly how to do this. If you want first access when it opens up, comment system below, and I will be sure to send you the link. I've been working on this exact step-by-step system for many years, and I've already helped hundreds of archers with this very thing. You might know what you are supposed to do, but you actually have a system that you've practiced so that this happens every single shot. If you're serious about fixing this and you want this system, get on the list. The link is in the description and you will be the first to know.