Scatter

The novice scores from Aberystwyth’s nationals have shocked us all. That’s their novices? Even our best and most experience archers are haunted by it.
–‘They must have had prior training,’ Brea declared last night. She is probably right, but if Aberystwyth’s novices are that good, prior training or not, we don’t stand a chance when it comes to facing them, in one month’s time.

What’s new?

But gosh darn, I want to beat them, even if it is just once.

My own score doesn’t look very good either. I’m proud that I got a score to get to nationals, and I can add another badge to my strip. I can say I did it, and did it in my pyjamas at that, but with Aberystwyth as good as they are a score like that is not going to be enough.

I have to double it, as a minimum.

I know the technique, and I know I can get excellent scores, especially after yesterday’s 10-9-8 stunner end. I just to need to make sure I’m getting scores like that consistently.

I decide to go back to basics- Start with my aim. I’ve got to be making sure the majority of my arrows are gathering around the middle, no matter the overall score. That has to help. Trouble is, nobody has ever taught me how to aim properly. I asked eighteen months ago but the answer was a noncommittal shrug. So, for the most part I’ve been aiming at the target, roughly in the centre, and hoping. It doesn’t seem to be working out.

I decide to solve this problem by means of scatter patterns. I pick a spot on the target, the bottom right in this first case, and I shoot a whole round aiming only at that spot. I look for the centre of the scatter pattern, created by the arrows, and I adjust my aim accordingly. And repeat until the centre of my scatter is the centre of the target.

The score doesn’t matter for now. It’s about getting those arrows into the right place before Rhyddian is let loose.

End of the round. Besides some strays that have gone way left, there’s a visible grouping hovering around the land of the blues, on the right of the centre.  The majority of my shots have landed on the right of the target. That’s good to know. It means, for my next round, I don’t have to move too far. Just to the left a smidge.

I realise, however, that this is only going to be the start of an incredibly long month. There’s still the matter of the third arrow problem to be resolved.