Let's shoot together, folks!

25. Archer. USA Certified Level 2 Instructor. Come say WHAT'S UP. I welcome and encourage questions like it's nobody's business.

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

http://lets-shoot-together.tumblr.com/ask

:)

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

what are some of your archery goals?

It's good to have goals.

Most of us have fun daydreams about one day going to the Olympics, but for most of those people, we don't seriously plan on putting in the hours and work and money necessary. But it's still a fun fantasy to entertain.

However, goals can be good. Whether it's to partake in your first 3D tournament this year, or to place in a State Championship, or even just tighten your groups within a couple of months it's good to work toward something.

I, personally, have some short-term and long-term goals, and I would love to hear all of yours!

BIG GOALS

State Indoor Championship in January 2016

Nationals (either indoor or outdoor) in 2018

World Cup in 2025

Smaller and more attainable goals:

Participate in at least 2 local 3D tournaments in 2015

Accompany at least one student to their first competitive shoot in 2015

Shoot at minimum 3 days/week.

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

eye dominance versus handedness.

When I first started shooting lessons, I was given a left-handed bow, given the fact that I am a left-handed person. And let me tell you, I was the worst shot in the room, by far. My instructor, who was also a friend of mine, commented that I was way worse than I should be, even taking into account that I was a beginner. 

Now, the number one mistake that was made here, was that I was given equipment based upon my handedness, rather than my eye dominance.

What is eye dominance?

Eye dominance is also sometimes referred to as ocular dominance or ocular preference. What this means is that you simply have a preference for visual input in one eye over the other, similar to your handedness, or auditory preference, but there is not necessarily a connection between them.

Taken directly from Science Daily: "In normal binocular vision there is an effect of parallax, and therefore the dominant eye is the one that is primarily relied on for precise positional information." 

In the instance that you are left-handed and right eye dominant (or vice versa), this is called "cross-dominance."

This is important in archery, because if you aren't using your proper eye to aim, it can cause major accuracy issues. A common issue that you will see for someone who is using the improper eye to aim, is they miss the target bale completely, grandly, by several feet sometimes.

Essentially, handedness has very little to do with whether you should be shooting left-handed or right-handed. Once I was given a bow that suited me, my accuracy was far, far better and kept getting better, whereas previously, I wasn't improving at all.

The moral of the story is: instructors should always give equipment based upon eye dominance, rather than handedness. This goes for students as well as instructors, eye dominance should be the priority over handedness.

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

Got any questions about archery? Send them my way! :)

Anonymous asks are now on!

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

http://lets-shoot-together.tumblr.com/ask

:)

[thedyspraxicarcher]

People of Tumblr who want to try archery:

Go ahead, absolutely do it! BUT

1. Wear an armguard for pete’s sake

2. When you have drawn back the bowstring and just before you loose rotate the elbow of the arm holding the bow OUT OF THE WAY OF THE STRING

Sincerely, an archer who is a little irked with the amount of bruising on the archery tag

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

I just did a really great post about how to avoid this! Check it out!

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

string slaps in archery.

Okay folks, today we're going to discuss one of the more popular questions asked in the realm of archery.

"How do I stop hitting my arm with the string?"

Before we go into techniques, I want to go over a couple of main points first.

Buy, borrow, and/or use an armguard. If you have a choice, get a full arm guard like this one that offers full protection. Bottom line: you should not be slapping your arm over and over and over again. Archery is not supposed to hurt.

If you are an instructor, during the early stages, watch that bow arm more than anything else. Your students should not be in pain. And make sure they have an arm guard. Under no circumstances should your students be shooting without an arm guard.

If you are a student, and you're continually slapping your arm, talk to your instructor. Have them work with you on the proper motion. A string slap bruise is not a badge of honor, it's proof of bad form. The goal is to avoid it, have fun, all without injury.

Now, let's go over why you're slapping your arms in the first place. 

Women, more than men, have more flexibility in their joints, which leads to hyperextension of the joints, but anyone can have this problem. That's why when you're holding a bow for the first time, without understanding proper arm rotation, your elbow may kick way far out. This causes a problem as it doesn't allow for proper string clearance. Also known as, "WHACK. PAIN."

Check out my elbow here. 

See how far it rotates in when I'm just holding it, relaxed? That string is going to have nowhere to go but directly into my arm.

To practice the elbow rotation necessary, follow this movement:

Make a thumbs up. Rotate your hand and arm all the way down. Then, using just your wrist, rotate your thumb. 

See how my elbow gets out of the way? Practice this movement and it should really help with the string clearance issues you may have.

Happy shooting, folks!

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

Hi! Could you share any tips on how to learn to engage back when drawing the string? I've been shooting 9 month now, I started with barebow and then I was shooting olympic recurve for 6 months only to find out it just doesn't feel right... It was a difficult decision but I went back to barebow and now a struggle a lot. I think my main problem is the tension in the wrist, how you mentioned in the previous ask. If you could share any advice, it would be awesome. Thanks a lot! :)

Hi there, and thanks for the ask!

Learning to shoot properly with back tension takes practice, and it is my personal recommendation that you have someone either film you, or watch you, to see if you’re accomplishing the proper movements.

When learning to shoot with back tension, I recommend that you obtain/make a very, very light weight bow out of PVC pipe. I’m talking 5-ish pounds, here. Pipe bows, for this exercise as well as for dozens of other skills, are surprisingly invaluable tools. It will enable you to properly execute the movement and the skill without risking injury, and without having to focus on holding full weight.

Something else you can use would be either a string bow or a resistance band. Remember, we want very little weight for right now.

The actual movement that you are working toward here is scapula rotation. This means you are literally moving your draw arm’s shoulder blade around your rib cage and lining it up with your other shoulder blade and spine.

This is a great video here to show good form in general, and from multiple angles. However, toward the end, you can get some fantastic shots of the scapula movement, a very smooth scapula rotation to move it right in line with the other scapula, right up with the spine.

Ultimately, achieving back tension will also allow you to begin using back tension release. By engaging your muscles, it will actually bring your hand back and the string more or less just releases on its own. Note: this is very different from the common issue of yanking back on the string.

With proper set up and proper back tension, a back tension release will allow you to accomplish a very smooth release, and your hand will move back softly on its own (a movement that you often see with Olympic archers as their draw hand will glide along their jaw and down to their shoulder). This is not a conscious movement or follow-through, this happens automatically when you are holding the tension in your back, rather than in your arms.

Again, keep in mind to start working on this with a very light weight bow, and then move up to your full weight. Believe me, when you start doing this properly, even on a 5 pound bow, you’re going to feel some soreness!

This is a very brief description and discussion about shooting with back tension, but I do hope to do perhaps some short videos about this in the future. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[aidanswhite]

A compilation of my progress in being a self taught instinctive archer!! Notice the difference in size of the first few groupings, and the last few. The split stick that you see second to last was me being frustrated at a homemade target and shooting the part that wasn’t meant to be shot, needless to say I was quite proud that I hit the stick twice in the same spot. What a great year!

[3rshooter]

Doing great man. Love seeing the pictures of your shooting.

[aidanswhite]

Thank you so much! It means a lot.

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

yeah buddy, you're doing fantastic. :) 

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

hands-on instruction

Today's post is regarding hands-on instruction.

Whether you are an instructor or you're just helping someone out at your range, there are proper safety rules and etiquette you must follow.

If you need to place your hands on your student, you must first ask permission. This is non-negotiable. No one wants to be touched without their consent, and it's your job to make sure that the person you're instructing is feeling safe 100% of the time. The way that I always handle such a situation is, "Is it okay if I place my hands on your shoulders to help with your form?"

In the instance that you see someone who may be struggling, under no circumstances should you walk up to someone and just start spouting off information. You should always say, "Hey, do you mind if I give you some pointers?" Not everyone wants help, and so long as they're following range rules and being safe, if they don't want your help, it's your obligation to respect that.

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

Okay, so I've got my first question for your new blog! We have this one kid: 12y/o girl, barebow recurve. What she's doing she's usually doing well: Her form is very good and her scores are amazing. But there is one major thing and we can't get rid of it: Every time at release, she flinches severely, like she got startled by the release. I proposed we let her shoot blind bale, but my partner said they already tried and it didn't help (we'll try anyway next week). Any ideas what else can be done?

thank you friend!

So there could be a couple culprits here, so let's see if we can get to the bottom of this.

Theory #1: She is actually startled by the string. If her scores are amazing, it sounds like she's been shooting for a while, so I would be surprised if someone who has been shooting for a while is still struggling with being startled by the string. If this is the case, there's a couple things we could try. If it's the sound that startles her, maybe put some string-silencers on her bow. If it's that she's afraid of being injured, maybe work with her on building confidence with a lower poundage bow (even a 5# pipe bow would work fine for this).

Theory #2: She's not drawing with back tension. If, upon her release, your student is jerking violently on her hand, there's a good chance that she's storing the majority of the draw weight on her arms and wrist, verus her back, which upon release, is going to jarr these parts of her body. Learning to hold with back tension can be very difficult to learn, but ultimately is a skill that she will need to master if she plans on shooting often in the future. In order to achieve proper back tension, she needs to line her scapulae up when she's at full draw, effectively rotating it around her rib cage toward her spine.  

check out this image here to see a good example: 

See how her shoulder blades are lined up? This is an active action on the archer's part, something you're not going to achieve by just drawing. Try working with her on a very light poundage bow first, and looking for that scapula rotation. 

Another good fix:A good exercise for people who are struggling with release is this: if you have access to one, get a bucket, fill it with water or sand or anything to make it a little bit heavy. Have your archer stand with the bucket in their string hand, with their arms down, holding the bucket in their fingertips. Then have them drop the bucket with as little movement as possible. This sometimes makes a light bulb go off in their head when they're able to make the comparison between the two movements. 

With most form issues, I always recommend dropping your archer down in draw weight significantly when working. It's so much easier to fix form issues when you're not holding a full draw weight. That's when cheap pipe bows are super helpful!

Hope this helps! I'd love to get some feedback and see if this helped. :)

[clubfootloose]

You know what I hate that feels gendered/sexist to me? Girl Scouts versus Boy Scouts. When I was a girl scout we always did “girly” shit—made crafty things (sewed barbie doll clothes, made key chains, other craft stuff), went to places like the jelly belly factory, great america, etc. all the...

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

This has always been a soft spot for me.

There is no reason why we shouldn't have Girl Scout troops out there shooting just as often as the Boy Scouts. I mean, you've got the patches right here, so why shouldn't these girls be given the same opportunities?

I agree, it's baloney.

One of my big goals with becoming an instructor was to see more of this very thing: archery activities within Girl Scout troops. And now, I have that within my power. 

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

taking caution with draw weight.

So it's a common factor I see in archery (and, unfortunately, predominantly among men), and that factor is: folks are over-bowing themselves. Or, in other terms, shooting bows that are way too heavy for them. 

The basic rule of thumb is: just because you can pull it back, doesn't mean that you should be pulling it back.

And let's talk about why, with BIOMECHANICS!

Shooting a bow is a hefty job on your shoulder joints. While you're drawing your bow, your shoulder is rotating out, meanwhile your bow shoulder is trying not to cave in on itself. Most archers experience pain with their draw shoulder. 

How do I know if my bow is a proper weight for me?

A good exercise is: if you can take your bow and hold it at full draw with good form for thirty seconds, that bow is a good weight for you. Now, for most people, the bow that they've been shooting for months might still be too heavy for them. (Please note, this refers mostly to recurve/longbow shooters, as compound shooters have a significant weight let-off. It is still important, however, to ensure that you're not putting significant strain on your shoulder by pulling a too-heavy bow.)

But let's talk about what happens, physically, when you put consistent strain on your shoulder. 

If you're experiencing mild pain that occurs exclusively during an activity, generally that pain is going to be a type of inflammation, caused by tiny tears and bleeding. Other times, the fluid cushions in your joint can become enflamed. 

And then what happens?

Ignoring the pain and tears can lead to more serious injury, such as disruption of the muscles and tendons. Sometimes it's gradual, like getting worse daily, but other times, it can be a sudden and drastic injury. 

And then what happens?

You can no longer perform the action.

Situations like this come from repetitive motion, over use, being over strained, and poor form. That's why it's so important to ensure that your bow arm isn't collapsing in on itself, and that when you draw back, you aren't performing a perfectly straight back or "linear" draw. Make sure that you aren't using your draw shoulder to support the majority of your bow's weight: holding with back tension is key.

For target archery, there is no reason why you should be "needing" a 50 pound recurve, especially if you've only been shooting for six months. There's this weird machismo that tends to permeate archery, that a bigger bow is better. Keep in mind, I've been shooting since April, my draw weight is 30#, and I can outshoot the majority of the "big bowed" guys in my club. It's not how big the car is, it's how well it can get from Point A to Point B. It's hard to have good and consistent form when you're trying to avoid blowing apart at the seams.

Keep shooting safely, folks!

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

My club is doing a taster session tomorrow and asked if I could help out, I have no idea what to look out for or what to help with for beginners, any ideas?

Great question!

Teaching beginner’s classes is probably one of my favorite things to do, to be honest, and I think it’s super cool that your club is doing something like this!

Safety is the absolute number one rule. Make sure that you go over safety rules and range rules very clearly at the beginning, and that everyone understands what is expected of them when they’re on the range. If you have younger archers on the range, make sure they’re under proper supervision.

Not everyone is going to understand proper form. And that’s okay. No matter how good you are now, we all started down at the bottom. Try to remain patient with new archers while they get the hang of it. For a beginner’s class, just get them with the basics of point, aim, and shoot. I also recommend teaching them with a tab, a three-under draw, and anchoring at the chin, Olympic-style. The reason for this is a split-finger draw can be difficult for first-time archers to achieve without pinching the arrow, and a traditional anchor is sometimes harder for first-time archers, as they tend to go a little higher than necessary, bringing the nock closer to their eyes. Plus, if they decide to go Olympic, it’s much easier to transition. Whereas going from a traditional to Olympic anchor is much, much harder.

Do not short-change anyone. You may have archers with limited or different abilities that come onto your range, and under no circumstances should they be set aside simply because making accommodations for them requires a little bit of creativity. This sport should be accessible to everyone, period.

Do not overwhelm them with details of shooting. In the very beginning, things such as a perfect release, scapula rotation, back tension, these aren’t really important. What’s important in a beginner class is that they’re safe, they’re having fun, and that the basics are established. My recommendation is to cover and continue to reinforce: proper foot stance, a dedicated anchor point, and making sure the bow arm stays out of the way to allow for string clearance and a not-so-painful experience. These are pretty easy points for first-time archers, and it doesn’t overwhelm them with details.

They probably won’t come back. Unfortunately, given the nature of the sport, most people attend beginner’s classes or “taster sessions” just to have a “hey I went and tried it” kind of an experience. This is why worrying about the smaller details of proper form isn’t as important, and why it’s better to focus on the easy stuff, like point, aim, draw, anchor, shoot, as well as having fun. The more fun that they have, and the more welcoming and accommodating your club is, the better chance they have of returning. But treat everyone like they have greatness in them, because guess what? They do.

I hope this helps!

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

"is archery hard?"

This is probably the #1 most commonly asked question I get on the range and off the range.

The answer, for me personally, is a mixed one. Yes, and no. 

When I first started shooting, as soon as I got the basics down, I picked it up fast. Way faster than I, or those around me shooting with me and teaching me, could have anticipated. But that's not to say it was effortless. I shot every chance I got, and with archery, you get out of it what you put into it. Natural talent can only carry you so far, you gotta do the rest on your own.

Archery is hard. Having to replicate the same movements over and over again, having to micro-manage a dozen different aspects of stance and form and all that other minutiae, can be difficult. You're going to make a lot of mistakes, that's why it's vital to have someone instructing you in the beginning. When you're first learning, you're constantly changing and working and re-working and re-changing until you get it right.

But as soon as you get it right, as soon as things start to click, it's an amazing feeling. 

In the meantime, though, it's a lot of flinging arrows. But is it worth it?

Oh hell yes. 

[lets-shoot-together-blog]

hi there folks!

welcome to my blog!

let me tell you a little bit about myself. I started shooting in April of 2014. I shoot barebow on an Olympic-style recurve. you can find my equipment list here.

here you will find a whole load of archery-related content. from exercises to help you excel in the sport, to fun games if you're an instructor/coach, to rad photos, you name it, you're going to find it here.

please feel free to ask a question at any time!