GOHUNT: you All right guys, welcome back to the game trail podcast. ⁓ I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I've been hard at work getting the application strategy articles off my desk. ⁓ now's a great time to apply. So you still got some upcoming deadlines for, ⁓ Wyoming and, ⁓ Arizona. So you guys can look for those articles, but, ⁓ I'm back today. I got a guest. So I got a guest that I'm super excited about. He, ⁓ he's one of my favorite content producers, I guess you might say, and I'm going to ask him if he feels like he's an influencer or not. George Riles, I appreciate you jumping on. ⁓ you do a bunch of archery related content. You also are an archery coach. ⁓ you've got your own archery learning center there in Georgia. And, ⁓ man, I'm, I'm really grateful that you jumped on. You're one of my very favorite guys to watch. There's a lot of people producing content on YouTube, especially archery related content and. I kind of pick and choose. You try to learn something from everybody, but I feel like you're always a source that I can go to. And I feel like you communicate in a way that at least I understand it on a level that I, feel like it's digestible and I get like real tangible actions that I can take to my local range and I can try to, you know, put those into process and actually try to learn. So I really appreciate you jumping on today. All right. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. ⁓ so I guess up top, ⁓ I already asked you, but you live in Georgia full time. And I think I just asked you, you're a full-time archery coach. ⁓ how long have you been doing that? Well, ⁓ full-time archery coach about 17, 18 years now. ⁓ I've always coached archery, know, way back, because, you know, I've worked for bow companies and, you know, I've been a product designer and advertising manager and, know, for a lot of different ⁓ archery companies. So I've always been teaching alongside of that, but for the last... 17, 18 years it's been 100 % archery coaching. I run a team called the Hornets and I do online lessons and I do in-person lessons and you can get those at improvemyarchery.com. My wife will be really proud of me for actually like putting the link up there. Yeah, that was perfect. ⁓ I, kind of became aware of you through Colby Hanley and Chris B. So I've known those guys for a while. ⁓ were, ⁓ they were some of the team kids. Yeah. Yeah. I got to know that they attack events, I think. And then when, when Colby started ultra view, obviously I started following along with the company and then, ⁓ kind of, kind of just saw you popping up here and there. And then I dove back into all the content that you've done. So That's kind of how I became aware of you. But like I said, you're, one of my very favorites because I feel like you just, put such good information. That's like really tangible that I can use. So, um, I have a bunch of questions for you today, and this is going to be in pretty largely just selfish of me because I feel like I've got, uh, you know, maybe an hour of your time and You were nice enough to jump on. I'm going to ask you some of the questions and just things that I'm dealing with. And I think they're probably some things that a lot of people are dealing with because I hear people asking me and I'm like, ⁓ I can give you my best ideas, but I'm going to jump on and ask somebody that would actually probably know. So if you're okay with that, ⁓ was like, yeah, just some of the things I got going on. ⁓ so one of the first things I wanted to ask you was, ⁓ And this kind of stems actually from a conversation. So I had Colby in our office there in Vegas, ⁓ when he was there for the Vegas shoot and, ⁓ he came in, we were, you know, just talking, we filmed some stuff together and, I was asking him about his draw length. And I think he said his draw length is like 31 and a half or 31. And, ⁓ he asked me what's your draw length. And I said, well, I've shot 30 for years, like a lot of years. can't even remember, you know, as long as I can remember I've shot. 30, 30 inches. And, ⁓ I asked him, said, well, let's stand back to back. I'm really curious because I want to see what our wingspans are like in relation to one another. So we stood back to back and we're pretty much the same. Like we're really, really close. And, ⁓ he says to me, well, you know, maybe you should think about lengthening your draw length. And I looked at him and I said, maybe you should shorten yours a little bit, but, ⁓ the question I've got for you is, How does somebody go about finding the right draw length for them? The thing that's gonna work best for them? Well, it's not an exact science. That's the first thing that you gotta know. There's a little bit of an art to it. But the law when you're checking your draw length is, the pen quiet and steady and moving in a small, predictable way, right? That's really the biggest thing because when the draw length is too short, it tends to be very fast and tight and rigid. And you may get the feeling that the pen jumps off the target just in time for the release to fire, right? And that's a signal of a short draw length. And the reason that it does that is when you're at full draw and you're bunched up. You know, I see guys all the time, they'll draw their bow back and they'll be kind of bunched up like this. Here, I'll show you, let me... Let me change this viewpoint here quickly so it'll stop. There we go. So I can get back to full draw. So watch this. So if I pull back and the string is normal on my face, you know, my nose can touch and the peep is right there, you know, that looks pretty good, right? You'd say, yeah, that draw length is great. But watch this. That is three inches of draw length and I'm hiding from you because my shoulders are compressed and pulled in tight. Yes, you can shoot the bow that way and it'll hit, but it won't be optimal. You'll have shoulder pain. You know, if you go a long time with a very short draw length, you'll have shoulder problems, you know, that are like get a doctor kind of shoulder problems. But when everything fits, Right? And you're just like, when I just hold my hands out like this and I'm fully extended, right? And then if I just fold up here, you know, that's my draw length, right? And I set the bow to fit my face, right? So that it fits. There's three things that fall into the equation of getting your draw length right. One is the actual length of the bow, right? And that's the... the distance between here, you know, the joint of your collarbone right here and the V of your thumb and forefinger, right there. So if I change the grip angle, like that'll make the draw need to be a little longer. If I have a very high wrist grip, if I have a low wrist grip, it'll make it be a little bit shorter, right? So there's some contributing factors. But draw length on the bow, deals with from here to here. Heapsight height will also affect the stability of the bow. And D-loop length is this distance here because you can have the bow fits, but if the D-loop is a little short and you have to compress this back half to make it work, you see how my elbow gets up a little high when I do that? And then when I put it back in the right spot, you can see the difference in the angle of my shoulders there. So the way that I have people, like let's say we're in an online lesson right now, okay? And I'll say, all right, I want you to look at the camera, look at me, and then pull the bow back. And you see how I'm holding my head this way? The reason that I do that 90 degree thing is because everyone who has shot a bow a little bit, they automatically fit themselves to the size. So what I do by turning that head 90 degrees to the target, right? That kind of takes you out of that context. And you draw the bow back where you've got some distance here, right? And then I tell them, settle your shoulders, reach the bow, right? And then just with your head right in the middle of your shoulders in a normal angle. just turn your head toward the target, put your nose on the target, and then get the string up here close. Is it out here like this, or is it right here, or is it back here where you have to go to look in the string? That's the easiest way to find it, right? You can be overextended and you feel pain above your elbows here. Right? You'll feel like it's really loose and wide. That's over extension, right? So if the pen is wandering, but it's slow and predictable, but it never really gets down in it, right? You may be a little bit long, right? Gotcha. So the order of operations to get the most stability. I've got a, on my YouTube channel, I have a video on this. It's like an hour long talk. And I did this at ATA show a few years back. And I think it's called bulletproofing your shot or something like that. ⁓ In this hour long talk, I talked to you about removing all the weight off of your stabilizers. And that way, with the weight off the bars, you see the uncorrected motion, right? Now, most guys, they watch the first 20 minutes of that and they go, I took the weight off my bars and And it was crazy steady. I had to put the weight back on and I tell them, said, well, you know, if you watch more than the first 20 minutes, cause it's like an hour and a half long talk, in the second 20 minutes, I tell you what to do if it's unsteady, right? And the order of operations is the draw length on the bow itself is a major adjustment in stability. Your peep height, you know, is a medium adjustment instability. Because even if your draw length is right, if you have to move your head or something like that to look through the peak, it's going to cause tension and that tension translates to instability. Right? So, and then the final thing, a micro adjustment in overall stability is the D-loop length. And I've got a Thing-A-Week video on that where you cut several different D-loops in several different lengths. start with D-loop number one and shoot that a little bit. Go to D-loop two, then three, then four, then five. And when you hit it, you know, right? Because everything just fits, right? So the wing span method, that'll get you in the ballpark, right? I use the more traditional method where you put your hand against the wall and you have to kind of, you know, dress your form and make sure it's right and then measure. you know, to the corner of the mouth. But that takes a little skill like a pro shop guy or a archery pro or coach will have to look at you and kind of dress it out and say, okay, that looks good. And then take the measurement. But the wingspan assumes that everyone is symmetric, you know, on both sides and almost no one is, right? And my draw length is way off. right, because I broke this collarbone here on my bow side, right? I broke this collarbone and it knitted back together like this, right? So I lost significant, the distance between here and here and here and here is big enough that if I buy a suit or something like that, the tailor is looking at me going, what's going on with your sleeves and your shirt? That's what I tell them about. and they end up having to take some material out of the back so that it fits and it actually looks right. If I buy it off the rack, you can actually see that it doesn't fit quite right. You see? So, and bows are the same way. Like I should be 29 and a half, maybe even 30, but I'm actually 28 and a quarter. Cause I lost that much straw length with that broke collar bone, right? So as you can see, it's not exact. But if you're using your overall stability as the guiding factor as to whether if it's correct or not, then you're like on it. Because when you get it right, it gets steady, it gets quiet, it gives you that four or five seconds for the release to process and it goes. Your release may even speed up because the aiming step is much quicker, right? So you know it when you get it right. And I get guys all the time in a lesson and it's a fairly high percentage of people. go, okay, let's let your draw like that a half inch, you know, every now and then I'll get somebody it's like, bro, you're shooting that bow two inches too short. And they're like, I've been shooting it like this for years. And this is like top shelf shooters that you know who they are. And they go. I've been shooting like this for years. And I said, I know, I know. And it works great for you, but just grab one of your bows off the rack and just set it up and just try it. Right. And I hear back from them they go, ⁓ my God, I can't believe I wasted this much time and never experimented beyond, you know, the draw length that I had shot all these years. There's pros out there that you see them wearing elbow. You know, I'm in the senior division now, you know, the 50 plus, you see the guys with the with the elbow bands and you see the dudes with the shoulder issues and you know, all of that and I go, if you just let that draw out a little bit or bring it in or you know, whatever it is that's outer joint, if you just do that, you probably won't have to deal with that quite so much, right? And the general rule is that if archery hurts, something doesn't fit. If you get done with a fairly long shooting session and you got that pain, Right in the back of your neck or right here, you know, in your shoulder, right there, know, something's not. Yeah. I mean right here. That ice pack, that little ice pick was like right there. Yeah. The chances are a draw length is a draw link might be a little short. Yeah. I mean, you can imagine since I got home from Vegas, the first thing I did was, you know, start monkeying with my draw length. Then I went to a, you know, a 30. What 31 and I went up to the local range and I shot that for a few days and I was like, man, that just feels weird. It feels too long. And then I went to a 30 and a half and I've been shooting it for probably three or four weeks. And then, uh, today, just this morning, just exactly what you're saying. I'm like, man, I am like sharp feeling pain right here. Um, you know, I'm getting a little older too. I'll be, I'm 40, I'll be 47 in November, but starting to get those, uh, You know, tendonitis in the elbow, the little 10, you know, the tendons are starting to ache a little bit. And, ⁓ yeah, it's just, it's just really had my, my, ⁓ my head spinning because I, I feel like you can kind of adopt whatever draw length it is. like within, for me, 30 inches to probably 31, 31 and a half. And if I shoot it long enough, like just for example, ⁓ for kicks and giggles, I put on a 30 inch mods like three days ago and I shot it here in my basement and I. I felt like, Holy smoke. I can't believe I ever shot this. It felt so compact. You know, I, so scrunched up and I was like, I can't believe that I've been shooting this draw link for that long. And that was, you know, a half inch an inch difference, but it does feel like your body can adapt to it. ⁓ I think you give great tips. So the one thing I've never really done, it's probably just because I don't have the patience to do it. I need to be better, you know, patience and persistence is Do the little things like take all the components off my bow, take my stabilizers off and just work with draw length and D loop length and just do aiming drills to see what actually does fit. Actually train, right? And give it time, you know, because you know, here, I'm going do a little exercise with you that I do with people. cross your arms, right? All right. And that's normal. That's how you do it all the time. Now, cross them the other way. Yeah, completely. You see, that's really weird. It's not comfortable. It's awkward, you know, you know, and something as simple as crossing. Yeah, yeah. And something as simple as crossing your arms can be so weird and awkward and out of place. So when you change that draw length, right, when I say, you know, add an inch to that, man, you know, and you're like, it just feels weird. I'm like, just give it time, right? Just give it time. shoot with it a little bit. And a lot of times I find that if you're doing this on your own and you're using your aiming stability as the guiding factor, just forget the number, right? Most guys, I can't possibly be 31 inches, but you know, are you arguing about getting one more inch of speed and performance out of your bow? I mean, come on now, right? Target shooters quibble about a quarter inch. You know, if that release head was a quarter inch shorter, I can shoot it a little. You know what I'm saying? So take your time and just don't get hung up on the number and just look at the overall stability and you've got to give it a solid week, maybe even two, before it begins to feel kind of right. And I tell people when you're doing it on your own, set it a little bit on the long side so it does, you know, feel like a little bit of a reach initially. and shoot with that until you get it under control and get it working. Then you can scrutinize your overall stability. Like how big is that? I call it the range of motion. That's the scope that the dot covers. Let's say 20 yards on a Vegas target. That range of motion and that scope, right? And you get that as small as you can. And... when you have the draw link set long and you've shot it for a little while, then you can shorten it just a quarter, right? And then look at it. Did it get better or did it get tight? Right? And for target archery, the nuance of target archery, I have a little secret that I've always used with NFAA Blue Face, the five spot target, right? You gotta hit the X or you're out, right? With Vegas, you gotta hit the 10 ring or it's over, right? So, ⁓ but with World Archery, the inner axis, the 10 ring, the little one, right? So you can miss the big 10, no problem. That's just a nine, right? And typically you shoot a couple of nines in a World Archery thing, unless you're the two or three little top doggies up there, like really tearing it up, right? So. you're gonna miss a few and it's okay if you miss one and you miss it wide, it doesn't matter, right? Just out or touching the red, doesn't matter, it's still a nine, right? So in that, because when my drawing is a hair on the short side, it aims really small, right? But it, every now and I may boop and I might miss one if I don't have a good quick ⁓ shot sequence. So what I'll do, is I will, ⁓ for world archery stuff, I'll set it on the low end. Lancaster, I set it on the short end so I can pick up those 11s, right? I get more 11s and my X count is bigger and more flashy when it's on the short side, but I risk cranking a big nine. If I don't pay attention, I make a mental mistake or something, I could shoot a nine. But for NFA in Vegas, I'll shoot that just a hair bit longer so it becomes softer and more predictable. And I shoot a 900 every time, right? But my X count isn't flashy. My career X count using that little tip is like 26, 27, right? Nowadays, 26, 27 is just kind of like, bro, what happened? Yeah. But you know, ⁓ you know, 10, 15 years ago, it was like, ⁓ 27. Yeah. So it's okay. It's respectable. Right. 29. It's like, wow. Right. So I sacrifice the X count in order to get in the shoot off over and over and over. Because in the end, when you get in the shoot off that X count disappears. It's a brand new game. And it doesn't matter if I shot three 30 X games, Bodie Turner. this year, right? Shot, what did did he clean it? He shot 90 X, 900. Yeah. First time ever. 90 X 900 and then lost the Vegas shoot. What was he like seventh or eighth place? Right? That's a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to say it was maybe fourth, but I mean here and here and there, I get your point. It's exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. You know, I have, I have walked into the Vegas shoot off. Yeah. ⁓ I've walked into the Vegas shootoff at the highest X count before. Years ago, there was a couple of us that had three 29 X games and back then that was unheard of. I ended up like seventh place, right? And I've walked in with the lowest X counts, skin of the teeth, like just barely. I mean, one of my days was like 16 Xs, right? I was hanging on for dear life. I still got in the shootoff, finished second that year, right? So ⁓ that little trick about the draw length is handy. It's more nuanced, you know, for bow hunters or tack shooters or something like that, it doesn't matter, you know, at that level. But for target archery, a little gamesmanship, you know, like adjusting the equipment when the X really means something, where the X counts, you can shoot a little smaller, you know, and be okay. And I'm talking maybe an eighth inch. variation, no more than a quarter between the two different games, not much. And I have a little arrow box over here and I got my arrow in there. And when I set that draw length and I get it right, I pull it back on the rest and I mark it right where the arrow meets the rest. So I can quickly throw a couple twists in it and get it on the short end for Lancaster or maybe Neen World Cup Endor. And then when I get home and say, Vegas is coming up, you know, and then I can get that arrow out and take a couple of twists out. And then I can get that draw length right. So I can quickly adjust it without a whole lot of pecking around trying to find it. Yeah. You're, you're making some points that are striking home with me because, ⁓ you know, I've been shooting recently outdoors, you know, kind of switching away from indoor and I've been shooting up at my local range. And when I do everything right and everything sits and I break a clean shot, I shoot good. But when I miss it's a, it's a big one usually, you know what I mean? It's like, and you talk about aim pattern, does seem awful, herky jerky and tight. And it feels like my misses are bigger. So everything I'm hearing you saying is that it's time to, grab a new mod and lengthen her out a little bit and just deal with for a or two. Just do what the pen is telling you to do. Right. You can be stubborn or you can be good one or the other. I'm a lot better at being the first than the latter. Yeah, there's no ⁓ spot on the scorecard for I really stuck to my guns and held on to my principles, right? It's did you win or did you not win? Yeah. I've been, I've been a pretty good bow hunter, a lot of success in bow hunting and I'll have people ask me, they'll say, ⁓ you know, how do you do it or what's the difference between somebody that's really consistently successful? And I always tell them like, if you want to be a really good bow hunter, you just gotta be too dumb to quit. that will tell you, that'll tell you a little bit about how stubborn I am. So yeah. ⁓ yeah, that's all good Intel and you definitely have my wheels turning. ⁓ got another question for you. ⁓ so if you look right here on the back of my hand, I know that, know what? ⁓ dear. Yeah. ⁓ that's, ⁓ that's been something for me. ⁓ you know, I shoot off the riser. So I shoot a Matthews arc 34, remove the grip. I shoot off the riser cause that feels the most comfortable to me. And then my hunting bow, I've got a QAD, ⁓ drop away. So it's got that little round wheel that's got the little serrated edges on it. And I bounced that thing off the back of my hand, which I know, and I've just gotten to the point where to be honest, I go up to the range and I know that the first shot or two, it's gonna sting me, right? I'm gonna feel it. But I was watching a video and I know that you've done a video on this because I think it must be an issue that you've experienced over the years. And you gave a bunch of tips, like maybe shooting a, tighter wrist sling or shorter finger sling. Both of those, totally, you know, get, and I need to try. But you said one thing that I found really interesting that I wanted to pick your brain even further on, which was slightly pinching your grip. So your thumb to your pointer ⁓ and you said that can help that. But the other thing that I picked up on it when you said it was that you, you felt like it could add some stability. or maybe just more consistency to your grip? Big time, big time. So I'll explain that through. But the first thing when your arrow rest is digging a hole in your hand, you may not realize it, right? You know, it's, this is like mental game and how your brain works, right? That you, most people think I'm speaking to you. and you're hearing what I'm saying and you're processing that information and then you are ⁓ reacting to that, right? What really happens is as I'm talking, you are predicting what I'm going to say. So you are predicting, then reacting and then listening, right? The head nod, uh-huh, I understand what you're gonna say, yep, yep. And then if I say something, out of order, then you like wake up. Like, wait, what? What was that? What did you say? How many times have you done that? Or are you like, wait, wait, say that again, right? And you are shooting an arrow over and over and over again and you get a little bite on the back of your hand, right? Your brain begins to anticipate that little bite. And what happens when you're at full draw and you're getting ready to release your body, pads the follow through. Your brain reacts to try to pad yourself to minimize the little bite that you get on the back of your hand, right? And looking at the hole, it's very consistent, right? But you need to fix that, right? Because it's not only messing up your shot, but it's also causing your brain to actually move. the system before the arrow can actually get out of the bow. It happens on release or maybe just a little bit before release, right? Let me get in my toolbox here. I'm gonna show you something. I don't know whether if I told everybody this in the video, but let's see. I got some stuff here. It's a moldable glue. I use this all the time when I bump into somebody like you, right? It's called Sugru. right? Let's say and it's like a moldable blue. You can get it from Amazon. It comes in little silver packages and you open the package and you you know need it to activate it right and then you ⁓ can get a little dot of it and just press it over that knob. So the knob once you press it over that knob it'll cause a little pad and I put a little bit underneath as well separately so you can still turn the knob but you get you get rid of all the little sharp edges and everything that you have on that knob. Why they would design that with something out there to dig a hole in your hand I don't know right it just seems like a really weird spot to put a knob right but ⁓ it's there but all you got to do is make a little a little pea-sized ball of that and then just press it down over the center of the knob and it'll sort of envelop the knob and fix all the sharp stuff and then it can kind of bump your hand, right? But to stop the hand bump, I got a little grip thing here that I use when I'm doing online lessons. And you see that... So you see this, ⁓ there is an orange line right there and you see this is like pivotally mounted, right? You see? So if I put my hand in the bow and I pinch just like this between my thumb and forefinger, you see I have my thumb, it's open to the target, right? And then I go down like that. So let me kind of fix my grip here. And so I'm pinched. Now watch what happens. You see the two lines are lined up with each other. Now watch what happens when I just relax my hand. You see the angle breaks. And if I really relax my hand, you see, and the thumb opens out this way, right? That is torque. And that's kind of how torque opens up your left rights, right? But by putting your hand in there, you take your hand like this. I just wrote an article for Inside Archery. It's coming out in the next issue. But if you just open your hand flat to the floor, point your thumb to the target, stick your hand in the grip with it flat, close that gap, just a light pinch, not enough that would crush a McDonald's straw or break an egg. You just close it with light pressure and then put your hand down. Not only does that put your hand position where everything is in line, kind of ergonomically correct for the bow, but that light pinch stops the bow when you shoot your hunting bow with a short stabilizer and you see it's buzzing like this, right? Where if the release goes off here or if the release goes off here or the release goes off there at 60 yards, that's all the way across the yellow, right? Left, right, all over the place. So by closing that down, that damps that vibration, right, that you have in the bow. It stops the bow from swimming if it's windy. Right. And just taking those two fingers on the front like this, right. Put your hand in there with a little pinch like that and then just touch the front of the riser with two fingers. You will be impervious to torque. It will always be exactly the same no matter what you do and it'll stabilize your overall aim as well and your rest won't bite you on the back of the hand. Yeah. Man, it's really interesting. Cause my followup question to this was I've been struggling with left, right. this is, yeah, that big old hole dug in your hand. can say, yep, there it is right there. Make you want to wear a glove when you shoot or something. Yeah. Yeah. I usually just stick a bandaid on it or whatever. ⁓ but yeah, that I have, yeah, I have struggled with left, left and rights. So. That's, that's really interesting and good, good Intel, ⁓ to piggyback on this. So, one of the questions I had is inevitably, I would assume you get somebody like me that probably comes to you and you know, you, you do, I know that you do, ⁓ like one-on-one lessons, you can do them remotely, right? Like, so you and I can do a lesson. I could sign up for one and, ⁓ you know, you would, you know, take me through, but. inevitably somebody like me, I'm going to start identifying with you, ⁓ things that need to, you know, be updated and changed. need to do them differently or better. Right. ⁓ I listened to another podcast recently that, know, an individual approach shooter basically said somebody can walk up to me and you know, they'll say, how does my form look? And they'll draw their bow back. And, you know, the this person, the pro was saying, well, you know, I'll give them like one thing, but like, couldn't possibly give them all the things that I'm seeing because they have a lot going on. Right. There's lots of different things that they could do myself included, you know, I've already identified probably two that I need to work on. Right. So maybe you need to work with my draw length and then also, you know, work with my grip and my, you know, torque in my hand. ⁓ how do you, where does somebody start? Like it. Do you start with one thing and work on that one thing for a while or do you, how do you attack things when there's like multiple issues? Well, you work on each thing until you get it right. It's kind of like a game of whack a mole. You know, one thing pops up and you knock it down and then the next thing pops up and you knock that down. And, know, I've been going at it for 40 years now and I'm still whacking them down, right. As I go and, but a good coach. Right, a really good coach. There's a lot of great pros out there that shoot ridiculously good scores and they know a lot about archery, but they don't know how to teach it, right? And that's a big disconnect, right? Cause there's, know tons of dudes that I can talk to them and man, they'll tell me some cool stuff. ⁓ I'm go home and test that. That sounds plausible. That's gonna be really good. You know what? I'll go home and test it out. But a good coach, they're gonna... say like, I'll first talk to you as like, are we only doing this once? You know, are we gonna do this a whole bunch? You know, and I might could hold back, you know, some stuff if I know that we're gonna have at least four sessions or, know, something like that. But if I figure we're gonna do it once, I'm gonna say, all right, here's what you need to do and do it in this order because I can say, this is your number one thing that's killing your points, right? And then once you get that taken care of, this is the next thing. And when you get that taken care of, then move on to this, right? And at the same time, I give you little drills and things to do to kind of support whatever it is that you're working on so you actually can work your way through it by yourself without direct supervision. Folks that are local that I see like once a week or once every other week. and I'm watching them shoot, see them compete at tournaments, know, the whole thing, I can go, hey, remember that thing about the thing, you need to make sure you're doing it. ⁓ yeah, right, I almost forgot about that, right? So, ⁓ it's the difference between getting a tip from one of your bros on the range and getting a tip from a coach, you know, who has been teaching people how to get good at archery for a long time. It's a big difference and they can tell you how to get better, not just what you need to do. Right. And that's really important. So for like in my example, ⁓ I'm thinking about grip. ⁓ would you advise me to just go to the range and just shoot, you know, X number of arrows and just focus on that one thing until I get it right. Here's what I would do if you're working on your grip. Okay. I would. First, sit there in a chair with your bow and practice putting your hand in the bow and getting it right. Here, let me just grab one. I'll show you, right? So I can just sit right here, right here in my chair and I can practice putting my hand in the bow, turning this on and going down, right? And I can go, all right, well that works, right? That's doing it right. And I can just take it out and I'll put it back. I'll go there and then down. ⁓ Okay, I got it. Then you'll actually start shooting the bow, right? And just do it blank bail. so that you can feel what it is you're doing. You're not trying to aim. You're not trying to get the release right. You're not spinning six different plates, trying to keep everything working. You're just trying to get the grip right, right? And you know, you go to the range. mean, tell the truth. You go to the range with the idea you're gonna work on something and about six shots later, you forgot all about it. You're just trying to hit the bullseye, right? I'm just shooting arrows. Yeah, everybody in the world does that. and they're just exercising their limbs, they're not getting better, right? And that's important. So first you'll start off, you have to understand the technique and you gotta get that right. Then you'll blank bail with the technique until you can say, okay, this is working, the rest isn't biting my hand, I'm not having any problems with whatever it is that you're working on, right? So then you start off, You figure out the technique, you shoot the technique on blank bail enough to get it right. And the grip specifically, you can stand in front of your paper rack and you can shoot holes through the paper. And if your bow is tearing a consistent hole every single time, you know that the grip is right. But if it wanders a little left, a little right, you know, while you're working on it, every now and then one old tear, you know, there's an inconsistency in there, right? So you're doing this in your garage from six, eight feet away, right? Get that right. Last Chance just came out with a paper tuning rack called the FlightCheck and they've got paper and I talked them into putting little bullseyes, you know, all over the paper. So you can kind of organize your shots through the paper and keep track with what's going on and how it's working and the whole bit with that. And you can like really fill the paper up with holes because it's got those little dots that you can shoot at, right? So with anything, if you're going to work on the release, you got to find the technique and you got to work on it, right? If you're going to, and then you got to... shoot the blank bail enough until you have it right. And I'm not talking about just 15 shots. I'm talking a couple of hundred until you can't get it wrong. And that's truly mastering something, right? Then you're gonna figure out, you're working on your grip. You're gonna figure out, all right, now let me incorporate the aiming technique, right? So. you're doing your new technique that you've memorized and you've mastered it enough to where you're not still trying to get it right. It's right, right? You just have to do it, right? Put a target up five, seven yards away so that the aiming component is so easy you can't get it wrong and stand there and shoot scores over and over and over and over until you get that right. Then add a couple of yards, right? And by slowly increasing the difficulty of the aim as you go, you don't break the technique because you begin to prioritize aiming and you don't forget what you're doing, right? And once you've walked that out to 20 yards on a 40 centimeter face, you got it, right? You can move on to the next thing, you see? But that's what training on a championship level actually looks like. It's a lot of drills. It's like, a musician that wants to be the best, they play scales over and over and over over over over and they play patterns over and over. They play chords and patterns and all that. And they do that so that they can develop that automatic memory of what it is that they're doing. They don't have to think about where they need to put their fingers to get the chord. They just do it, right? So then they can stop thinking about technique and they can just create, right? And in archery, you stop thinking about technique and you just win. Right. If you're standing up there thinking about how to do it while you're trying to shoot well in front of your buddies at attack event, you're dead meat. You're going to get beat. Right. Yeah. No, that's, that's good. Good. Good Intel. ⁓ by the way, I mean, you, probably saw it today. I'm sure you you've been aware of it, but that new Hoyt, the new Hoyt duck camo. ⁓ yeah. That was pretty sick. Pretty nice. Yeah, they did really good with that one. Yeah, I saw that one hit my feet this morning and I'm a Matthews guy and the podcast is sponsored by Matthews and I love the company. But when I saw the the duck camo hit the hit the interwebs today, I was like, that looks pretty slick. Yeah, that bow that I was just sitting here holding, it's raw. I hadn't even put the rest and everything on. I'm gonna do a whole bow build from the ground up and show the tuning procedures and the setup and all that. And it's been sitting on the rack waiting on me to get ready to do that. And then they came out with the new camo and I was like, ah, could have got it in the camo. Right. They do that to me every time. It looks sharp. man, good stuff. want to, I want to ask you a few more questions if you got time for it. One of them is, uh, yeah. So tips on shooting uphill and downhill. Um, you know, I live in, I live in Utah. Uh, all most of the hunting I do is, you know, out West I'm shooting uphill, downhill side hill. ⁓ I'm trying to remember if I've ever actually, you know, taking a shot on an animal where it was, you know, nice level ground. And I can't remember ever having that been the case, maybe on an antelope, to be honest, but, pretty much everything is shooting uphill or downhill. And I know kind of the old, ⁓ adage is like, you know, you, you draw level bend at the waist. But I was wondering if you could just talk about if you got tips or tricks for shooting uphill and downhill. All right. So the old adage draw level and bend at the waist. Whoever said that hasn't shot uphill and downhill very much, or isn't any good at it, right? And it's so, it's so common. I've said it a lot of times. mean, it's like, there's stuff like that. That is just dead wrong that people just keep passing forward. They just say it, you know, because that's what they read or, know, that's what they're, and they just say it. And my entire life as an archery coach over and over, like I'm doing a seminar in Europe. And I go, Do not draw level and bend at the waist. ⁓ Right? The whole room goes quiet because I just like killed a sacred cow right there in the middle of the room, right? But the deal is if you think about it and those of you that are watching or listening at home stand up out of your chair and make bow hands like you're gonna draw level and then bend at the waist. You'll see, you'll get to a point where you run out a range of motion. Right. And you end up finishing it with your arm. Right. And when you do that uphill, right, it makes the draw like almost like it's too long and it makes it loose and you can't aim very well and your release slows down. You can't make the release work or any of that. Right. Because you've broken it. Right. You know, it's interesting as I asked somebody recently a drawling question like You know, what do you use to determine like if your draw links too long or too short? And I think the individual said, well, if you really want to know, you know, go shoot uphill and that'll tell you if your draw links too long, if it feels too long, when you're shooting uphill, your draw links too long. Yeah. then if it feels good on the level and then it starts feeling too long uphill, your form is bad. It's not the bow. Right. Your didn't get shorter because you're aiming uphill. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm is we do this and then we run out of range of motion and then give it a little more and that's how you break it. So here's how you fix that. I have this thing, I call it the big four. This is the four big steps that you need to do in order to have across the board archery consistency. Because if the form is by the book correct or not, that doesn't matter as much, right? What matters is is it consistent? There's some pros out there winning the daylights out of tournaments with terrible form, but it's dead consistent every single time. And if you walk up to them and ask them, why do you do that? They'll have a really good reason why they shoot the way that they do and totally makes sense. Like the dudes that, that lean way back. and they've got the really heavy bows, right? The ones that are putting 32 on the front and 40 something on the back. If you stood up straight like the book tells you to, it'll pick your back foot off the ground, right? Because you're hanging all that weight out on the end of this lever. So they have to lean back to get the center of gravity close to their feet so that they can aim and still have a platform to stand on, right? But the big four is First, you hook your release on string and you put your fingers in the release. You're looking at it and you're feeling it, right? So that way, you look at it and you feel because you need a visual reference with how you're putting your hand in the release and how you're putting your hand in the bow. Because when giant big buck shows up, when... the guy next to you just missed and you're about to win the tournament, or in Vegas they go, ladies and gentlemen, this is your first scoring in. The one thing you can't do is feel your hands, right? So if you're doing all this stuff by feel, you're screwed, because all that changes the minute you get elevated in a tournament event, right? So you need a visual reference too to make sure that that's right. You're out in the woods hunting and your hands are so cold you can't even tell whether if you're holding the release or not. So you don't have a visual reference, you're in deep trouble, right? So set your fingers, set your grip. I'm gonna shorten it, but you can go to Thing-A-Wig, search Big Four, and you'll have it, right? Set your grip, you know, do the pinch, put it down, you got it on there, and it's all right. And then, I'm standing there with my bow kind of tipped forward and this arm is extended, right? And I'm ready to go. And I got my nose pointed at the target, right? And I'm gonna go. Right? And then I turn my brain on. If I'm in a tournament, I say, okay, let's get this shot right. And I may actually say it under my breath. Okay, let's get this shot right. You know, the room is big and loud. Nobody can hear me talking, right? When I'm in the woods, I say, where do I want the arrow to exit? And by making myself think, right, before I start moving, that gets me present. and I won't black out and just whiff an arrow because I'm under the gun and I gotta hurry up, I gotta do it quick, you know, and time artificially compresses and then you just choke, right? So by turning my brain on going, all right, let's get this shot right, that automatically runs a little movie in my head as to what right is because I've done the same shot for a million years now and I know what right is, so I just go for that. Now. I'm set like this and I'm ready to go and I breathe. And when I breathe, I feel this sinking sensation, right? Try it, go. Like that. And you feel this little sinking sensation that you get? That's your blood pressure and your heart rate kind of slowing down just a little bit, right? That'll give you 20 seconds. of calm, jitter-free shooting. You get about 20 seconds and you can pull an arrow from your quiver, draw back, aim, release, and follow through in less than 20 seconds, right? But shot after shot after shot, if you're shooting a tournament, the first shot's okay, the second shot's a little stiff, the third shot's kinda hard, right? So by taking that breath, the shots are a little more consistent shot to shot. And that's where that consistency comes in because your emotional amplitude is metered by taking that breath. When you're at work and you're under pressure and somebody's on your nerves and you know all that and you go like that and it feels better for just a couple seconds, right? That's how that works. And then When I feel the sinking sensation, that's my signal to move the bow. Pick it up, pull it back. All right. Settle my shoulders. That's step two, right? Then step three, I put the pin on the target first. Now this is important, remember that. I put the pin on the target first. Then I make the pressure that I'm gonna use between me and the bow. Everybody always says I put the pen in the middle, then I pull, pull, pull, and the release goes off. Why would you move after you have the pen in the middle, right? So set up the pressure first, and then when the pen's in the middle, then put the peep in front of your eye. Because the bow is just a dumb stick flinger. It only does what you tell it to do, right? So if you draw back an anchor and then go hunt the target down, your pressure is aligned somewhere over there, right? It's not at the target, right? So then when the release opens and the string has to fall and the arrow separates and goes out of the bow, right? That moment, if everything was set up on target, pressure, pin in the middle, peep in front of your eye and then follow through. Everything goes at the target. I've shot some rough shots that still hit dead center because I loaded the pressure at the target. So uphill and downhill, right? You get the target set, right? You get your hands and everything set and then these two dots right here, imagine there's two little dots on your shoulders. Then you... point those dots at the animal. then pick the bow up, draw it back, and then power it up on the target, then look through the peak, bang, and then let it go. Your draw length will feel exactly the same uphill, downhill, your left and right will be good. You won't be struggling to make the release aid go off because the power between you and the bow is consistent, right? If you're gonna shoot a shot like straight up, There's a couple of those big field shoots where they want to shoot a shot straight up and they will do this. instead of that because you can't go any farther you see right so holding your bow in your hand and setting your feet and pointing your shoulders at the target before you get everything ready to go right will make sure that no matter what the angle is it's good and if you pull back and your pen is like this You didn't do it right. Let down and reset. Do it again. Right. Do you do anything different with your stance shooting uphill and downhill? you why? Okay. Absolutely. Because I can't keep the same stance and then aim down or up because my center of gravity is completely different. So I hold the bow. When I'm getting ready to shoot, I hold the bow out here kind of out at arms length and I get my feet set. I'll point my shoulders. and get my feet set and I go, all right, that's probably gonna be it right there. And then I'll. dry up and get set. And if the pin looks quiet and still when I move that, when I move that peep in front of my eyeball and the pin and the target and everything is all there. I know I did it right. But if I look through the peep and it's moving funny, it's being loose or something, then I know I didn't do it right. And I can not miss that shot. I can let down, I can fix it and then go back and work on it. I love that. You know, one thing that you said that I, I've probably heard at some point, but I've never had an aha moment. Like, like you were saying earlier. ⁓ I love those. I had an aha moment. ⁓ actually looking at your grip, looking at your fingers in your release to make the connection between visual and feel like I've, I've probably heard that, but I know for a fact, I've never done it. Like I've never. I've never seen. you watch the thing, wait, you've definitely heard it because I've been beating that drum for years. Yeah, definitely. I've definitely heard it, but I've not. It's not registered to the point where I know that I haven't done it, but it makes total sense. I love that. That was that was awesome. Yeah. And that's that whole thing. Like if you get to full draw and then you have to move your head to look through the peak, the bow doesn't fit right. If the shot before worked perfectly. and the shot after is loose, you made a mistake, let down and redo it. And everyone listening and even yourself, there's been that one time that you pulled the bow back and looked through the peep and for some unexplained reason, it was spontaneously steady as a rock, right? And that point, you got everything right that one time, right? Most of us see that and we're thinking, ⁓ man, look at that. That's going in and boonk and you shoot it, right? Yeah. ⁓ yeah. So for starters, every time you look through the peep, your brain should go, okay, that's going in, right? Before you even think about letting it go, right? But the next time you pull your bow, right? You're working on the new draw length and it's going to be awkward and weird. It's going to be hard, right? but the next time you pull your bow and it's spontaneously steady, don't shoot that one right away. Take a second or two and kind of diagnose what happened, right? Why is this thing sitting? What can I feel? What does the pressure feel like? Where's the direction pointed? How did I get here? What was I thinking when I pulled the bow back, right? All those little factors come into play. to get your best set up and your most stable shot, right? So most people, and I say this all the time, most people spend all their time trying to figure out what they're doing wrong, right? No one ever learned anything or got better studying what they're doing wrong, right? In school, they teach you that in school. You take a test, and they hand it back to you with red marks all over it and you focus only on what was wrong, right? But studying what's wrong isn't gonna get you better. You need to get to the bottom of what's causing all those tens. What makes that bow super steady that one time and then it's not super steady the other times and study what it is that you're getting right and you'll get a lot more consistent with what it is you're doing. Because if you're doing eight things correctly and three things wrong. If you get those eight things right every single time, those three things that you're getting wrong will have very little effect on the overall outlook of your score and everything else. So build on what's causing 10 rings to happen rather than studying what's wrong and trying to get to the bottom of why this particular thing keeps breaking all the time. What is correct? What do you want? And I tell this to kids all the time. It's like, you know, if you, if you figure out what do you want and start working your way to that, you're going to be successful. But if you're riding your bike down the road, bombing down the street and you're looking in the ditch, where's your bike going to go? ⁓ I know. Yeah, that's a, that's good. Cause I, you're speaking in things that are so relatable. I mean, I was thinking about just this morning, it's usually the first You know, like not the first arrow, but the first arrow at a target, walk up to it, feel relaxed, pull back, everything sits fire, good arrow. I'm like, yep, did it nailed it. And then the second, the third, the fourth, it just is like this little bit of like, ⁓ that one doesn't feel quite right. But I never have, I've never taken the time to think like, what, what am I feeling in the first one? Like, what is it that I'm feeling that is right? And that's a little bit of mental game too. Right. That first shot. Right? The first day of scoring at a tournament, the first few ends of an event, you know, whatever. There's a lot less mental baggage coming along with those first shots. Right. But you end up, if you haven't prepared, if you haven't taught yourself to expect this great things to happen while you're in the midst of a tournament or whatever, what's going to happen is your brain is going to wake up and it's going to go, all right. we're doing pretty good, we're four ends in and we haven't missed anything, so let's be extra careful and make sure that we keep this going. That's not what got you there, right? And then next thing you know, you start working on it in the midst of a shooting session. You start, let me try this, and then you shoot. And then you go, that wasn't quite right. Let me try this, and then you shoot. Next thing you know. You shot 50 arrows in the backyard and not one of them was the same as the one before because you make little edits every time you shoot the bow, right? So when I go to a tournament, I go, this is how I'm going to shoot my bow. I'm going to do it exactly like this. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not going to feel it. I'm not going to work on it. I'm not going to try to do anything. And all those, those little knobs on the site, those suckers cost extra. So whatever it is I'm doing, I'm gonna turn them knobs until whatever it is I got going on is hitting in the middle, right? So that way I'm not working on, I'm not doing anything. I'm going, okay, let's get this right. And then I shoot what I think is right. If I make a mistake, I instantly forget it and I load my bow as quick as I can and I go, okay, this is what I want. Let's get this right. Instead of, ⁓ And you show anger because of all those people out there, all those people that are out there watching you shoot. You're gonna show anger because you don't shoot bad like this all the time. That was a fluke event and you're shocked and surprised that you shot so bad, right? You see, everybody's apologizing at the end of the day and you say, how'd you shoot? Yeah, they say, how'd you shoot? And they start. telling you instantly about the worst shot they shot all day. And they'll tell everybody that'll stand still about how bad that shot was. So they're perfectly loaded to completely screw up on day two at Vegas. Go back this year's Vegas and just pick a division somewhere randomly and look in the middle. Look at their first day score, look at their second day score and look at their third day score and you'll see this pattern play out. over and over and over and people score. It happens in tack, happens in bow hunting, the whole bit. Yeah. So choosing to do, to shoot your bow, right. It's like, I'm just going to shoot the bow. Right. That way you're not working on it the whole time. Yeah. It's, like you're, ⁓ it's like you've crawled inside my head. That's exactly what I do with the range. go, it's not just you. Yeah. I'm like, one is not everybody. Yeah. Let me work on this for a second. ⁓ that's not quite right. Let me change this. I'll try this. And then you're right. I've shot 50 or a hundred arrows and I don't really know exactly what worked and what didn't because I've just continued to chase little things at a time. Yeah. I, that's great. That's great. But I will say I shot the same three score in Vegas this year, three, three days in a row. at least, ⁓ well that's fantastic. At least I was consistently. where I was at, you know? I've got a little poster in my office back at the shop that has a Robin Hooded arrow in the black four ring on, one of those multicolored targets. it says, consistency is a virtue only if you're not a total screw up. I love that. That one's great. It's funny when we choke on my drink. That's funny. Yeah, I like that. so I've had you for an hour. I did want to ask you just one more, one more question because most people that will listen to this, I think I'm getting a few more people that are just, you know, into archery and they're, they like archery, but most of the guys that listened to my podcast are bow hunters, but, ⁓ you've obviously you've won some big shoots. You know, you've been a professional archer. You worked with a lot of people in really high pressure situations. ⁓ I still get buck fever. You know, I've been bow hunting for 25, 26 years at this point. ⁓ had a lot of success, but I still get buck fever. ⁓ do you have, and I assume that you probably still feel nerves, know, you step to the Lancaster this year, you probably still felt nerves. ⁓ what, what tips and tricks do you have for, you know, me or somebody to, like help them manage that moment when it matters the most. So here's the biggest thing. This is the magic secret for all those people that stayed with us all the way through this thing. All right. Your reward is I'm gonna tell you the magic secret. And the magic secret with mental game is you're gonna get more of whatever you focus on. So if you focus on the nerves and you're trying to calm down and you're monitoring your feelings and your attention is inside of what's going on, you're gonna get more, right? Your body starts to freak out, right? And your brain doesn't have a reason. It doesn't know why you're freaking out. So you get even more adrenaline, right? And this is an old holdover from the caveman days where we were running from saber-toothed tigers and stuff and you know, and your body goes run, right? And your brain is going from what? what is happening, right? And then so you get even more, your brain speeds up, your breathing gets short, you speed up, your eyes dilate, right? Like everything goes a little crazy, right? But if you understand that this is definitely going to happen, right? You are definitely gonna feel nerves, you're definitely gonna be elevated, you're definitely gonna accidentally look at the scorecard, even if you're not taking score, right? you're gonna look and you're gonna go, ⁓ my God, I'm still cleaning, we only have three ends left, right? You gotta be present enough in what it is that you're doing, go, uh-uh, we're not doing that today, not today, Satan. What we're doing is we are shooting the bow. We're just going to get it right. We're gonna get this shot right over and over again, we're gonna get this shot right until it's over. So you focus on shooting the bow. not trying to be calm, not trying to be nervous. And what happens, that initial, ladies and gentlemen, this is your first scoring in, right? And you get a little, you get the butterflies, right? Two weeks before the event, you know, someone says, ⁓ man, Vegas is only two weeks away. And you get that little flash of excitement, right? Your mental game starts then, way back before the shoot, right? And when you feel that little flash of excitement, you think, good, I'm in the right spot here because I'm excited about this. You're not nervous because if you're nervous, that's fear and you tend to back away. But if you're excited, you lean in, you lean into the experience, you do the experience completely, right? So you say it out loud, ⁓ I'm excited, good. This is so excited for this next event, right? And then when you get there, You know you're gonna have a ⁓ flash of adrenaline. You know all that's gonna be there. So when you feel it, you go good. Everything's exactly where it needs to be. And I need this in order to focus because if I don't feel this, I'm gonna go to sleep because indoor archery is boring, right? And I'm gonna go to sleep in the middle of this if I don't have a little monster energy drink from my adrenal gland giving it to me. So the kids go, I'm standing behind them. We're at the world championships. They're in the finals shooting a match and they walk back. If you watch any of those videos with me, standing back there just with my arms folded watching them shoot and I'm talking to them. I'm being their brain. That's what the coach does is I'm their brain. So they can just like go into shoot bow mode and I can go, it's your turn. You need to shoot. know, when they're making the mistake, I can just speak up, right? And they kind of. hear that, know, in back of their mind. And they'll come to me in between ends and I hand them a bottle of water so they can drink. That helps shed the nerves a little bit. Just drink a little water, a little nips as you go. And they go, oh my God, my hands are shaking and I'm freaking out and all that. I don't know what to do. I've said, of course you're nervous. You're at the world championships and you are winning. Of course you're nervous, right? Of course you're feeling it because you're supposed to. Now, let's get about hitting the rest of these axes here, right? I need you to shoot that good shot. I'm watching every move you make and I'm gonna haze you for a day. If you shoot a dumb shot, I'm gonna bring it up all day long, right? I'm gonna serve dinner and be like, would you like some chicken with your rip shot that you let go on end number four? ⁓ So we're gonna give it to you. So make sure that this is right. You know, so in the end, if you get beat, you got beat by, they were just better that day, right? You didn't fail. You just got beat. But if you black out and just blow it because you're focusing, everything is on the inside and you're not circulating that energy. You're not paying attention out here and in here. You're not moving that back and forth, right? That that'll cause you to black out. You'll be cranking your bow like you're trying to start a weed eater and it's just gonna be a mess, right? So the key is focusing on what you want the whole time and not letting extraneous thoughts, you know, if they come in, just let them keep going. And what I do for myself is I just say, nope, not today. We're not doing that today. This is what we're doing, right? We're shooting this shot. This is what I'm looking for. That's it. I don't care what happens all day, but no matter what, when this day is over, I can say I shot all these shots the exactly the way that I wanted them to go. And if it works that way, you tend up shooting a banger score that's commiserate with whatever your skill level is. And I know you got a lot of listeners and I say this over and over. I get a lot of those adventure bow hunters, right? The guys, like they drew a sheep tag or they have a once in a lifetime red deer hunt in, you know, New Zealand or, know, like something like that. And I get tons of those guys and they're, they're, really conscientious about working on their form. And I'll say, how's it going? Are you improving? And they're like, well, you know, I don't know. I guess so. Right. And I tell them, say, you know, you're a bow hunter, know, tried and true, you're a bow hunter. And you don't care one whit about target archery at all, right? But I need you to score archery targets so you can have some sort of measure or metric that you can track. Because if you're testing a higher FOC on your arrows, if you're testing a stiffer spine, if you're testing a little bit longer draw length or know something like that. If you don't have scores to compare it to, you have this seat of the pants estimate that is very inaccurate because we tend to remember all the good ones, you know, a little time passes and we remember, man, I used to be really good. That one time when I threw the pass at homecoming to win the game, you know, we always remember the rosy image. So I tell them, you know, get an 80 centimeter target and shoot that thing at 50 meters. Shoot 72 arrows at that sucker. Get right down a score and keep track. Make yourself a little spreadsheet on your phone and keep track of those scores so you can see are the scores trending upwards? Are they flat? Did you hit a trough? Did you change something? Did you like change your strings or? Did you fiddle with the draw length a little bit and all of sudden you hit a trough, right? If the bottom falls out of your scores, that little edit that you made, that is not helping you at all, right? And so by having some sort of thing and any archery coach that's good, there's a bunch of them out there, they can just save your targets or take pictures of them. and you can look at the scatter of the holes and a good archery coach can go, okay, here's the three things that you have a problem with and here's where your inconsistencies are. And when you see your arrows hit right here, you need to work on your shot execution because your brain is getting ahead of the release, right? Or if you see the arrows going right here, you got some contact with your face. Maybe your grip is inconsistent, right? And just by looking, A lot of guys will say, I only shot five or six shots during my lesson and you've given me all of these things to work on. It's like, it only takes one or two shots and a good coach can say, okay, this is the full spectrum of what you got going on and work on this one first, work on this one second, then work on this one third. And a lot of us that are out there coaching now, there's me and John Dudley, there's a few others out there that... ⁓ We've been working on this our entire lives, right? And we've kind of topped out. We like hit our ceiling, you know, competitively and we're still learning every day, but you know, we've kind of topped out. So you can stay alone in your backyard and you can reinvent the wheel or you can come to us and like stand on our ceiling and then see how much farther you can go. We'll just give you all the answers we spent our life figuring out. And now you can figure out the new stuff we haven't gotten to yet, right? And that's the importance of coaching or guidance or mentorship when you're trying to get good at bow hunting and archery and you know, all that. And the last thing that I tell all the tack guys and all that is super fun. It's super fun to shoot 120 yards. It's super fun to shoot it. You know, 3D target's 80, 90, 100 yards, right? But the real flex in bow hunting was how close that animal was when you shot it. If you can see that animal's eyelashes when you poke an arrow through it, you're a good bow hunter. For sure. So I tend to discourage because I get a lot of young guys who have no experience and they're trying to get 70, 80 yard pins. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, man. Right? You know that the dot on a Vegas target? I tell them to use that the dot on the Vegas target or a 50 meter face, the yellow, it's about that big. every arrow you shoot hits in there and you never miss it, that's a distance that you can hunt animals at. But if you get far enough away and you begin to have some flyers, limit yourself closer than that because you're gonna end up making a mistake, you're gonna lose an animal, right? So we definitely don't wanna do that. So use the target size, either the entire dot on like a indoor face or the yellow on like a 50 meter. every arrow you shoot lands then do it. If you're going to go out west and hunt pronghorn mule deer and all that also make sure you can do it when it's windy. Yep. Because wind on a 60 yard shot on a mule deer you can shoot them in the butt. ⁓ you know with it and like that. So you got to know what your arrows do when it's windy right. Yeah. You got to be ready. Yeah something you said that just It's funny to I do the correlation, but you said, you know, reframing and I've heard it before of like reframing nerves into excitement. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's really interesting. I, and I try to do this, you know, if I go up and I shoot arrows at my range, I try to envision like, okay, you know, I've got a lane here in the, in the opinion of Juniper and I'm kind of watching, I'm going to imagine, you know, a bull elk, he's going to come, come walking out and I'm kind of envisioning it. And as I envision that I can feel. Even though it's just in my brain, I can feel I'm getting heightened. You know, I can feel it like welling up in me ⁓ and it can go either way. can go either like I'm excited about this opportunity or it can be like, ⁓ I'm, I'm dreadful of this opportunity. Like I'm, I'm nervous. I'm scared of what is going to transpire. ⁓ I don't know how many times I've sat on a hillside with guys that have scouted a buck. And they've watched this buck all summer long and I've been sitting there with them and I look at the buck and we're watching it. I, those guys talk themselves out of even making an attempt on it because they're nervous of what might happen that they might bump the buck that they might lose the buck. And I've done this too. And I, it's kind of the same thing. It's like, you can be excited about this opportunity and optimistic about it, or you can be nervous and scared of the opportunity. And as far as like whether to act or whether to go for it or not, as far as like, are you going to try to get closer? Are you going to try to get around on this animal or whatever? It's like you're not going to get him sitting there all the time and money and practice and all that that you spent to have this opportunity right in front of you. You best be going for it. And it's not like he's going to fly to the moon when you scare him. I mean, if you're a good hunter, you'll find him again. Yeah. I've seen, I've seen people and I, I myself have talked to myself out of opportunities before because I was nervous about what might happen. Yeah. There's a lot of times that I don't shoot my bow because like I was in Texas a couple of years ago. Nice deer, but the wind was howling ⁓ and I hadn't shot my bow. It was really only about 38. 40 yards, right? But I had not shot this bow in the wind at all. And I had no idea where to aim, you know, to drift it onto the spot. So I just didn't shoot. Later, like two days later, I shot that same deer at like seven yards. He like walked right in front of me, just like, you know, and I'm glad I didn't take that shot, you know. So don't push it when you're shooting, but go ahead and push it if you want to try to get around on something. Yeah. That one just struck me as interesting because it is how you frame it. Are you excited about it? Are you nervous about it and scared of it? basics of that whole thing, like panic, ⁓ you know, like flashes of nervousness, you know, when you're entering the choke zone, right? is your brain needs a reason for why your body is freaking out, right? And once that all the systems are in the know and you know like, okay, I'm at the world championships. This is great. I'm right in the pocket. I'm feeling those butterflies. I'm feeling that excitement. All right, let's shoot this tournament, right? So you're leaning into the experience and you have framed this nervous isn't something that is just happening to you. It's actually something, if you learn how to use this power to your advantage, you're gonna get a lot more, right? A lot more consistency, you're gonna get a lot more score, and you're gonna be a lot more successful in these various things. I just put my son on a plane, he got his first job, and he was going off to training, and he hadn't flown around a whole lot. He's like, I'm really nervous. I was like, good. You you got to stay like on the forward edge of your comfort zone or otherwise you're not growing. You're not doing anything. Comfort wants you dead. So you need to keep that out there on that scary edge, right? And he's learning how to swing from those giant windmills and like work on those things. He does rope access, you know, and that's terrifying all by itself. But then walking into a job where there's a bunch of roughnecks. It's been doing it a bunch of years. You're a fresh 20 year old, you know, you're gonna get it. Yeah. You have a 20 year old. Yeah. I had a 20 year old and an 18 year old. Gotcha. My oldest is 20. He just finished his private pilot's license today. Just, just, just passed his final fantastic. Yeah. Single engine land. Yep. Yep. Very cool. That's awesome. Hey, one of the team kids just got their instrument rating not too long ago. They were super excited about that. Yeah. That's cool. Well, George, I've had you for an hour and a half and I really appreciate your time. ⁓ man, I, every time I've ever watched anything that you've done and then, you know, I run into Colby or Chris, I always tell them it would almost be worth moving to Georgia. If I could just get to work with George, cause I would love to become a better Archer, a better bow hunter. I do this remote man. don't have to to Georgia. It would almost be worth it But I really appreciate your time. ⁓ Tell people how they can find you. So if they want to do lessons with you, how do they do it? So if you just go to improve my archery.com and on there, I have remote lessons and I have in-person lessons and you can just look at my schedule. You can pick a day and a time that makes sense and book it. and I'll be there waiting on you when your time comes up. Okay, cool. It's super simple, easy to get into. And if you don't wanna take the drive, remote works great. I got a bunch of team kids that started off as remote people and they have become like World Cup level just with remote lessons, right? So I do kids around the world, kids and adults, but I do people around the world and sometimes I'm up at. weird times at 6 a.m. on a Saturday so I can talk to somebody in Australia, right? ⁓ But I figure out how to do it and we get it together and ⁓ even remote is very effective and in person is a lot of fun too. Very cool. Well, I appreciate your time. ⁓ You're on Eastern time so you're probably ready for dinner or you might have missed dinner. Hopefully I didn't get you in trouble. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. I'll probably go in there and I'll have to cook it. We'll see how that turns out. ⁓ Warm it up. All right. Thanks, George. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun. ⁓