A 3D Archery and Field Archery Self Assessment

If you desire to be among the best archers at tournaments, then you need to consider all of the factors which might affect your shooting. Some of these factors are very complex. There is a wide array of these factors, too and include mental state, physical state, motivation, social behavior, skillset, training methods, diet, and so on and so forth. The more archery has evolved the more factors that have been discovered that affect an archer's performance. Mental factors are now given much more emphasis emphasized than they were a couple of decades ago.

If you analyze these factors with care, you will discover that certain factors can make up for lack in other areas, while there are other factors that are stand-alone. A good example of the former is mental training, as it can make up for jitters. A lot of basic shooting practice can make up for a lack of technical training. If you study books and articles about archery and talk to experienced archers, then you will a lot of testing and experimenting.

When it comes to factors about yourself that are stand alone, consider your level of physical fitness. This will do you no good if your shooting technique is lousy. Technique cannot be made up for by fitness. Likewise, perfect depth perception will never improve your performance if you are strongly overbowed.

It is sad but true that many archers try to make up for their weak spots by further improving their best factors. You need to focus on improving your weaknesses while maintaining your strengths.

There is a checklist that you can use to assess yourself and find out which factors are you strong points and which are your weak points. What you want to ask yourself on your checklist concerns your: basic motivation; mental stability and focus; aspects of your social behavior; your set of skills; your judgment of distance; your physical strength and stamina; your precision practice; your general archery training and knowledge; how you prepare for contests; how you maintain your equipment and what equipment you use; and what are the special factors for field shooting and 3D shooting.

The idea of the self evaluation is to identify your weak points while at once serving as a checklist for your training. Needless to say, the first requirement if you desire to become a better archer is to uncover the problems. If you do not do this, then it is very difficult to know what you need to change or improve upon. Put each one of those headings on a piece of paper and then describe in full detail the answer that you think is correct.

When asking yourself about your archery performance level, you will want to get feedback from a fellow archer who knows you very well who can tell you if you are describing yourself accurately or not. Try to figure out who has given the more correct description if there are differences. Be sincere and honest with yourself or else the assessment will not be of much use and you'll just be fooling yourself.