Shooting
technique

In this section I describe the actual bow shooting in technical terms; how to take a steady stance (standing position), how to draw the bow efficiently, how to make a good anchor, how to aim to the ten, how to perform a good release and what happens after the shot.

Generally about shooting with a bow.

The shooting with a bow consists of an unbreakable chain of different operational acts which are executed million and again million times the same way. You could say a bit jokingly that it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you do it always the same way. There is no exact rules perform a good shot, but the practise has formed a certain way to do it.  If you look at the archers you'll notice slight variations in their performances, by in a wider term they all shoot the same.
      I will teach you a basic performance which is easy to control and execute. After a while you most certainly will adopt your own personal style doing your archery.

If you are left handed, you do everything as a mirror image as you most probably have learned in everything else too.

A steady stance (standing position) is the cornerstone of your future success.

The stance

Be wear of how you stand on the shooting line. Your feet should be firmly on the ground, your body weight should be spread out evenly on your both feet and you should also control your feet alignment in relation to the target (target is called also as buttress or but).
      There are two basic stances; square stance and open stance, but I teach you here only the square stance, because it is easier to execute and repeat in this early stage. Take a convenient position on the line so that your feet are a bit spread apart from each other. You should also be standing 90 degrees to the target (archer A). Don't spread your feet to much (about 40 centimetres in between is ok), because it will tire your feet and especially your knees fast. 
      Stand straight and firmly.  Your feet should be parallel to each other and not like Chaplin kept his feet spread-eagled. Don't lock your knees back, let them be relaxed!
 
In archery, unlike many other shooting sports the archer must stand on the shooting line so that his feet are on both sides of the line. 

Check again your stance. How does it feel? Unsteady or not?  If not, you have learned the first important thing in archery - standing conveniently.
Lean now with your upper body a bit towards your toes, so that you are still able to fight the sudden wind blows but your heels are still touching the ground. Stand up straight as you can like the top of your head were reaching up for the skies. Balance now your elbows so that they both are on the same level. Like in the letter T. Relax both your neck and shoulders (don't try to hide your head between the shoulders by lifting them up) and keep the shoulders down all the time. Check that you are standing still in 90 degrees to the target and look your face turned straight to the ten ring! Make sure that your chin bone is horizontally lined. Before lifting the bow up take a couple deep breaths, so there is enough oxygen in your lungs and vessels for the next step.

Most of the archers stand in a slight angled standing position (about 45 degrees to target, like the archer B). It is called the open stance. This leaves the string a bit more space to pass your inner arm and helps you to get the draw more to your back muscles. You can try it too, but I recommend that you stick to the stance for time being. It is so much easier to perform and control. If you however try the open stance, make sure that you have the same angle between your shots and ends.

Finding a good grip and lifting up the bow for the shot.

The grip

Place your arrow now on the arrow rest and secure the nock between the nocking points. You must listen that the string really goes properly all the way down the slot. Nock! Remember that the cock feather (wane) is pointing out from the riser.
     Lift now slowly the bow arm up (over the horizontal level) so that when you start drawing the string your bow arm will gradually lower down to the horizontal level. Make sure that your elbow joint is not totally locked and pointing backwards not downwards! Now try to relax all the unused muscles in your arms.

Your bow weights only a couple of kilos so don't get panicked about its weight. You can hold it up for a while! Now grib the string with your index, middle and ring fingers so that the string goes behind the first joints and the arrow is between the index and middle fingers. On other words, one finger above and two fingers underneath the arrow. Start now determinedly to draw the string towards your chin so that eventually the drawing hand anchors itself underneath the chin and the string touches just in the middle of your chin bone. Do the draw in one go. Don't stop anywhere!

When we played indians as kids in the yard, we gripped the arrow with our fingers not the string. A real archer doesn't touch the arrow, only the string! The string should go behind the first joints of your fingers. You don't need your thump or little finger at all, just bend the thump inside your palm and keep the little finger out of the string!

The lifting up your bow

Rise the draw hand's elbow high as you can before beginning the draw, so that it won't fall underneath the imaginary arrow line when anchoring. If you let your elbow hang, it will course your arrow a sudden jump up from the arrow rest before the shot and in the skies it goes!

The draw

Do the draw along your bow arm with your abdominal muscles (upper back muscles) and not with your arm muscles! Do the draw as economically as you can, no detours, no stopping, just straight towards your chin! Hold the wrist relaxed, straight and uprights (all three fingers are on the same vertical line). To draw a 20 pounds bow to its full draw doesn't take more of your muscle power than lifting a 10 litre water bucket up to a height of 70 centimetres. 

Remember that your elbow is holding up above the arrow line all the time. Don't start aiming yet!
(see also anchoring below)

Grip the bow gently, don't squeeze it, don't twist it.

Your bow arm should be straight but relaxed and your hand should be straight and evenly on the bow grip. To find the right palm position needs a bit of practising. The pressure should be in the middle of your palm. You can try to find a convenient hold of your bow at home with your riser unstringed. If the plastic or wooden grip doesn't suit your hand, try an other. There are several different height of grips available.

Don't squeeze or twist the grip. The bow will keep in your hand without you clutching it with your knuckles white. 

Your bow hasn't got two aiming points. The proper anchoring acts as the rear sight so learn it carefully.

The anchoring

Obviously you have tried to shoot with an air riffle sometimes. There are two aiming points to help you to shoot the ten in a air riffle. One in the front of the muzzle and one at the rear end. On a recurwe bow there is allowed only one sight point. The sight pin acts like the front sight of the riffle and the anchoring acts like the rare sight. Therefore it is perhaps the most important thing to learn properly in archery!
    A moment ago you started drawing the string towards your chin. Go on drawing as long as your hand slides underneath your chin bone and you feel the string touching you just in the middle on it. You should now feel also the upper side of your draw hand touching firmly the chin bone with a real bone to bone manner. 

If your draw hand tends to lift up from underneath your chin you will hit with your arrow low.
If it loosens up from the chin downwards your chest, you will hit high! If the draw hand isn't far enough underneath your chin, you will again hit low. If you draw furiously too far back, the limbs are bending more and you hit high.

You are now near the point of starting your aim. But before doing that, you should still make your nose tip touch the string too! It is important because it is the only guarantee that  your head and eyes are always in the same angle in your aiming.

Practise your anchoring intensively. It is very essential part of your future scoring. You can practice the anchoring everywhere without the bow. A mirror would help you a lot in your anchoring practice.

If you are trying to do the anchoring with your bow and without the arrow, do remember not to release it! The excessive power might break the limbs! If you are doing it home by the mirror with an arrow, don't for heavens shake release it!

Only after the anchoring you can start your aiming!

Aiming seems to be a simple procedure, but yet there are more than a few things to learn. Don't start finding the ten before the anchoring is completed and you have controlled the vertical alignment of the bow too! The bow might feel heavy, and you would like to do the release quickly,  but hold your horses for a second more!

Vertical string alignment

Just before starting your aiming check couple of more things at the same glance. Firstly that you see the hazy string line in the same spot on the bow every time! Secondly that the string seems to be vertically straight (you are not tilting the bow)! Even if this takes an additional fraction of a second you have to do these. The correct string lining is also a very important thing for your scoring.

Concentrate now on aiming! 

There are two ways of viewing the sight. In the first one you see the sight a bit fuzzy, but the target clear and precise. On the next one is you see the sight ring and pin clearly but the target fuzzy. You can choose either one suits you best, but do remember that you shouldn't be doing them both! You are not allowed to be chancing your focus point back and forth whilst you are aiming!

Most of the right handed archers have also the right eye as the dominant eye, so you aim naturally with it. There are some archers however who try to aim with the ruling left eye and that must be prevented by an eye blinder. It is simply impossiple to aim with left eye, if you are shooting right handed. 
      You shouldn't close your left eye, the leading right eye will do the aiming naturally without you closing the other! Now it has nearly come the moment of release!

Don't try to force the sight pin to stay steady on the ten ring! Nobody can! The sight pin will move around the ten a bit. The important thing to do is to make the release just when the pin is there! Actually your subconscious mind will eventually learn to do the release exactly in the right spot and moment for you after a little bit of practising first.

How to do a smooth release? There is no trigger on my bow!

Before the release

The three right hand fingers are correctly wrapped around the string, the arrow is fixed in the middle of the index and fore fingers, the sight pin is reaching for the ten ring, and the anchoring feels great. Everything is ready for the launch. What are you supposed to do now?
      Imagine that instead of the bow you are stretching a rubber band between your hands. I come from the behind of your back with a pair of scissors in my hand and without you noticing I just suddenly cut the band! What happens? Your bow hand begins to move front ways towards the target and the draw hand continues its way backwards passing your throat! That should happen with your bow too. Since you didn't squeeze your bow it will push also towards the target. Don't worry you have a bow sling around your wrist or a finger sling which keeps the bow attached to your hand during the release!

Active and relaxed release

Imagine again that your are lifting an old-fashioned metal bucket filled with water up from the ground. In the wire handle there is a wooden button which rolls trough your fingers and you suddenly drop the bucket. There is your relaxed and active release!
      When you are able to do the release so that your fingers just roll loose around the string and the draw hand moves back passing your throat, you have accomplished a shot which end in a ten! Practise the release on a short distance, practise again and again until you reach a position that you didn't notice that you executed a release anymore!

The draw hand must carry on its way backwards at the release. If it goes forwards with the string and arrow before the release, it means that the limbs bend less and you will get your hit low!

Remember the follow trough too!

Pull's eye! Not quite yet! There is still couple of more things to look after. What if your sight ring wasn't on the ten. Logical the arrow hits where the pin was pointing at! Secondly if your are too eager to look where it hits, you have to immediately after the release move the bow away from your eyes to see better. You were that quick that the arrow wasn't loosened from the string yet (your fingers though were) and now by moving your bow you are also moving the arrow from its right flight passage. Sorry no pull' s eyes!
      Human being is very fast in his movements.
Calm down and hold your bow hand steady on its right position during the whole release stage until you hear the arrow hitting the target. Only then check is it a ten or nine!

Practice a lot of your follow trough. Keep the bow hand up and don't look after your arrow!

Don't be greedy for a too long shooting distance at the beginning. 15 meters is enough! It is much nicer to know that your arrows really hit the target at your first practice sessions.

Even if the bow feels heavy keep your stance and posture.

Before beginning your draw make sure that your stance and posture is ok. Now when you are doing your anchoring you should still hold your posture straight. Don't collapse, don't lean forward or backwards, don't lean sideways off the target. Many archers think that they get more draw power by leaning sideways, these all are common mistakes. 
Try to keep all your working muscles as relaxed as possible! If you tighten everything up, you will get only stiff and unsteady releases. 

Don't ever release a bow without the arrow
Without the slowing down weight of the arrow the limbs hit too hard and may break them!

The clicker (the draw length indicator) is an aiding device on your bow which helps you to know when you have reached your full draw length!
      Place your arrow underneath the clicker plate on the arrow rest. Now try to pull the string back so far that the arrow point passes the clicker. The clicker gives an audible clicking sound against the riser.
when you hear the click it is all set for go! 

Remember that the clicker is just an aid, not your master's voice! You should still be in control, not the clicker. 


In the start you don't need the clicker. It is vicer to shoot without it until your arrows are cut in your exact measure. 

A good shot never consists of loose components.
You should do the whole thing well and in one go. 
The top level archers know the whole thing. They have practised all the essential parts first step by step and then put them together forming an excellent completion.

Do your performance as simply as you can.
Don't ad anything on it and don't forget anything either!

Keep your bow hand up after the release. The shot isn't over yet, even if you have loosen your fingers of the string. Don't look after your arrow!

Your performance isn't over yet! You have loosen your fingers from the string, but the arrow is still fixed to the string and being pushed towards the point where it is starting the free flight.  
    If you start now looking where the hit will be you are bound to quickly remove the riser from your field of vision. You are actually the same go twitching the arrow on the string and it won't hit the ten!
      Let the arrow leave properly from the bow before chancing anything on your stance. It is safest to hear the arrow hitting the target before watching any scoring.
      This is called the follow trough, which you can even over exaggerate to be really on the safe side. Practise to do good follow troughs. It is always worth the job!

It is a common mistake among archers to look after the arrow. What is dull about it, it tends to get worst with time. Keep your bow up during the whole shooting performance and don't look after the arrow!

Practice a lot and with goals. Think carefully in advance what you are doing today and learn to recognise your mistakes.

You won't learn archery over night! reserve a lot of time for your practice sessions. don't ever shoot without knowing your goal. set clear objectives for your practice and remember to learn in each sessions something new. Today I am trying to improve my _____ (stance, draw, anchoring, aim, release, follow trough...).
       Remember to keep your shooting diary always up dated too.

Tell your home folks that you are going for archery as real and that the learning takes time. Take them down to the field to see what's your new hobby all about, thus they will understand better your spending a lot of time on the archery field.