Part 3 Presence and Consciousness Adrenaline is Energy
I continued from part 2 where I discussed mainly poor shooting habits. This time I’d like to dive more into the scenario where things went not as planned first told in an earlier blog.
“To fully understand I go to the opposite experience. You are standing at the line ready to shoot either 3D competition or indoor target competition. Your heart is racing – not completely out of the ordinary – and you feel this pressure of making the shot. Then your mind goes to how you will feel when you miss the mark you are hoping to hit. Your mind goes to the feelings you have when you miss your mark of disappointment and maybe even have someone there to jokingly tease you a bit about the miss. You take personally. All these thoughts happen before you actually shoot. Then you draw back, aim and cannot completely settle before releasing a rushed shot. It feels forced. The outcome is exactly your vision / your feelings prior to the shot.”
There are yet two more parts of this scenario I’d like to explore.
1st Overcoming your heart is racing – I have a few things more conventional thoughts that I do think will help this situation. They go along the lines of practice/experience and fitness of all things.
2nd overcoming the negative visualizations will also help with this.
2nd the visualizations and even feelings your mindsets forth of the how the shot fails you before you even shoot.
Overcoming your heart racing!
I will not go into deep depth into why I think these things help with your heart racing because there is so much information out there you can explore on your own. From my own experiences, I feel this helps and are easy more mechanical things you can do to prepare for these adrenaline rush situations. Practice – not a surprise. Put the time into good practice and train your body to perform almost without thinking. This will give you confidence in your shot and helps when your heart is racing. This goes along with experience. Go to lesser competition-style 3D shoots and work yourself up to more intense type competitions. With more experiences, you will develop this confidence to get through the situation. You have been there before, you know what to expect.
I believe fitness also plays a role in overcoming a racing heart. Not necessarily from the point of you know how to work hard and push through, but simply the fact that you have pushed your heart rate up and know how to bring it down when not physically exerting yourself. My own experience – I know when I come out of a hard sprint my heart is looking to explode from my chest. It feels good. At the same time realizing this is happening, with a few deep breaths I can bring it back down quickly. Mindfully practicing this when you work out may help you when you have that adrenaline heart-racing experience. This is leading into #2.
Overcoming the negative visualizations/feelings
Now is there a way to use the adrenaline in your favor? The visualization and more importantly the feelings your mind is having may be a result of what has happened in the past or just the fact that you are in a new situation and you do not know what to expect. Both are feelings you have most likely experienced in the past and I know when I don’t know what to expect, my anxieties kick in. Fear of the unknown. Which seems extreme right? My body goes into fight or flight because I am not sure how a simple bow shot is going to turn out.
It’s a bit more than that, but if you can break it down once you realize you are in this nervous, heart racing moment…you can then work through it.
Adrenaline is energy! If you learn to harness it, it may do you wonders. Once you realize adrenaline is there and can be used as positive energy, you can now train your mind and body to use it. In Fight or flight mode we normally have to react just like that – fight or flight. This is not always a good feeling and is very much automatic or instinct! Becoming conscious and eventually becoming present in the situation allows you to start to harness this energy. This switch or knowing has to be learned, but once you know this is happening you can begin to work with it. It goes back to putting yourself in similar situations. Not necessarily just in archery but other adrenaline producing situations. Even better if you can put yourself in an adrenaline situation that ends positively – maybe like a roller coaster ride. Be present to your body’s responses during the entire ride. The nervousness as you climb a steep incline, even though you know what event is about to happen, this seems to always be the unknown, especially on the first ride. Your adrenaline is starting to pour out. Then you go down and you get a huge rush of adrenaline. Feel what it does to your body and mind. THEN, as you come to a safe resting place, notice how your body reacts as the “danger or adventure” has gone away. Take notice of the feelings you have had. Maybe excitement and even laughing (which is one of releasing some of the nervous energy as you have the adrenaline spike.) Many times you want to go back a do more rides and I think there is something more in the adrenaline cycle that your body is drawn to (this can be another blog post).
So how can we apply the Roller Coaster adrenaline to Archery
This works for me. Knowing adrenaline is energy and any moment I get it, I know I can use it positively. (If it is a situation that is clearly not fighting or flight). In this case, my first use of energy is to focus. It doesn’t seem easy, but breathing and maybe joking with the people around you may help you use up a little of the nervous energy. Focus on the small things like the target and the spot you will hit. Visualize hitting that spot. Sometimes this alone will calm everything but in the beginning, this will not be the case. Then use the energy you have to think of the feeling you will have when you hit the spot you picked. Really see yourself hitting the spot and the feelings surrounded by this not just the feelings of happiness and bragging ability once you win, but maybe the feeling of accomplishment, overcoming a challenge you have been working on, thankfulness for the work you put in or as simple as gratitude for the ability to be here participating is such an awesome event… These feelings should help your focus even more on the tasks you need to do. Then get after it with intense focus because you now know what you are going after. Not much else really matters at that point.
This takes practice. It allows you to experience something before you actually experience it. It’s a way to harness this crazy amount of what seems to be “unlimited” amounts of energy. Until now when I actually put this all into words, I did not realize this is one thing archery has been teaching me. Grateful to have this sport to learn more about myself. NOW, this can be applied to bowhunting, Right?
