Instinctive shooting method-your way of taking the shot

[GrahameA]

Hi Troy.

Some years ago the Comics I used to read always had advertisements for Daisy BB guns and how you could use them to become proficient at "Point Shooting" as it was called.

Here is something to start you reading and spending a few useful hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_shooting

[Chase N. Nocks]

Come on Grahame, own up, you still read comics. I sure do. (Old ones I own, cannot afford new ones)

Yes an interesting read and something to play with when I get my air rifle. A mate of mine who is ex-SAS was scarily good at this type of shooting even when he was running. This was however after expending 10's of thousands of rounds, possibly even 100's of thousands of rounds in training.

The reason the Quick Kill method works is that the shooter learns to sight above the barrel, rather than along the barrel

now extending that quote to archery is easy...The reason the Instinctive method works is that the shooter learns to sight above the arrow, rather than along the arrow.

Learn is the operative word and even though I understand what is being stated about pointing your finger this is far more directly tied into our natural physiology than adding a tool to the mix. Also it must be appreciated that these tools (bows/firearms) by the very nature of their design are meant to be aimed from us to a target and therefore take advantage of those adapted motor skills.

[Chase N. Nocks]

Quote blocks = Dennis La Varenne from Instinctive shooting - an instinctive shooters perspective
placed here as a courtesy. I make no assumption as to Denis' desire to reply or continue a dialogue on this interesting topic central to the way many barebow and traditional archers play and view their sport.

Unhappily, this thread (Instinctive shooting - an instinctive shooter's perspective ) has turned into what I was hoping it wouldn't - one side accusing those who shoot instinctively that it doesn't exist and the instinctive shooters being made to justify their shooting method.

Dennis I find it interesting that you use a term such as "accusing" in the opening sentence of your last post. What I see more importantly is a dialogue to arrive at correct terminology. I have seen you pursue the grail of correct terminology with viger in discussions on Longbows.

You also say non-instinctive shooters are making instinctive shooters justify their shooting method. It seems to me that those non-instinctive shooters are not making anything but articulating their take on the shooting method that we all actually share. That is an important point....we are all doing basically the same thing. They are not asking for anything that they are not willing to provide themselves.

I was hoping for a thread where instinctive shooters themselves tried to explain just what it was that they do and how they did it so far as possible. I am not interested in whether disbelievers shoot their bows a different way. We all know that many people do, and we are not interested in converting or arguing them into our style of shooting.

Yes I am leaving your thread alone now. I will still view each new post as I am also interested in as you say "...try to explain just what it was that they do and how they did it.." I'm doing it to by the way. This is not an issue of style nor technique but of first principles that stand outside archery. Eating is an instinct, cooking is not. Mating is an instinct, the Karma Sutra is not. Kev gave an example of driving a car...one I was going to use but my internet keeps failing and it has taken me 5 hours to get together.

I have real difficulty in understanding why it is that non-instinctive shooters have so much trouble accepting those of us who understand what we do, how we do it and choose to call it instinctive shooting.
Are you implying here that I do not understand what I do? Yes it is a choice that you call it instinctive.

So what if there is some degree of learned response in the instinctive method of shooting. That is what allows us to use our instinctive abilities to shoot well without any conscious thought being given to the shot. Everybody has this innate ability, some are much better at it than others, and others are hopeless and MUST use some kind of sighting aid.

So it is learned. I will agree that we have an instinct to learn. We have an instinct for curiousity. I agree that there are varying degrees of ability. Also not all sights archers are necessarily hopeless at barebow but different standards do apply.

Those of us less apt can improve out shooting by practicing shooting without thought until we start hitting the mark regularly. It is no different to gap shooters or sight shooters. Some take to it very easily, others need to practise more. The difference is that sight/gap shooters do so much more deliberately throughout the shooting sequence.

Yes, exactly.

Instinctive shooters allow their unconscious brain to do the work for them and there is no deliberation about the shot and, remarkably so often, allows an instinctive shooter to take a shot successfully in a situation and under conditions never encountered before where sight/gap shooters are so often flabbergasted especially in uneven terrain.

There is deliberation. It is happening the moment the target becomes the focus of your attention and your fingers are on the string. It takes place quicker and with greater fluidity than the other techniques but I believe that a similar process is taking place there as well. It is just that the gap shooter is paying attention to the inner voice, your style (my style) is not. Unconscious does not equal instinctive. Flabbergasting shots as you have described , which we have all made, are simply as I stated previously about experience and prediction. Experience teaches us consequenciality.

Instinctive shooting is nothing less than shooting without any conscious thought being given to the shot - that is all. There is nothing mysterious about it.

And yet it keeps popping up as a mystery chiefly amongst the advocates.

I cannot understand why that is so difficult to grasp. If one's unconscious brain is doing all the work of target aquisition enabling one to hit the mark, then that is instinctive.

No, that's calculation.

.....We are all born with certain instinctive abilities, one of which is could be called 'target aquisition' for want of a better term - the ability to perceive an object and know how far away it is and how quickly it is moving. Practice refines that instinctive ability, but it is still inherently instinctive. We train our bodies to react more in tune with what our brains have already figured out, not the other way around.

Yes we have instincts but they are base and vulgar, as in unsophisticated and provide the the platform for sophisticated abilities and techniques to come into existence or be refined. When you speak of Instinctive you are speaking of a priori knowledge, the knowledge of hardwiring. and you keep using terms like learn and train and refine and have given examples of a practice regime that promoted a fluid and unconscious style.. it seems deliberately.

[Chase N. Nocks]

Dennis said Instinctive shooting - an instinctive shooters perspective

WE call it instinctive shooting as a technical term of traditional archery, NOT of science, irrespective of the degree of Pavlovian response involved. I reiterate -

What is being missed through all this is that INSTINCTIVE SHOOTING is a technical traditional archery term to describe a particular kind of shooting style which disregards all kinds of conscious judgement to perform the shot.

The 'instinctive' adjective is used by us in its traditional and historical manner to mean that which is done without conscious deliberation and out of seemingly natural inclinations as opposed to the latter day SCIENTIFIC reduction of the term to mean quite precise and specific physiological/bio-mechanical responses.

We are not trying to be scientific except in our methods of studying what we do. Nor are the terms applied to any particular form of bow as you example in your post above derived from any particular field of science either. THEY ARE TECHNICAL ARCHERY TERMS - our terms - devised by archers to describe our equipment according to archery standards, not the standards of any discipline of the formal fields of scientific study. The terms are descriptors not applicable outside of archery.

Any scientist worth their salt undertaking an examination of archery using scientific method would begin with OUR terms and definitions, not those from the fields of physics of biology when examining what we do.

Sure any scientist would begin there and I'm pretty sure would initially find the term confusing and misleading. It would require qualification within the parameters of Archery and be seen as a quaint, bemusing and misused term.

I think the scientist is likely to add a footnote to say that "hence the use of the word is quite peculiar but it has little consequence for the world in general and archery in particular if the word is used with complete inaccuracy. Practiced Automatic Prediction would however accomodate the techniques constantly described" ergo we are able to say that Instinctive Method = so much PAP."

The other thing is though, that it is not just used in this special way is it...just a idiosyncratic descriptive label. You and others have suggested that instinctive is very real in the "Instinctive Shooting Method" and the mystery of it is consistantly mentioned. That what you do is INSTINCTIVE.

Changing the value of the term at this point is merely clouding the issue rather than contributing to the clarity. Unless you are now saying that instinctive IS just a lable that everyone likes and agrees upon but it is by definition of what we understand the word to mean..inaccurate.

[Chase N. Nocks]

Does anyone know how the term instinctive shooting or instinctive method came about and where it started??

Where it earliest use and earliest common use came about?

[Chase N. Nocks]

When you say that "We are not trying to be scientific except in our methods of studying what we do" isn't science about the methodology and accumulation of knowledge? And the complimentary and contradictory have equal place...one is largely defined by the other. If you are using scientific method...you are doing science.

So excluding the observations of equally talented, enthusiastic and genuine archers seems to fly in the face of scientic methodology and correct me if I am wrong but doesn't science dislike "special terms".

[Chase N. Nocks]

I wasnt going to make further comment on what was hoped was only a philosophical debate on what constituted 'instinctive archery' but have to weaken and just say I totally agree, Dennis. If you shoot instinctive you know what it is you do, and as Fred Bear would have said .Nock an arrow, bore a hole in the 'target' and let it go.

Funny thing though bigbob is that when my mates and I are simply being quip and mysterious we would say exactly the same thing as Fred. And in fact that is the way we generally shoot BUT none of us call it instinctive and mean it to be instinctive. And we know what we do. Was Fred Bear making a reference to Instinctive Shooting? I am asking genuinely as I would like to know.

Here is another interesting passage from "Straight Shooting" John Shultz

"What's your arrow doing at 30 yards"

"I don't know what do you mean?"

"If you don't know what your arrow is doing, you can't ever expect to be accurate," was Howard's response. What he meant was, where is your arrow in your sight picture or what is your arrows trajectory? Most shooters I've talked to are vague even about their, "point on." ........

I say this because I think Howard fits the "Nock an arrow, bore a hole in the 'target' and let it go" the description but was an acknowledged gap/split vision shooter..very fluid, very fast, very accurate.

Howard also thought (was quoted) that "The slower bow will be easier to shoot" if you are watching your arrows I would agree with this otherwise I think arrow speed makes no difference it is all about LEARNING your tackle.

[GrahameA]

Hi Troy.

... INSTINCTIVE SHOOTING is a technical traditional archery term to describe a particular kind of shooting style which disregards all kinds of conscious judgement to perform the shot.

It would appear that not everyone agrees with that definition.

There are two main forms of aiming in archery: using a mechanical sight or not (instinctive). ...

Instinctive shooting is a term used for a bow without any form of mechanical sight attached. Others use it to mean shooting without a sight picture.[20]
Bear, Fred (1980), The Archer's Bible, Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday, pp. 36–43
ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archery#Aiming_methods

I would not be on good ground arguing with Fred - and he just says no sight. So gap, point of aim or string walking would all be okay.

[Chase N. Nocks]

Hi Troy.

... INSTINCTIVE SHOOTING is a technical traditional archery term to describe a particular kind of shooting style which disregards all kinds of conscious judgement to perform the shot.

It would appear that not everyone agrees with that definition.

There are two main forms of aiming in archery: using a mechanical sight or not (instinctive). ...

Instinctive shooting is a term used for a bow without any form of mechanical sight attached. Others use it to mean shooting without a sight picture.[20]
Bear, Fred (1980), The Archer's Bible, Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday, pp. 36–43
ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archery#Aiming_methods

I would not be on good ground arguing with Fred - and he just says no sight. So gap, point of aim or string walking would all be okay.

Exactly. And this was a point I made in my hypotheticals topic. If one is instinctive then they are all instinctive as long as no sighting aid or range finding device is used. My opinion is that that none of them are instinctive.

I think you would be on pretty good ground Grahame talking to Fred about many aspects of archery, even about some that he may not have tried. So Fred has no greater qualification to offer an opinion than any other competent archer who pays attention to what they do. For all I know Fred hit upon the technique that worked for him 2 weeks after picking up a bow and followed that successful style for the next 60 years without questioning it.I would certainly listen to anything he has to say about archery. But based on that sentence he was using it very broadly indeed.

[GrahameA]

Hi Troy.

IMHO "The Archer's Bible" is an interesting read - and even a better read for people first starting out in Archery and Trad, the author is very Catholic in his approach to Archery. (A bit like myself.)

Here is another quote to ponder over, "... it is my belief that learning to shoot with a bowsight is the best way, even though one may be interested in hunting only. Shooting with a sight will reveal bad form more quickly than shooting without it." The Archers Bible, 1968, Doubleday and Co, New York, p39. (Yes that is an old copy.)

[Stephen Georgiou]

Good quote Graham.
Going back to a recurve, I started using a sight as a tuning aid. I found that if the bow shoots straight and consistent with a sight, the job of shooting barebow becomes a whole lot easier.
Cheers

[Chase N. Nocks]

Yes that is a very good quote and I agree with it completely. Something Stephen seems to have discovered by himself ... well done.

Stephen do you naturally shoot with the bow upright as you would need to to make the pin work or do you go back to canting the bow when you are satisfied with your anchor, release and bow arm?

[Stephen Georgiou]

When shooting with the sights I have the bow as vertically aligned as possible.
The sight will tell you very quickly if the arrows are under or over spined.
The problem with shooting barebow is that you will compensate for a poorly tuned setup as your subconscious is looking for a positive result. The positive result may mean that the bow is either left or right of the target. If this is the case you will get use to it and the errors will be greater, causing frustration. If the bow and arrows are tuned properly you will have a smaller amount of errors as you are not having to compensate for your gear.

Cheers

[GrahameA]

Perry, Stephen and Len.

And I have been saying that sub conscious is a better term. Sub Conscious will never catch on, it removes implied mystery and Romance from it all.

I decided to post this over on this thread as opposed to the other.

If we talk about Competence (i.e the capability to perform to a specified level under a set of specified conditions) there are 4 generally accepted stages. (By generally accepted I mean agreed to in principle by the majority of people who are involved with such to some level.)

• Unconscious Incompetence - You don't know what you don't know. As a result you have know desire to change.
  
  Conscious Incompetence - You "know" that you are unable to reach the standard. (But you may not know why.)
  
  Conscious Competence - You can meet the required standard, if you consciously think about use the "tools" or "aids", etc.
  
  Unconscious Competence - You can meet the standard without needing to consciously think about it or concentrate on it , it has become "second nature", some may save instinctive which it is not.

Before everyone jumps to reply consider the Dunning-Kruger Effect - and to save me a bit of time someone has written an introductory piece on Wikipedia:

Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

[Chase N. Nocks]

Grahame, I like this table of competence stages and development, it is a very good way of putting it.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is an excellent read and one I have linked to quite a few friends. It is quite easy to read and quite funny in a lot of places...less so if you happen to have to work with too many of the more delusional characters mentioned in the paper.

[GrahameA]

Hi Troy.

Grahame, I like this table of competence stages and development, it is a very good way of putting it.

Just note that it is not a set of discrete steps but rather a continuum.

[Chase N. Nocks]

Hi Troy.

Grahame, I like this table of competence stages and development, it is a very good way of putting it.

Just note that it is not a set of discrete steps but rather a continuum.

Yes quite right. I should have said that one does not necessarily follow from the other, some will never break free from the first condition without a external authoritive or respected force.

The last two conditions are the ones many of us would be familiar with particularly as barebow shooters.

BTW I found my old copy of Fred Bear's "The Archers Bible" after you mentioned it the other night...I had to chuckle. I paid $4.95 for it new and that was back in the days when archery books were never cheap.

I also have a copy of Bob Doring's "Hunting and Field Archery" magazine that came out about 30 odd years ago.