I've been in the trad bow game for going on 17 plus years now, first learning how to shoot with a selfbow off my knuckle that was built to the exact specs as Ishi's main hunting bow. I've had tons of mentors along the way giving me tid bits of info here and there that have helped me refine my shooting along the way (and thankfully still get it from folks to this day), but was never really told how to shoot other than in the beginng, by my old neighbor and best buddy, who only shot Indian style selfbows he built. His thoughts were "lean over a bit, focus on your spot, draw it back to anchor and let it go". I took that advice and ran with it, slowly over the years changing over the years to come up with however it is I shoot now.
With all that rambling being said, I was never really told or taught how to really shoot with our use my back muscles until several years ago. When I figured out how much more beneficial it was to use my back vs my arms, everything really started coming together. Even when I figured this out, my draw length always hovered around the 27" area. A couple years ago, I decided to change anchor spots in hopes of getting a little extra out of my setups, which resulted in me getting comfortably to 27 1/2" by simply drawing to my cheekbone vs to the corner of my mouth. Fast forward to the first part of this year, I began really working out a lot (4-5 times a week) trying to build muscle and gain strength to comfortable shoot my heavy bows for my buffalo hunt. After a couple months of it, I started shooting my "light" bow (65lbs) more regular and working on setups for it. In doing so, I had my wife mark a couple arrow shafts for me to check my draw length. Pulling the 65lb bow, 3 different shafts were marked once I hit full draw and I was just under 28" on all of them. I wasn't trying to get any "extra" or pull any further than I regularly would either.
This past weekend, I had my wife go through the same process with me drawing my 65'b bow back to full draw and her marking three different arrows. The first two arrows were drawn and marked, then the third was marked and she said she marked it a bit early so it might be off, but we just went with it. The first two measured 28 3/4" and the last was 28 1/2" !! I acutally went and got another tape measure to see if I was just seeing things, but it said the same! I'm not a big guy by no means of the imagination, and I'd have never ever believed someone if they'd have said I could have a draw that long without doing something weird to achieve it, and to have it on a 65lb trad bow! Makes me feel like the workouts are really doing some good after all!
Has anyone else experienced an increased draw length like that? Basically, I've went from drawing 27" to 28 3/4" in the last 3 to 4 years, and I haven't grown and inch!!!!
With all that rambling being said, I was never really told or taught how to really shoot with our use my back muscles until several years ago. When I figured out how much more beneficial it was to use my back vs my arms, everything really started coming together. Even when I figured this out, my draw length always hovered around the 27" area. A couple years ago, I decided to change anchor spots in hopes of getting a little extra out of my setups, which resulted in me getting comfortably to 27 1/2" by simply drawing to my cheekbone vs to the corner of my mouth. Fast forward to the first part of this year, I began really working out a lot (4-5 times a week) trying to build muscle and gain strength to comfortable shoot my heavy bows for my buffalo hunt. After a couple months of it, I started shooting my "light" bow (65lbs) more regular and working on setups for it. In doing so, I had my wife mark a couple arrow shafts for me to check my draw length. Pulling the 65lb bow, 3 different shafts were marked once I hit full draw and I was just under 28" on all of them. I wasn't trying to get any "extra" or pull any further than I regularly would either.
This past weekend, I had my wife go through the same process with me drawing my 65'b bow back to full draw and her marking three different arrows. The first two arrows were drawn and marked, then the third was marked and she said she marked it a bit early so it might be off, but we just went with it. The first two measured 28 3/4" and the last was 28 1/2" !! I acutally went and got another tape measure to see if I was just seeing things, but it said the same! I'm not a big guy by no means of the imagination, and I'd have never ever believed someone if they'd have said I could have a draw that long without doing something weird to achieve it, and to have it on a 65lb trad bow! Makes me feel like the workouts are really doing some good after all!
Has anyone else experienced an increased draw length like that? Basically, I've went from drawing 27" to 28 3/4" in the last 3 to 4 years, and I haven't grown and inch!!!!
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