How I coach, and why

An archer's shot develops in three stages: rigid, strong, then relaxed. Bow training builds the structure. The structure gets strong enough to hold you. Then the bones carry the load and the muscles soften. Most archers never reach the relaxed stage, because nobody tells them to stop gripping once their structure is strong enough.

Aiming is more than lining the pin up with the gold. The body works as one connected structure, with the bones holding the load inside a web of tension, so the force keeps travelling forward into the target through the whole shot. I call this 3D aiming: you direct the bow into the target before, during and after the clicker.

I'd rather describe what a great shot feels like than spend a session chasing faults. When you have a clear picture of the ideal, the errors start falling away on their own, and you step on the line thinking about what goes right.

Jumping between fixes every few arrows stops anything becoming automatic. We pick one focus and track how often it slips. When it's going wrong less than one arrow in twelve, it's yours, and we move to the next one.

Plotting, sight marks and scores tell us whether a change is working. Every change gets tested against the evidence, so you know what's improving and by how much.

Strength, mobility and recovery all respond best to small doses done frequently. Twenty to thirty minutes of bow training, short mobility breaks through the day, and a training load that fits around work, school and family.

Archers often stall at a score because a great end feels unusual, and that feeling breaks the shot. We make high scores routine, sometimes by shooting closer, and train the self-talk that goes with them.