Good form early on, or sort it later?

[geoffretired]

Porly P, As Mufti says; the V draw is sort of out of date.(hands move in a V shape which is how they go when you draw and raise the bow at the same time)
The problem with doing that is, the forces acting on your bow shoulder are trying to lift it up, while all the time you want it to stay down.
My way of going about a shot may not be everyone's idea of good or even mediocre, but I like to get the static bits sorted so I can get on with the active parts without worry. Start with the feet. Then the hand position in the grip followed by the string hand position. Get the posture as I want it then turn head to the target. Raise the bowhand to eye level and the drawing fingers and elbow all at the same time. You will see the bowhand and string hand, you will be able to guess the elbow by the part of the forearm that you can see. When they are on a fairly good line, the chances are your shoulder is down, ( work on that if it isn't) and the sight is just above the gold.
The above can be rehearsed at home with a bow or even without.
When the draw starts, it is the elbow moving not the fingers. Keep the elbow moving until the drawing hand starts to slide under the chin and into your references. As the elbow continues to move, the string will reach the nose and somewhere on the jaw,probably just off the centre. If you have difficulty finding these references, draw a theraband or mime it, so you know where to end up and what actions get you where you want to be.
As the references are reached, the bow will have dropped in relation to the target, and will be fairly close to red/ gold. Let the sight flow into the gold and allow the elbow to head for its follow through position.
You will see from the above, that there are things you can rehearse separately. Foot positions; hand positions etc Like WPC's list.
Others require a shot to be made. The follow through can be rehearsed but it is dangerous to get that all sorted without a bow then find everything changes with a bow at full draw.
I find a little summary helps once you have the more detailed version available if needed.
Sort all the statics first so you can get them right easily when about to shoot. Have a clear image of the draw,from raising the hands to establish the line, all the way through the reference parts and beyond to the follow through. Shoot some arrows as well as you can and try to have someone watch and indicate where you didn't match up with your plan.Not on every arrow shot, but when a pattern emerges after a few ends.
Knowing what the whole shot is about is useful, I feel. Put some shots together and find out any parts that are weak. Focus on one of those at a time until it is no longer a weakness. Then move forward.
Worrying about having poor form is not the best way to spend your time Michael Johnson says," Focus on the opportunity..."
In this context I think a suitable ending is. Focus on the opportunity to make things better. You have that opportunity. You are asking the right questions and are keen to get things right from the start. Those who have been doing it wrong for 20+ years aren't able to get things right from the start. It is hard work correcting all the mistakes I have been making.

[Marcus26]

It doesn't matter what stage of your archery you are at, you should always be working on your process and gtting it perfect. That includes your form and execution.
Otherwise it's like trying to learn to walk by falling over and saying "I'll worry about the legs later"

[Little Miss Purple]

As another slightly diverse add on....as you progress, your aims/objectives change - this would apply to any archer I believe. This time last year I was delighted to win 'worst white' at my 1st competition - now I expect my arrows to be no lower than gold or red if shooting at 60 & 50 yards (yet to achieve this!!)

[PorlyP]

Thanks Geoff, Marcus, all taken on board, I'll get someone to check me out for a bit and give me adivce.

[PorlyP]

Originally Posted by Thunk

One tip thats just occurred to me; at the last SoSo I bought a DVD of the Athens Olympics archery competition. There's 82 minutes of it for a measly £7.50! Excellent opportunity to study the form of the worlds top archers...again...and again...and again...

This is another good idea, ta Derik!

I've been checking out archery videos on youtube, as there are videos of everything on there... I can see instantly things I simply don't do, all the way through the shot.

One of the first things I took care of was dropping my bow hand after loosing, I was getting picked up on it loads at the fun shoot last weekend!

[Jenny]

Originally Posted by Thunk

One tip thats just occurred to me; at the last SoSo I bought a DVD of the Athens Olympics archery competition. There's 82 minutes of it for a measly £7.50! Excellent opportunity to study the form of the worlds top archers...again...and again...and again...

That's sounds like a good idea...any idea where I could get one of these DVDs?


~Jenny~

[Thunk]

Originally Posted by Jenny

That's sounds like a good idea...any idea where I could get one of these DVDs?~Jenny~

I got it from Chiltern at Aston Clinton when we went there for the last SoSo. I only wanted some fletching glue, but there was a stack of them on the counter. Pure impulse buy - but, as I realised after seeing it a couple of times, very good for studying form.

It's called (bizarrely), "From Here To Antiquity - The Battle for Olympic Archery Gold". There's a short feature with american narration, obviously made for an american sports channel to fill a small slot between baseball games, and an 82-minute feature with english narration for those whose attention span exceeds that of the average goldfish. There is also a Technical feature, which disappointingly does not concern the technicalities of archery but those of the television coverage! Oh well, you can't have everything for £7.50!

I just checked - can't find it on Chiltern's website, but it is shown on Quick's at the same price.

[its my party and]

Ive been watching www.archery.tv after finding a link on here! The slight differences in technique and style are clearly shown here also for those of you on the dark side of the sport!