Fancy meeting you here, fellow Archer?

Hi! Welcome to my blog where I write about things that rock my boat. Mostly about Archery. The earlier posts are in Finnish, but I thought I would give it a go in English. I’ve been writing a lot about Target Panic and how I trained in hopes of getting rid of it.

The Struggle was real

It’s been almost 1,5 years since my last blog post. A lot has happened after June of 2021. This year, I struggled with a snowball effect of failing technique (and mental block) in Archery. It was somewhat poetic how I shot my pb (practise, but anyway) in 1/2 IFAA Indoor Round at New Year’s Eve and after that gradually deteriorated…and dug myself up! High peak of misery occurred in EIAC at Seinäjoki where I shot three competitions in survival mode. TP was bad and all I could do was try and stand up straigh and keep my posture. At that point I though it’s just my mental that needed work. And I was probably right.

Little by little, for various reasons, as the year went on, my shooting got worse. Or maybe variable is a better word. I still managed to shoot good scores at 3D competitions, but I wasn’t too happy about my performance and way of shooting. I didn’t – and still today don’t – have too much time or energy for training. The biggest thing was the fact my confidence crumbled. Eventually, I almost lost all motivation and was about to have fancy firewood. I was convinces I didn’t know how to shoot straight anymore.

Light at the end of the tunnel…

…and it wasn’t a train! I managed to overcome my newly created mental block eventually somewhere in the fall. All I needed was support from the right people, calmness, simplicity and developing self-confidence (and accepting TP was going nowhere). There wasn’t anything substantially wrong in my technique, as I was repeatedly told by the right people. What I learned from this episode is to trust in myself and not listen to random people. This is an important tip most of us receive in the beginning but I had forgotten about it. It’s also noteable that not everything is always a technique issue but can actually be caused by equipment. Something that I had overlooked thinking it has to be all me. And most of all, I will continue on the path of quality before quantity.

I know I shoot less than most archers who aim for international fields, but I will not let anyone tell me anymore it’s not enough. I’ll be writing a bit about my latest competition where I set a new Finnish National record. That might be a good sign of maybe to trust thyself.

Life situations change and one just has to adapt. I can’t imagine a better reason than my little boys. 💖💖