Funny thing, breathing. I'd never thought about it with respect to archery until I caught myself "doing it wrong."
Circumstances had me miss a day this week, so I'd not shot for five days. Accuracy on my first quiver full was poor, so I hunkered down on the last arrow of that quiver with "accuracy" on my mind. That's when I caught myself breathing as if I were behind a rifle.
With rifles, I use about as much muscle power to keep from falling off the shooting bench as I do actually making the rifle do what I want it to. Not so with archery.
So there I was, there I was, at full draw, breathing like Simo Häyhä with a mouth full of snow.
"Hey, moron! You're holding fifty pounds apart with all these muscles that want oxygen! You've got more than one lobe in your lungs for a reason!"
or,
"Mr. Scott. More power."
I go-got the arrows from the first batch. At least I didn't miss the bag--that's always some kind of consolation. I have nightmares of being attacked by coffee sacks filled with shrink wrap. Terror--you don't know terror.
This second time I made sure my dilithium crystals were at full power. That feels much better. There's a weakness when you don't have enough fuel. With rifles it's different. I don't remember how I "always" shoot. I'm going to shoot differently.
Now, about archery bags. This is while actually breathing, so the bag has to be at least this deep against a plywood backstop. Sometimes >tunk< they go through a space in the shrink wrap and bump the wood. If I miss the bag the ply stops the arrow, but it's hella hassle to extract.
Big day for me, to learn about breathing.
CDFingers
Re: Breathing
2You've got to know your bellows.
Puffing up is no substitute for smarts but it's a common home remedy