Daily Decrease in Archery

Besides archery, I’m have been training in the martial arts for the past 20 years, first in Tae Kwon Do, then in Kickboxing and Iaido (Samurai Sword). In the martial arts, Bruce Lee has to be one of the most quoted people and most of the time they get the quote wrong or they misinterpret it.

One “mantra” that he had was “Daily Decrease”. People took this to mean to train in less each day. But what he really meant and it applies to archery is that each day you should strive to eliminate something that you’re doing that hurts your performance. Instead of approaching your training as trying to “get better”, you should focus your training on Eliminating the “holes” in your technique. This is how you will become better. 

Jimmy Johnson, the Football coach has said that it is not always the team that makes the biggest plays that wins games, but the team that makes the fewest mistakes. That he would rather have a team that made the least mistakes than one that made the big ones and gave up the big ones too. People and teams lose more often due to mistakes than they win due to making the big play or shot.

Next time you train, go into it with the attitude of “daily decrease”.

Target Area’s in 3D Archery

Depending on how serious you are, knowing where the “points” are on the target is vital. The most common way to find where the points are, is to simply bring along a set of binoculars.

Last year I was out at a local shoot and I saw a couple who I was told were real “Pro’s” from the circuit. What I noticed (besides them never missing and taking FOREVER to shoot) was that they had cards with the targets on them and they would reference that. Being the overly curious person that I am, I went looking for the cards and after a good search I found them. Before I go into the cards, please allow me to give a little background.

What targets you will find at a shoot and the possible points on those targets are dependent on where you go and who is running the event. A local, or “club” event will have targets from wherever they can get them and can use whatever point system they like. If you go to an event ran by the IBO or the ASA, they uses different targets, points and rules.

The IBO uses only Rinehart targets and a 0,5,8,10 system,

The ASA uses only Delta McKenzie targets and uses a 0,5,8,10,12 system

Confusing yes, and that is why when shooting at a club, you never know what to expect. Most clubs have a mixture of targets from the two and use the 0,5,8,10 point system. To show you the difference, Here are the point cars from Rinehart for each:

ASA Card: 5, 8, 10, 12 points, the tiny circle is the 12 point area.

IBO Card with 5,8,10 points

With that out of the way, how do you find the cards? Well you can make them or you can order them. 

Rinehart, on their website has a link to download a PDF file of their targets, you can choose from ASA or IBO scoring. Here is the link:

http://www.rinehart3d.com/documents/

Simply print them (they are 8×10 size) and I would highly recommend re-sizing and laminating them. A local office supply store can do it for you or you can do it yourself with clear shelving laminate, which we use to use to cover out maps in the service.

You can also order them from Third Hand Archery. They cost $10. They offer a Rinehart and a Delta McKenzie version. There are 5 1/2 ” wide and 8 1/2″ tall and printed on a hard plastic with an clip attachment provided. This is what one looks like:

 

Here they are up close

 

Here is the website:  http://thirdhandarchery.com/

Now, all you need to do is figure out how to carry them!