Monday, February 13, 2012

Vegas Baby :)

But wait...I must digress...

So post Denmark

Playing with getting better tension on the back wall....I was falling into bad habits getting super tense and applying strength without getting actual movement....like shooting a recurve and pulling for all you're worth and anyone watching the clicker can tell you the arrow didn't budge a millimetre. Apparently you get that with triggers too :D

And had decided that the GTX cams have it and worked out I can't shoot indoors and outdoors with the same bow, so had to fly interstate to use a real bow press so I could pull all 3 bows apart and re-jig them to suit my evil design.

Started with 1 Contender  and 1 Contender Elite with GTX cams and 1 Contender Elite with Spiral cams.
Put 2012 limbs and GTX cams on the spiral cam CE
The old limbs from the spiral cam CE were swapped onto the contender along with the spiral cams.
Finished with 1 Contender with spirals and 2 Contender Elites with GTX cams all with the same draw weight and timed. Please note uber impressed with myself. Not every girl can operate a bow press, let alone swap out limbs and cams :D

Then had no time to do more than a rudimentary paper tune before the Aus day shoot. Draw length wasn't right and I think I was getting contact and generally shot like a retarded toaster.

Two days later I was on a plane to Vegas to shoot some arrows, lose some cash and see my guy. Thankfully my first GTX CE was already tuned in.

The Bass Pro shop in Las Vegas was huge! Spent a few days shooting there and catching sneaky practice at the World Indoor Champs practice venue where I was just a tourist for the week since my indoor performance at nationals was just nasty :D
Las Vegas is as one would expect, loud and bright and glitzy....did the requisite shopping and checking out the strip. Wasted money on the pokie machines and got thoroughly confused about who you tip and how much... Oh and had an emergency rush to the doctor in the middle of the night with some random tummy bug and got put on pain killers and antibiotics for the rest of the trip....the drug bottles here really do look like the ones House uses on tv :D

Decided on shooting the flights instead of championship this week since the purpose of my trip wasn't so much competition as a chance to get some shooting with my fella and work on a few things...and well Vegas is something every archer should see :)

First round (285) was a considerable disappointment with 4 8s after I hadn't dropped any all week in practice.....2nd round (292) I could barely draw the bow, the cramps in my draw arm were so bad. After much experimenting and shooting, my trigger is now lighter and I'm trying out the new platinums by Doinker. The 3rd round (294) the shooting was considerably improved and only the 8 I shot on the last end made for disappointment.... but baby steps. Won $105 and got to shoot in a relaxed environment with folk shooting at a similar level and just there to have fun :)

New form, new focus and the shooting is getting more consistent... I'm overall happy with the progress. Score we can work on as I get stronger and I'm told that that is the main problem now...but next year I'll shoot in the championship round...

Watching the men shoot in Championship flights is an exercise in human study. Everyone describes it the same...you can smell the fear. Guys who haven't dropped a point all season go out with a 9 in the first round. Watching down the line you can see shoulders slumping and heads bowing. Those still in are like men awaiting the axe to fall. And anyone of them will tell you how easy it is to clean a round right up until they get to Vegas.

So thumbs up for the biggest shoot in the world. I think we'll all be back next year. Apparently everyone thinks Australian accents are cute except Australians :D