| Contrary to common opinion, the bow hand position has little or nothing to do with this, the radius and ulna (the 2 bones in the forearm) allows your hand to freely rotate through about 270 degrees. Alternatively, if your hand is fixed in place somewhere, they allow you to rotate your elbow through about 90 degrees.
You do need to rotate the elbow out of the way, but unfortunately a lot of ppls natural reaction is to rotate the elbow out by pushing the shoulder in, and this ends up doing very little - with the forearm/elbow still in line with the string. The correct motion needs to be rehearsed.
Step1: Get in a shooting position but replacing the bow with something firm and upright (a doorway, the centre part of a rotary clothesline, etc).
Step 2: Now push hard against against this with the same force you'd use on your bow, allowing your shoulders to just collapse up and forward.
Step 3: Next move your bow shoulder back and down - hold that
Step 4: While the shoulder is being held back, rotate the elbow out (clockwise from your viewpoint if bow is in left hand) without moving the shoulder forward - hold that. (This is the correct position)
Step 5: Relax and allow shoulder to collapse up and forward
Repeat steps 2 to 5 for 20 to 30 times a day as an exercise to help build up the required muscles...
It's split up and practiced as two separate actions, shoulder down/back, rotate elbow, to help explain the process and get the correct muscles working, but over time it will become a single fluid action  |