I screwed up my shoulder in January; I tore something in my rotator cuff. I haven't been able to shoot my bow for over three months. It has been feeling better so I started back two weeks ago.
I turned down my bow to 53 pounds and, because I am out of shape, I have started back on form first.
Grip arm: I have noticed a few things, pain is a great indicator of bad form! The bad shoulder is my target shoulder, or the shoulder of my grip arm. I have noticed that when I engage the muscles in that shoulder (ie, when my form is bad) I get a slight twinge of pain. From my grip hand, to my elbow, to my shoulder MUST be in alignment with bone on bone contact or I get the pain. It is paramount that I keep my shoulder low and locked to the bone.
Lesson: Maintain the wedge. If you don't know what I'm talking about you should watch this video
. For me,the wedge starts with my stance. For me my left foot is slightly ahead of my right foot (right handed archer, left foot is toward target) by about a toe's length. If I stand perfectly square my release arm elbow is pointed slightly away from my body and this opens the wedge slightly. This causes me to involve my deltiod and bicep muscles of my grip arm which causes the pain AND makes a rock solid hold impossible.
Using ONLY the rhomboid muscles (the big muscles in the back) I have no pain and I can hold on target rock solid.
Stance: A good stance is the foundation to good form. I have seen very good shooters who have all manner of stances: from open, to square, to over stepped (like me). Albeit, they are VERY minor differences and in all cases the feet are square to the target! this is important for two reasons.
Reason one: If one foot is pointed in or out this causes us to use leg, hip and abdominal muscles to stabilize our upper body. Try it, stand with both feet square then rotate one towards the target and see what muscles you need to involve to keep balanced; it's even more difficult when you introduce the dynamics of a fully drawn bow.
Reason two: Unconscious relaxation. The act of walking is really a controlled fall and our brains are hardwired to recognize this condition and overcome it, ie, to walk or run. When we are using a stance that is unbalanced we are sending a signal to the unconscious brain to DO SOMETHING; but our conscious brain is telling it to relax. We can only do one thing well! By having a good, solid, square stance we stack the bones and omit the use of any muscles thereby eliminating the signal to the unconscious brain to act.
Grip hand: I shoot a low wrist, always have;but this isn't about low or high wrist. I have recently read a paper on nerve endings. Open nerve endings are nerve endings waiting for something to happen so they can react; and they do so with astonishing speed and involuntarily, that is the important bit there, involuntary.
Open relaxed fingers leave the nerves open and ready for action which leads to the fingers INVOLUNTARILY closing when the shot is fired. Lucky for us, stopping this is a fairly simple process; we need to engage the fingers to close the nerve endings and stop this reaction.
Enter the finger curl: Watch the top shooters like Rio Wilde and Schlosser, without fail they all curl the fingers of their grip hand. Curling the fingers to the side of the riser and pad (pinky finger) of the hand gets them out of the way of the shot and closes the nerves so we don't make that involuntary grab at the shot.
Try this; set your grip before you draw. Place your hand on the grip, curl your fingers and then draw your bow; never moving the hand after the draw cycle is complete. Setting your grip after the draw cycle can introduce torque into the riser. To get the feel for this use a jersey glove on the grip hand. The jersey material is slick and your grip hand will slide and settle into the best position for your grip.
Head attitude: Our "attitude" is how we are positioned in relation to the target physically; the other one I have no tips for. Because I turned my bow down I had to move my sight just a tad and I noticed I was "reaching" for my ring through my peep. This was causing my head to be out of alignment slightly. It would have been easier to adjust my anchor to account for this; but I have been using that anchor for over 30 years. so I did the right thing, although more time consuming, to move the scope back down and adjust the pins for the new slower arrow velocities.
However, I see MANY archers reaching for their sight picture; while this can be caused by many things I am only going to address two of them here.
Eye, peep and scope alignment: Your head should not move, ever. It should be neck straight, turned toward the target and the string should cross your field of vision of the dominant eye. If it doesn't something is out of alignment.
The biggest problem, without a doubt, is draw length; so get your draw length right.
Since we are talking about form lets get on the the alignment issues. First, make sure you are using you dominant eye, if not, and for whatever reason you want to shoot this way, use a patch to cover the subordinate eye. You will not be shooting with both eyes, but you will be shooting with both eyes open which helps with staying relaxed.
The eye, the peep and the scope. You should be able to draw your bow with both eyes closed, anchor and then open your eyes with the peep centered to your dominant eye and centered on the scope ring. That is, if you shoot with a centered scope ring; if you shoot by centering the pin then the pin should be centered in the peep. There is no rule for which pin should be centered (top, bottom or middle) if you use multiple pins but the pin you choose to be centered should be centered.
If the peep isn't centered move the peep up or down the string so you are centered when you open your eyes. Then move the scope ring up or down so it is centered int he peep when you open your eyes. Do this while ALWAYS keeping your head and eye in the same position and on anchor. It may be easier to do this with the pins removed so you don't subconsciously try to center the pins.
Centering the scope or a single pin produces the most consistent anchor point.
The pin you choose should always be centered and bend at the waist to move up or down for the aim point pin. If you try to center the aim point pin you will either need to rise the bow with your bow arm, thereby using muscles and blowing your form; or you will need to raise or lower your anchor point, thereby blowing your form.
Release: (Mechanical) Your release your way. Just make it consistent. I am a command shooter based on time, breath and heartbeat. Find what works for you and do it that way every time.
Follow Through: For many the release is the climax of the shot sequence. Train yourself to have the follow through be the climax of the shot sequence instead. WATCH the arrow hit the target! I know if my follow through is geed because I can see my arrow hit the target through the upper left portion of my scope. You can see the arrow through the sight window of the bow if you look and follow through. Instead of trying to look around the riser for the arrow to hit; look right through your sight window. Thee arrow crosses your field of view a few meters out from the bow; you will pick up the fletching there and then follow it to the target. If you do this you will not react to the shot by "looking off" when you hit the release. Watch the arrow hit the target and everything else (good follow through) will happen naturally.
Stance: Feet parallel to the target, stack the bones, open, neutral or closed (over stepped) is okay in minor variations.
Grip: Curl the fingers, bow handle should be touching and pulling into bone.
Shoulder: Low and locked, slightly rotated to point elbow out just a bit.
Head: Straight
Draw: Smooth, elbow should follow the path that draws a horizontal letter "J".
Anchor: The same every time.
Eye, Peep and Scope: Aligned every time, no reaching allowed.
Release: Smooth and consistent.
Follow Through: Watch the arrow hit the target through your sight window.
My training mantra:
Grip
Draw
Anchor
Aim
Breath
Arrow
You can add Release after Breath. I don't because I am a command shooter and all the criteria must be met to trigger the shot. For me it is breath out (lungs half full) and release between heartbeats; so something else commands my release, not my conscious thought.
I turned down my bow to 53 pounds and, because I am out of shape, I have started back on form first.
Grip arm: I have noticed a few things, pain is a great indicator of bad form! The bad shoulder is my target shoulder, or the shoulder of my grip arm. I have noticed that when I engage the muscles in that shoulder (ie, when my form is bad) I get a slight twinge of pain. From my grip hand, to my elbow, to my shoulder MUST be in alignment with bone on bone contact or I get the pain. It is paramount that I keep my shoulder low and locked to the bone.
Lesson: Maintain the wedge. If you don't know what I'm talking about you should watch this video
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Using ONLY the rhomboid muscles (the big muscles in the back) I have no pain and I can hold on target rock solid.
Stance: A good stance is the foundation to good form. I have seen very good shooters who have all manner of stances: from open, to square, to over stepped (like me). Albeit, they are VERY minor differences and in all cases the feet are square to the target! this is important for two reasons.
Reason one: If one foot is pointed in or out this causes us to use leg, hip and abdominal muscles to stabilize our upper body. Try it, stand with both feet square then rotate one towards the target and see what muscles you need to involve to keep balanced; it's even more difficult when you introduce the dynamics of a fully drawn bow.
Reason two: Unconscious relaxation. The act of walking is really a controlled fall and our brains are hardwired to recognize this condition and overcome it, ie, to walk or run. When we are using a stance that is unbalanced we are sending a signal to the unconscious brain to DO SOMETHING; but our conscious brain is telling it to relax. We can only do one thing well! By having a good, solid, square stance we stack the bones and omit the use of any muscles thereby eliminating the signal to the unconscious brain to act.
Grip hand: I shoot a low wrist, always have;but this isn't about low or high wrist. I have recently read a paper on nerve endings. Open nerve endings are nerve endings waiting for something to happen so they can react; and they do so with astonishing speed and involuntarily, that is the important bit there, involuntary.
Open relaxed fingers leave the nerves open and ready for action which leads to the fingers INVOLUNTARILY closing when the shot is fired. Lucky for us, stopping this is a fairly simple process; we need to engage the fingers to close the nerve endings and stop this reaction.
Enter the finger curl: Watch the top shooters like Rio Wilde and Schlosser, without fail they all curl the fingers of their grip hand. Curling the fingers to the side of the riser and pad (pinky finger) of the hand gets them out of the way of the shot and closes the nerves so we don't make that involuntary grab at the shot.
Try this; set your grip before you draw. Place your hand on the grip, curl your fingers and then draw your bow; never moving the hand after the draw cycle is complete. Setting your grip after the draw cycle can introduce torque into the riser. To get the feel for this use a jersey glove on the grip hand. The jersey material is slick and your grip hand will slide and settle into the best position for your grip.
Head attitude: Our "attitude" is how we are positioned in relation to the target physically; the other one I have no tips for. Because I turned my bow down I had to move my sight just a tad and I noticed I was "reaching" for my ring through my peep. This was causing my head to be out of alignment slightly. It would have been easier to adjust my anchor to account for this; but I have been using that anchor for over 30 years. so I did the right thing, although more time consuming, to move the scope back down and adjust the pins for the new slower arrow velocities.
However, I see MANY archers reaching for their sight picture; while this can be caused by many things I am only going to address two of them here.
Eye, peep and scope alignment: Your head should not move, ever. It should be neck straight, turned toward the target and the string should cross your field of vision of the dominant eye. If it doesn't something is out of alignment.
The biggest problem, without a doubt, is draw length; so get your draw length right.
Since we are talking about form lets get on the the alignment issues. First, make sure you are using you dominant eye, if not, and for whatever reason you want to shoot this way, use a patch to cover the subordinate eye. You will not be shooting with both eyes, but you will be shooting with both eyes open which helps with staying relaxed.
The eye, the peep and the scope. You should be able to draw your bow with both eyes closed, anchor and then open your eyes with the peep centered to your dominant eye and centered on the scope ring. That is, if you shoot with a centered scope ring; if you shoot by centering the pin then the pin should be centered in the peep. There is no rule for which pin should be centered (top, bottom or middle) if you use multiple pins but the pin you choose to be centered should be centered.
If the peep isn't centered move the peep up or down the string so you are centered when you open your eyes. Then move the scope ring up or down so it is centered int he peep when you open your eyes. Do this while ALWAYS keeping your head and eye in the same position and on anchor. It may be easier to do this with the pins removed so you don't subconsciously try to center the pins.
Centering the scope or a single pin produces the most consistent anchor point.
The pin you choose should always be centered and bend at the waist to move up or down for the aim point pin. If you try to center the aim point pin you will either need to rise the bow with your bow arm, thereby using muscles and blowing your form; or you will need to raise or lower your anchor point, thereby blowing your form.
Release: (Mechanical) Your release your way. Just make it consistent. I am a command shooter based on time, breath and heartbeat. Find what works for you and do it that way every time.
Follow Through: For many the release is the climax of the shot sequence. Train yourself to have the follow through be the climax of the shot sequence instead. WATCH the arrow hit the target! I know if my follow through is geed because I can see my arrow hit the target through the upper left portion of my scope. You can see the arrow through the sight window of the bow if you look and follow through. Instead of trying to look around the riser for the arrow to hit; look right through your sight window. Thee arrow crosses your field of view a few meters out from the bow; you will pick up the fletching there and then follow it to the target. If you do this you will not react to the shot by "looking off" when you hit the release. Watch the arrow hit the target and everything else (good follow through) will happen naturally.
Stance: Feet parallel to the target, stack the bones, open, neutral or closed (over stepped) is okay in minor variations.
Grip: Curl the fingers, bow handle should be touching and pulling into bone.
Shoulder: Low and locked, slightly rotated to point elbow out just a bit.
Head: Straight
Draw: Smooth, elbow should follow the path that draws a horizontal letter "J".
Anchor: The same every time.
Eye, Peep and Scope: Aligned every time, no reaching allowed.
Release: Smooth and consistent.
Follow Through: Watch the arrow hit the target through your sight window.
My training mantra:
Grip
Draw
Anchor
Aim
Breath
Arrow
You can add Release after Breath. I don't because I am a command shooter and all the criteria must be met to trigger the shot. For me it is breath out (lungs half full) and release between heartbeats; so something else commands my release, not my conscious thought.
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