the last 6 months I have only been shooting a recurve bow since I am trying to learn the BEST system developed by our new olympic coach Kisek Lee. When I was seriously practicing with a crossbow I would do the followingHighlander wrote:But since it isn't happening yet.....how do you practice Jim? What's real important to stepping it up to the next level?
1) shoot at least 200 shots a week-on both the NFAA and the FITA targets. I would practice at three different ranges to get used to different lighting conditions-I would play around with different apertures to see what worked the best.
2) I concentrated alot on breathing control. With the AUSBOW crossbows there are two acceptable ways of triggering the bow (The President of the Australian Xbow company and the head of the WCSA wrote a good book on target crossbow archery and he describes this). There is the classic deliberate squeeze with the surprise break which works best for the heavier trigger on the Point Blanc and for other excaliburs used for 3D and then there is the quick command snap some use on the lighter trigger match bows (and I know some air rifle field shooter shooters as well)-that being when your sight picture is perfect you touch off the trigger.
3) Outdoors I shot alot of 65M or 70M working on aiming off. In the FITA I shot last year, the conditions were miserable-gusting wind on an unproteted field with lots of rain. (I learned how to change out a trigger unit fast too-some of the AUSBOW triggers, when soaked allow the string to slip-not fun) I beat my student because at 50M the wind was brutal and I had to hold on the blue and that was the difference.
4) last winter-I planned on shooting NFAA indoors with my recurve bow but my rehab from september 05 shoulder surgery was not complete so I shot my xbow. I Ispent alot of time at the rifle range with a Kimber target rifle shooting the NFAA 5 spot at 20 yards for aiming practice
5) I don't shoot much 3D any more but when I did that with an xbow I spent far more time judging distance than actually shooting