RE: Gap shooting
Gap shooting is simply learning how to focus on the exact center of what you want to hit while being aware of the tip of your arrow in your peripheral vision. Then you learn how low or high to hold that arrow tip in relation to the target's distance in order for the arrow to hit where you're looking.
A drill that can help you learn this technique is to focus on a spot on the wall across the room and point your finger at it. Now, keep your full concentration on that spot but, using your peripheral vision,point your finger at other things on the wall. A spot of light. A picture. A corner of a window. Point at the smallest thing you can see while still concentrating on that original spot. Never let your eye wander from it! If you've got fairly normal vision, you should be able to get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Then move outside and do the same thing. Always point at the smallest thing you can see while never allowing your concentration to wander off your original spot. Then, when you're shooting your bow, it's just a matter of pointing with the arrow instead of your finger.
Withexperience, you'll start automatically putting the tip of the arrow where it needs to be for various distances. You'll pay less and less attention to the arrow and more and more attention to the target. At that point you've become an 'instinctive' shooter. For a great many folks, they work themselves into being a good instinctive shotwithout nearly so much time, and trial and error, as it takes someone who's started out instinctive. Of course, for a great many others, it works the other way around. You'll never know which group you're in until you try.
If you can master gap then, IMO, you're ahead of the game. You've got an advantage. When you change to a different bow you can revert to shooting gap until you figure out what's what and then you're off to the races again as an instinctive shooter. A pureinstinctive shooter, who has no aiming references at all, has to go through the entire trial and error process all over again until he gets used to the different bow.
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