Murat Cogun helps Chris Elliott with his archery grouping and accuracy
By Chris Elliott…
Readers will remember me saying a number of times how fascinating and also frustrating archery is when you find your grouping of arrows fired into the target moving left or right or even up or down and unlike the expert archers seen in YouTube videos who seem to correct this issue when the beginners in archery struggle to find the solution.
When we are sick we go to a doctor for guidance and if we want a second opinion of what our issue is we go and get a second opinion.
Now I have been shooting with the Lambousa Archers in Lapta with good and also some frustrating results and receiving great advice from other members but I could not overcome my issues so I thought it’s time to get a second opinion.
So I went to meet the Gine Archery Club who shoot at the Girne Hunting Shooting and Archery Sports Club which is just off the Girne bypass and close to Girne American University and met with the lovely Aysen Tez and after describing my problems she took me to the 20m range and asked me to shoot a few arrows which I did and she adjusted my sight and asked me to shoot a few more arrows.
This I did with my poor grouping and she said you need to clear your mind of all thoughts apart from shooting and relax as your body is full of tension.
At this point, we were joined by Murat Cogun another instructor who started to work with me to help bring my shooting group closer together as I have had issues shooting to the left of my target aiming point
We then moved to a shorter-range target and now I was being shown the bad habits I had developed when shooting arrows.
- The grip of my bow hand was too tight which could cause left-to-right shooting.
Back on target thanks to Murat and now I need to maintain the accuracy - I needed to draw back softly to the anchor point when I could aim at the target.
- I have been struggling for a long time getting the anchor positing right whilst bringing the bowstring to my lips and my nose and this has to always be in the same horizontal position and in the center.
- Now I wear glasses and when centering the sight on the target and maintaining the string picture in the same place on the riser this was causing me difficulties with one or two eyes open and in some of my final shots of the day I did not use my glasses so this is a number of choices only I can make.
- Now again the correct anchor point has been an issue for me as although I was told, you have the anchor in the wrong place, this is something to be worked on to get it right with consistency along with the other actions.
- I have had an issue with drawing back the nocked arrow as I tended to grip the string which causes the arrow to fly to the left or right.
- So, the anchor position needs to be tight to your face, and at full draw, I also have developed the habit on release, of moving my hand away from my face rather than pulling back my hand which strokes the face and maintains the shooting line and using the full power of the shoulder.
Now this lesson and level of faults were shown to me by Murat who was very patient and spent a great deal of time with me asking me to shoot more arrows and then work on the corrections I needed to make and despite the Turkish and English language issues between us, with a mobile phone translating we had developed a close understanding of each other.
So, at the end of the shooting session, Ayse returned and was pleased to see the progress I had made, and I would like to thank her and Murat for all of their help, and now in addition to future club shooting, I must practice and correct my bad habits by shooting at home with a short range target to get that close range arrow grouping all the time.
Then by adjusting the shooting range and sight setting, I can move from 20m to 30m and one day even to 70m shooting range whilst maintaining a close group of arrows on the target
Onwards then on that rocky road to learning to be an archer.
