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Kyudo: Little changes, big results.

Today was a good day at practice. A very good day.

I had mentioned previously that one piece of advice I had received was that I was making too many corrections. I got to start addressing that in practice this evening and something weird happened. Actually, two things.

First, I don't feel like I've fired more than 1 or 2 arrows despite firing more arrows tonight than I do in a normal practice.

And second, I was actually able to find time to think about and apply feedback.


That first point is unexpected. I just kept practicing and firing more arrows and never seemed to get tired. The best I can guess is that the act of making all of those little adjustments was causing me to tense up far more than normal and that the corrections themselves may have been doing even more damage to my form than I had thought possible and thus increasing the wear and tear on my body. 

Honestly though, I think it is the lack of tension.

I wasn't able to completely stop myself from making adjustments, and there were some movements that I'm not sure if they even were adjustments. But the easiest places to stop adjusting were also the places where it takes the most effort to make them in first place. Hence why I'm thinking it may just be that I was physically stressing my body.

That bit all remains speculation though. Tonight is just one night. A single data point. So we will need to see if the trend continues. Though I will add, I also did my exercises with the bow last night as I assumed that I wouldn't be able to practice tonight. I usually skip it for a day or two before practices as I've found that the exercises exacerbated those problems during practice. So, I'm cautiously optimistic.


Onto the second point. One thing I've struggled with is applying feedback. In the beginning the problem was more that I didn't understand the feedback. The more I practice, the more the terminology and application thereof has become a lot easier to digest. And just as I started understanding, I started realizing that I really suck at applying it. Even when I understand it. 

I'll start shooting. I'll plan to implement the feedback. And when I get to that point I'm absorbed in focusing on something else. I glaze right over it. And it takes ages to get anything into my head.

Much like the physical side of things, I didn't realize how much mental effort I was putting into those corrections. Once I started committing myself to a course of action and suppressing the urge to adjust, I found a lot "breathing room" in my head.

The advice I got today was to push the YUNDE "along the arrow" from DAISAN into KAI. It isn't the first time I'd heard this advice. And I more or less understand what this means and why not doing it was leading to my arrow dropping down. 
But it was the first time I was present enough in the moment to apply it. I was also present enough in the moment to notice how different the draw looked in my periphery. 


It was a whole different experience tonight. I was able to stop and reflect. I planned out the things I wanted to work on and tracked how I felt things were going and I was able to stick to it and even incorporate this additional piece of advice about my draw.

I'm not going to pretend that I transformed into a beautiful Kyudo butterfly in one class. But I am at a point where gains come slowly and tangible gains are almost non-existent. Kyudo is one of those things where you tend to plateau quickly. I have no doubts I'll hit a plateau again shortly. Likely after growing nowhere near as much as I'd like. Thankfully, that eternal struggle is a part of the reason I chose this path.
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