The Neurology for Learning New Skills Post (Archery n. 5 Post but really it's mostly about Neurology)

Use the headings to read only the parts that interest you

This post is divided into a “boring” section first (to sift for the lazy readers) of how I am personally doing with my archery, which me and three AI bots care about, and later, the neurology related to learning a new physical skill, on which I actually have a LOT of understanding being as I did martial arts and various other sports and physical activities since childhood, and studied the human mind and neurology for fun, as well as have been a hypnotist that learned, trained and in some cases surpassed some of the teachers I had which are world-class hypnotists.

So… let us begin, the bolded headings allow you to scroll to whatever interests you most.

My Personal Archery Targets

Judging from the comments of a couple of people on my previous archery posts, my personal targets are apparently “ambitious” I would say. They are, for now, as follows:

• Reliably hit a human sized target at 50 metres - To me this means at least 70% hit rate when I concentrate. 80% would be better. I am not saying 95% because my understanding of the vagaries of archery is presently very limited. I don’t know what I don’t know.But for example with a very accurate rifle, if using standard ammo, you get the occasional flier anyway. Given the far larger tolerances for error in a bow, I am guessing 100% reliability is even less likely. Now, with my rifle, at 100, 200 or even 300 or 400 metres, I can pretty much get 100% hits on that sized target if using match ammo and concentrating. In fact, with a bit of training and no time limit on the shot, I can probably do a 90% hits out to 1000 metres. But with a bow, to my mind, 50 metres and human sized is reasonable. And I am getting that now with the wrong arrows, and being a complete newly about 1 in 10 times.

• Hit a human sized target 40-50% out to 100 metres. I think this will be quite a bit harder, involved wind etc a lot more and may be a very long term goal. If I get to 50% I’d be happy.

• Hit a 4” target at 20 metres maybe 40% of the time and a 6” target 60-70% of the time.

I am using a 60 lbs bow (actually measured at 57 lbs real draw weight) and my current arrows have rubber fletching which is not ideal for my relatively traditional recurve bow.

Yesterday I manage to get another 10 shots in at about 40 metres and the images below are the result.

Shot n. 4 remained in the tree trunk, and remains there now. I haven’t had time to dig it out yet., so subsequent shots were with 2 arrows.

Shot 8 was the one that came closest and my next two shots after that were done with the last arrow remaining as the one in the tree trunk needs to be chopped out, and the other one was stuck in the box and I didn’t want to move the target for now.

That’s how it was in the target at the back.

For size comparison.

The last two shots also went wide of the target.

Things I learnt about shooting the Bow (neurology related)

In order to be able to learn a skill quickly, you need to be aware of yourself, your body, and what happens in it while you attempt the things you are trying. It also helps if you have previously acquired similar or related skills, although any physical skill is to some degree transferable to other skills from a neurological or brain-map point of view.¹

So for me the short version of what I learnt was as follows:

1. Rubber fletchings (the little tails on the end of the arrow) definitely have an adverse effect on accuracy with a recurve (traditional, as some call it) bow. It also made me wonder how much better feather versions could possibly be, or even none of them at all. I mean, I figure there is a reason arrows have them on given the long history of the bow, but nothing new happens until a crazy guy tries crazy things, so, at some point I will probably fire arrows without any fletchings at all, and if I manage also ones with curved fletchings to try and impart rotation on the arrow, similar to a bullet. I have no idea if such things exist, as I have not googled any of it. I’m giving you my unvarnished thought process. A few of you more educated on neurology may benefit from seeing the apparent nonsensical ramblings of my mind when learning a new skill.

2. Arm protection matters. Even though it was not a bad sting, I did get one on the left arm when holding the bow in what is for me the most natural position and most comfortable. Ignoring that later made me flinch ever so-slightly prior to the shot and actually resulted in a shoulder injury (brought on by incorrect posture and an old recurring shoulder dislocation from my karate days).

3. My natural grip on the bow is loose. This is not new to me, as it’s the same kind of grip I have when firing revolvers, and why some semi-autos, like the Colt 1911 with a grip safety used to not fire well for me. Training to be able to shoot like a modern firearm user instead of an old style cowboy took time for me. And it’s the same with the bow. I pretty much don’t even hold it. I just use my thumb on one side and open hand on the other to form a fork against which I place the bow. The tension from pulling on the bowstring holds it in place. This “grip” is so loose that when the arrow nock left the string just before I released the arrow both bow and arrow fell at my feet. This happened twice and made me aware of two things:

   1. Finger sensitivity really matters for me (the gloves are fairly thin but I had not felt the arrow becoming dislodged by their pressure against it as I drew back).

   2. Trying to correct my grip by holding onto the bow more firmly is how I injured my shoulder. the combination of using different muscles, the slight deflection of the arm not to get “stung” by the bow string and the 60 lbs draw weight meant when I released the next arrow something went “click” in the wrong way. Later in the shower I “clicked” it back in place by using the wall to give my arm pressure at the right angle, but the muscle pain is all up into my neck and shoulder/arm too. No doubt my shoulder being dislocated some 25 years ago is still somehow affecting it, but I see this as a positive incentive to get overall healthier and fitter and re-start my pushup routine.

4. Holding the bow more firmly is a “conscious” learning process, versus my natural “looser” hold. I need to experiment more with both, but in general:

   1. Unless the instinctive way has some major draw-backs, and as long as initial results are decent, building on your own natural ability is usually the way to get proficient faster. however… there may be an earlier plateau. Not as often as you might think, but often enough it can make a difference. In other words, you sort of need to know enough about the “official” way of doing things before you can break the mould and improve on it by using your own natural way of doing things.

   2. Finding a balance here is not easy. Karate essentially made everyone do it one way and then if you reach a certain level of ability that way you can begin to mildly adapt it to your own way, but the general signature of the “mould” remains. Breaking out of it later can be almost impossible. Systema on the other hand, only gives general principles and lets you discover your own way. The effectiveness of this way if you persist enough in it is superior in all cases I am aware of, BUT the persistence is really required before this is true and it takes at least a year and more like two before you can reasonably expect to be there. Having been exposed to both ways, I think I will focus on my natural way of doing things and try and find a way to sense the nock of the arrow better, with or without gloves as the case may eventually be.

5. Overall, the finger/arm protection matters, since it can negatively impact the learning to shoot accurately. I suppose one of those mechanical trigger things would help here, but… as a principle of not just aesthetics (no one is watching me and I don’t care to go compete, or achieve any kind of fame or recognition for archery (or much else I do) but mental attitude for me, I will not use one at this stage. I want to get the sense of the bow as close to a natural/traditional way as I can. I am already “cheating” to my mind by using a bow that has a shelf for the arrow, instead of one where I have to use my hand as the shelf, but then… I am 56… I only have, oh, say another 50 years tops before I… well, being the Kurgan, disappear and take on a new persona, you see… heh. And I do want to achieve some regular target hits, so… I’ll use a recurve bow with an arrow shelf, but not a mechanical trigger.

6. There was a suggestion by a reader who is no doubt far more experienced than I am to use some markings on the inside of the bow to determine the height to hold the bow/arrow at when firing at the target at various distances. I think this falls into the very “conscious” part of learning the skill, but is a very good idea, because you need to be able to measure what you are doing and this also will generally help me get a natural feel for distance over time. I am fairly good at estimating distances on the fly with a handgun or rifle, including anticipating shots on moving targets, but a bow, despite the similarities with respect to distance is quite a different “animal”, and requires a different baseline calibration before it becomes second nature to me. This is not an unusual concept even for world-class shooters. I recently saw a video of a world class shotgun shooter in Finland, trying to shoot down drones and he missed his first one that was flaying fairly directly at him. He corrected and subsequent drones were all shot down, but I immediately realised why he had missed the first one. He was world-class trained on… clay pigeons. Clearly not a hunter by baseline training. And the speed and different movement of a drone initially threw him off. His very real and excellent skills meant he quickly adapted, but I think I could have done a better job than him on that first drone because I grew up firing up to 300 rounds a day at birds that ducked and weaved and bobbed near a pond with only very limited view that was open over the underbrush and forest near the pond. meaning quick, fast shots at targets that weaved and bobbed at very variable speeds. Anticipating movement shots with a shotgun is something I am very good at… when I don’t think about it. The minute I try really hard to do it well… is the moment I perform worse.

7. Mental approach intent remains the pivotal thing, always. The most important learning I had was that even my current shoulder injury is a good thing. it forces me to realise I need to keep up the other training if I want to be able to be competent at this new skill. The usual problem I have with injuries is learning to stay still long enough to let them heal properly and/or train appropriately for/with the injury. My body may be 56, but my mind still thinks I am in my 30s. Which is not a bad thing in itself, but it has the occasional down-side.

Conclusions related to neurology and calling my shot.

If you have enough experience of your own body and can particularise little bits of information as they happen, as I tried to explain in autistic detail above including relating the experience to other experiences for relational context, you can then become fairly good at estimating the effort/time/adjustments you need to make to reach a certain approximate level of competence.

At this stage I have fired exactly 31 shots. And I will try to keep an accurate count going forward, but presently I estimate that it will take only about 1,000 shots to achieve competence. It also depends if I can fire those at 50 shots a day for 20 days or 10 shots a day for 100 days to some extent, but my sense of it is that after 1,000 shots I should be able to hit a man-sized target at 50 metres at least 50% of the time, and hopefully a bit more. I will also give myself a little room for error by saying that the 1,000 shots should probably be counted only once I have the feathered arrows.

Those of you even mildly interested in this can then see how close or far I was from my estimation at a skill I started out with literally zero knowledge or ability.

If you are interested in this kind of post do leave a comment. I have noted the archery posts receive only about half-the readers already, so I know it’s not very interesting to most of you, but if any of you read the whole thing let me know. No point in boring you all if only a handful want to read about archery at all. I can always just write out other stuff.

1. If you don’t know what Brian maps are and/or want to learn a LOT more about martial arts skills and training correctly for any sport, you can get my Systema book on Amazon. It also includes access to 40 videos along with the book.