Send me a pm with your email and I'll send you some reading material.

 

I sent you a couple emails, subject will be reading materials, from arrowloser@gmail.com

 

Initially I'm pulling but when I reach anchor and have Rhomboids loaded it's a 50/50 balanced split. It's not so much actively pushing but more like I'm just reaching out to touch the target.

Just pushing on the front end you have to watch you don't just add tension into the arms and end up raising the front shoulder, so for me the reaching out keeps the front end working but also keeps my shoulder low and strong. You really want to keep the tension out of the arms, so the reaching out helps balance the load in both Rhomboids and keeps my arms relaxed.

 

I've tried the active pushing thing and end up with the bow to the left of target. (Right handed)

 

No matter if I was 25 or 55...shooting compound or stick...all those who coached and mentored me had at least one thing in common they relayed too me and that was....

"Your bow arm should remain motionless and solid as a rock throughout the shot."

One of my earliest (serious) mentors insisted I was dropping my bow arm at the end of each shot...I insisted I wasn't...he then plucked a stalk of sand spurs from the ground and held it just under my bow hand as I shot...turns out I was in fact dropping my bow arm.

It seems to me that the archers who plant that "Push/Pull" seed into the mentality of their shot are the same ones who if not immediately?...eventually wind up throwing their bow around at shots end...which appears ridiculously wrong too those of us who've been trained to keep our bow arms locked like a statue....rock solid and dead still throughout the shot.

It's Sunday....Be Blessed. L8R, Bill.

 

It seems to me that the archers who plant that "Push/Pull" seed into the mentality of their shot are the same ones who if not immediately?...eventually wind up throwing their bow around at shots end...which appears ridiculously wrong too those of us who've been trained to keep our bow arms locked like a statue....rock solid and dead still throughout the shot.

Sorry Bill it's just not humanly possible to hold you bow arm rock solid and dead still throughout the shot, you will always have some movement.

The 50/50 load balance reduces this natural movement to a minimum float without getting into a losing battle trying to hold your bow arm rock solid. The 50/50 balance isn't my opinion it's the opinion of a top Korean Olympic Coach and it's working great for me.

 

There has to be some push otherwise you won't hold the bow at arms length.

 

Yes...there is "some push"....but it involves pushing my bow arm out too "locked" but not pushing the bow...just providing a bone on bone place for it to stop on...if that makes sense...which I'm sure too many it won't.

 

I've found that if I pull, push takes care of itself.

Oddly, I learned it the other way originally (probably from the same source as many others) but when I adopted Jimmy Blackmon's 'rotational draw' my focus shifted to proper back tension and release, and pushing is just natural the reaction to that.

 

I've found that if I pull, push takes care of itself.

Oddly, I learned it the other way originally (probably from the same source as many others) but when I adopted Jimmy Blackmon's 'rotational draw' my focus shifted to proper back tension and release, and pushing is just natural the reaction to that.

When I concentrate on my target and subsequently release, I tend to hold my bow arm steady by continuing to point it toward that same target. The result of that is that my arm ends up in a more rigid position because it experiences no resistance after the arrow is gone.

I just concentrate on the "pull" or the tightening on my inner back muscles and keep focussed on the target and the "push" seems to take care of itself.

Doug

 

Equal ! !

Your spine is the center of effort.

In order for the spine to remain straight push and pull must be equal.

The hinge effect on the spine is not what you want.

It throws everything off . . .

John

 

I've been working on a relaxed bow-arm rather than trying to keep it rigid. The float is better but it does take a slight push. Given the post-shot reaction you see in the worlds best I'd say they have something similar.

-Grant

 

I have a bad habit of pushing to initiate the shot. 50/50 hold and push the shot off from my competitive compound days. Lol. Trad is a rework in progress. Bad shots are push or reached to the right. Best shooting so far is a slight cant with elbow out not down. By no means am I a Pro but getting pretty solid.
Dan

 

You should read the book "The Heretic Archer" by Vittorio and Michele Frangilli, he advocates the push release, it never worked for me but certainly works for Michele.

Bill if you rock steady bow arm works for you, then go for it.

 

I would like to share what I do with the goal of advancing the conversation and not as a recomendation. I have been paying a lot of attention to subtle internal back pressure sensations during expansion in order to create balanced pressure forward and backwards to trigger release and direct follow through.

For me there is a distinct transfer phase after anchor and before expansion that signals the start of aiming. Physically it involves a rotational movement of my rear elbow and contraction / back tension of my draw side back muscles. When I commit to the shot and concentrate on aiming, expansion feels like a liniear motion / pressure directly forward and backward, then the shot goes off. Follow through is likewise balanced with the bow flying straight toward the target (caught by the sling) and my tab flying backwackward.

Rasyad

 

However steady you think your arm is, it's probably a bit less than your unaided eyes can perceive. Ever hold a pistol with a scope on a target? First time I did I couldn't believe how much that 'steady' arm of mine wobbled!

A good shooter knows his aim/sights are 'floating' on the target and that the important thing is to continue a steady shot-release.

I experienced this yesterday, shooting the bow in the morning and a sighted long gun in the afternoon. In both cases, I shot better when I stopped fighting for an absolutely perfect sight picture and concentrated on a clean shot. Whether releasing an arrow or squeezing a trigger, the principle is the same.

PS I've watched guys with very expensive, well-tuned compounds fight with their high-dollar magnifying sights too.

 

I find the best shots are when I reach for the target very slightly - am still trying to sort out if using thumb forward as a guide is making a difference as it seems to help stabilize the point of contact at thumb base - this all can only happen once I'm balanced in the bow & relaxed or all bets are off - when I actively tried push on release I got torque -> high left arrows - M

Great OP too btw - Thx

 

I say 50-50. We cannot push straight forward down the target line and pull straight back. That won't work because there is a big obstacle in the middle, namely us, the archers. The target line is somewhere in front of our chests. We draw by spreading the arms like the covers of a book, but not all the way in line. So the force of our arms must be equal, spreading forward and back, if we are to be anything like still at full draw.

Still equality is best done with a vertical spine and equal contraction of the rhomboid muscles of the back in both the front side and the rear side. We draw best by contracting both sides with equal force and equal amounts of movement. We may give our conscious attention more to one side or the other, but the force must be equal, you cannot help it. The movement can be unequal; you can over-contract on the string side, but it is not a good idea.

As both sides contract together in the back, the chest expands in the front. That is why the Olympic coaches, who have studied all of this the most closely, speak of 'expansion' in shot execution.

So, you may do better to think not of pushing nor pulling, but of contracting and expanding. Not in straight lines, but spreading in rotation.- lbg

 

Sandy has been teaching me to release from full expansion with an almost undetectable push. I had always done the opposite before, straight arm with a pull.

 

Are you pushing by slightly straightening your arm or doing it with your shoulder?

 

IME if you physically try to push you get torque or arrows high ... if I just think push it seems to work....as long as my back tensions good - M

 

I think we all experience and describe things differently -- kind of a glass half full/half empty concept.

I like to describe it as the bow arm is a "bone beam" that keeps the bow "out there." For me, it is a feel of the bow pressing the arm into my bow shoulder. It has been mentioned that it is similar to leaning against a wall with your arm straight, and I agree with that.

Now do an experiment. Stand so your bow arm is just short of the wall. Make a fist and hold it about 1 inch short of touching the wall and then extend your knuckles to the wall. I can extend about 1 inch BUT, I find that there is a discomfort (or unnatural feel) in the shoulder when I do that. Do you?

IF you subscribe to one generally accepted theory, that the arms and muscles should be as relaxed as possible and only to use what is needed, then trying to physically PRESS your bow shoulder/ arm out towards the bow/target uses muscles not needed for the shot. Keeping the bow shoulder muscles relaxed and allowing the bow arm to press into the shoulder is (IMO) more stable and stronger since we are not using shoulder muscles to "push". And, we aren't really made to be able to do that very well.

Again, It is still all in how we perceive how things work for us and how we are able to describe what we are feeling.

 

I've been learning the NTS method one step at a time. But recently I accidentally combined what I'd learned and realized that when all muscles are engaged as Kisik Lee teaches, my body feels like a post stuck in the ground. It was so different from the more relaxed way I'd been shooting, but I couldn't doubt how the consistency of my shots instantly improved.

Now, I don't know if there's another method, a sort of "relaxed" method that employs different techniques to achieve consistency. For example, in an area of Archery Talk devoted to target shooting here, someone was quoting cbrunson because he'd been so helpful to the poster. His approach to the bow arm recommended relaxing it:

The first part of this step is to get the bow arm relaxed. If you shoot with a bent elbow and have learned to push/pull as you fire the release, or are committed to a high wrist grip, you might as well stop reading this post. It won't help you, unless you decide to abandon your current method. Again, not arguing that method. I've seen that it works well for some very good shooters, it's just not how I do it, and not addressed in this post. Now when you get set up and ready to go again, be consciously aware of what your dot is doing again. It's important to be fresh and rested for the first few attempts at this. You want to be strong enough to hold it longer than normal.
Draw the bow and hold it in the center like you've been doing. Make sure you have you're good low grip with no induced torque and straighten your arm. Don't worry about drawing it that way, you have no investment in time for the moment. Now starting with your hand, completely relax it. Let the bow just sit there. Don't look at the bubble yet, just watch the dot and let your hand relax. Next let your arm muscles relax. If your elbow tries to bend, straighten it until it stops but don't force it straight. If it still tries to bend, you are not pulling hard enough with your release hand. Make sure your shoulder is down and pull as hard as necessary to get the arm to stay locked straight with absolutely no tension in the bow arm muscles. If you have a normal arm, it works. It will lock straight and you can relax your bow arm completely.

To me that seems a different method than what Kisik Lee's teaches for the bow arm, but I don't know for sure. Are Brunson and Lee using two different techniques, or does what Brunson practice fit someway in Lee's method?

Excerpt from Total Archery by Kisik Lee, Chapter 7-Bow Arm:

The bow arm reaches to the target and provides the forward stabilization for the shot. Think about the bow arm as a bridge truss: solid, strong, and braced by a powerful foundation. The bow arm must be positioned so it can tap into the core's power, along the archer to aim with he entire body.

. . . The archer should not achieve proper shoulder extension by rolling the shoulder forward, but by imagining someone is holding something just beyond the reach of his bow arm and he must reach to try and touch it. . . . It is common to feel a stretch across the top of the deltoid muscle. . . . The arm should be pushed to the maximum forward position. In the past, archers have been taught to hold the bow arm scapula back and down, however doing so creates a limited range of motion, or impingement . . . Pushing the bow arm forward as much as possible creates the necessary space while still providing the most stable and repeatable position.

. . . Direction is very important for the bow arm. The direction comes mostly from the shoulder. To imagine the arm stops at the shoulder and the rest of it is dead, immovable, can help the archer to learn to use the body to provide direction and control of the entire bow arm, rather than using its smaller muscles.

. . . . The key focal point of the bow arm for maintaining its intensity and power is the triceps muscle . . . the one that burns from push ups. There is no trick, one simply must hold the intensity in the triceps. Upon release, intensity must be maintained even still . . . The bow arm must maintain its force and direction past the follow through position.

. . . The next sentence is perhaps on of the most important written in this entire book. Nearly all weak shots are created by a weak bow arm. Everyone spends so much time working on their release or coming off the string as fast as possible. However, to produce the desired effect, these archers should pay more attention to the bow arm. Maintaining the triceps strength and projecting the force of the bow forward through the pressure point will create the desired sharp, cutting release.

 

Les,

IMO they are saying the same thing but in different ways. The Lee description of the triceps tension is the same thing as the other description of "if the arm wants to bend, straighten it."

The difference in the two descriptions is that Lee (NTS) has set the "barrel of the gun" earlier. BOG is setting the position of the bow shoulder in relation to the bow arm very early in the draw then the rest of the draw has its focus on the string side shoulder and back while the bow side stays "dead/immovable". There is still a big difference between "rotating" the bow shoulder into alignment with the spine and "moving" it some where with muscle in the shoulder.

It still goes back to concepts and how those concepts are described both for feel and accomplishment.

 

Wait should we be flexing are tricep or just using muscle needed to keep bow in position? I don't flex anything, just relax my hand as I pull tension on my straight bow arm and draw to anchor. My arm feels relaxed, but I know im pushing against a force, but I don't "feel" it.

 

According to Lee, it is strongly flexed. He also says the little finger should be tucked to the rear, so much so one can see muscles bulging on top of the arm. Everything he seems to teach, in fact, is to brace the body with ones muscles so no unintentional movement occurs but the "float" in aiming that cannot be prevented. I am really new at NTS, so keep that in mind. I just know that one morning when my butt cheeks were flexed, my stomach flexed and protruding, my bow arm etc. . . . it all came together and I felt like a post stuck in the ground. My shots instantly grouped better than I've ever been able to achieve before, and continue to.

What Arne was saying before about both relaxed and tense being true sort of makes sense to me applied to the joints. If I flex in such a way that my elbow aches, for instance, I know something is wrong and I relax there. Same with knees.

 

Kenn,

Don't over analyze it. IF you are holding your arm straight, you have the triceps tension needed. In Total Archery quoted above, it is analyzed to Olympic target level BUT that is not to say they are doing anything different from what we are discussing. In all cases the "tensions" discussed are trying to describe what is happening.

I like to try to simplify a little and simply say, "If you are holding the bones in the correct position then you have the correct muscle tension." This includes "back tension" -- IF you have moved the scapula to the correct positions (per the NTS theory) then you have the correct back tension.

An error made by many (again IMO) is that they try to flex a particular muscle. You can't! The way we are built if you try to flex an individual muscle the counter muscle will fire too. But IF you think "move a bone" then the single muscle required will fire correctly.

To illustrate. Stand with you arm hanging at your side. Now without moving the arm at all, flex your bicep. What happens? the triceps fires too doesn't it?

So how to JUST flex the bicep?? Simply lift your hand. To do that your bicep contracts and your forearm moves up from the elbow. Triceps remains relaxed.

SOOOO!! Move bones and you have the correct muscles involved. Try to flex muscles and get confusion.

 

Less,

When you are standing, your leg muscles are flexed to the degree required to hold the leg bones in alignment and the leg bones support the upper body weight. The muscles only work hard enough to keep the bones in alignment. Same with the bow arm. When muscles flex they will "bulge" and IF you are a "fit" person they will bulge more than if not.

I can and do teach the full NTS but at the same time, many of the items described in TA "Inside the Archer" are attempt at describing the detail. I find that conveying the full aspect of the NTS needs to be person to person. The book has all the detail but it is too easy to stress over a particular point when it is the overall "package" that we are shooting for.

In the NTS, even Coach Lee will say that the end goal is getting to "holding" and HOW we get there is LESS important than GETTING there.

PS The little finger tucked goes along with the angle of the bow hand knuckles too. The knuckles form a 45 degree angle to the vertical axis of the bow AND the little finger knuckle should be behind the index finger knuckle (towards the archer). The point being that there are many nuances to the NTS that don't necessarily NEED to be addressed until later. And then, probably only when you decide to or achieve really high target scores. So a lot of this MAY not apply depending on the archery YOU decide you want to shoot.

It is really very much a "forest and trees" problem.

 

I can and do teach the full NTS but at the same time, many of the items described in TA "Inside the Archer" are attempt at describing the detail. I find that conveying the full aspect of the NTS needs to be person to person. The book has all the detail but it is too easy to stress over a particular point when it is the overall "package" that we are shooting for.

I know exactly what you are talking about. So yeah, right now for me it's mostly piecemeal and disjointed.

 

Arne Moe,
I really like the way you explain things. Have you published a book or articles on archery technique that a person could obtain?

 

Logan5,

Thank you for the kind words. I have toyed with the idea and even started saving some things. But, lazy person that I am, I've never moved beyond the "thinking" stage.

I have done some videos that are on You Tube that try to show what I talk about. If you haven't run across those, they are here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMoebow1/videos

 

Thanks for all of your replies.

The last couple of weeks I've been working on pushing more with my bow arm and reaching towards the target. Overall it feels that my shots are more consistent over the entire course of a shooting session. Before when I was using more of a static locked bow arm, the last 30 or so shots of the day would tend to drift off to the left a bit. Now, I seem to find my form faster and the shots stay down the middle. I've not done any scoring rounds, though.

On the flip side, I get tired more quickly. Also, having a more active bow arm exposes any imperfections in the bow hand. I'm a lot more aware about where the bow grip is seating in my hand, how the pressure point feels, and how the bow jumps to target after the shot.

It's kind of nuts how something as simple as shooting a stick and string can be so nuanced. I'm glad I don't play golf.