Traditional Archery Tips - how to shoot a recurve bow

hey guys it's clay Hayes with twisted stave media and today we're going to go over some tips on how to become a better shot with a traditional bow now today we're going to be working mostly on a lightweight recurve in general I'll shoot a self bow a longbow the reason I'm going to start on this lightweight recurve here is because I'm a really big proponent of working on your form and working on your shooting with lightweight tackle there is no better way to develop improper form and poor shooting habits than to start shooting with a bow that's too heavy for you so keep that in mind now I want to go ahead and start off by saying that this video is not intended to be a full-out how to shoot a traditional bow video I simply want to go over some of the things and give you some tips for some of the things that helped me to become a better shot now when I first started shooting traditional over 15 years ago I moved from a compound to a longbow and pretty much threw out everything I knew about how to shoot a bow and you know I'd read about instinctive shooting and how different people were shooting traditional bows and heard it explained to me like it's like throwing a baseball right you don't aim a baseball you just throw it and it works out well some people can shoot that way and do well at it and I'm not one of them I do have to aim and we'll talk about how I do that here in just a little bit so with that let's pull these arrows and get back here and start swinging some now if you expect to become a better shot and a consistent shot with traditional tackle you're going to have to develop proper and good form and what I mean by that is when you come to full draw everything is lined up perfectly with that target as far as your your arrow you're drawing arm your body structure everything is headed right to that target now you achieve that through something called back tension now for a long time I I heard people talking about back tension and hearing them explain it like when you when you're at full draw you squeeze your shoulder blades together well that didn't make sense to me it wasn't working for me because what that did for me was it made me take my bow arm shoulder and bring it in and back now that's not what you want to do you don't that that is not back tension what really helped me is I heard it I heard a fellow explain it like this when you come to full draw if you imagine someone's hand right here on the back of your elbow while you're while you're at full draw back here if you imagine someone's hand back there you try to push that hand back push it back now when you do that you're not really increasing your draw length at all you're simply bringing everything into alignment that is back tension now another thing that I do in them in just the moments before the shot is I'll once I have once I'm at full draw and I've achieved proper back tension I will take this bow shoulder here and push it almost push it forward now it's not so much a physical action as almost just a thought because you're really not moving all that much winter at full draw got good back tension and you're pushing that bow towards the target everything is in proper alignment and when you when you do that you can relax your forearm and your wrists and and your forearms really only it's kind of acting as a rope you know there's no power in a rope it just holds things so think of your forearm in that way and you know don't use it to power the string or to manipulate the string in any any direction you need to be doing that with your if you need to get your head down on the string you'd be doing that with your head but all your power needs to be back here in your back and the back of your arm now let's talk about aiming now like I said before when I first started shooting traditional I shot with a purely instinctive style of shooting where you don't really aim it's you know it's like throwing a baseball or something like that you don't aim a baseball you just kind of pick out what you want to hit and throw it and if you're good enough at it it just kind of works out and you know I shot that way for a long long time and was never satisfied with the consistency of it you know they would have times when I was extremely accurate and it seems like I couldn't miss and then I had times when you know I literally I couldn't hit that hay bale and so I got frustrated with the inconsistency I started looking for a method of shooting that that would help me to improve that and become a more consistent and better shot and I finally settled on kind of a hybrid between a Howard Hill style of split vision style of shooting and kind of a Byron Ferguson style of shooting and so the way I aim is I'll come back to full draw get everything in proper alignment and then I'll concentrate on the target but I'll see my arrow tip in my peripheral vision now I'll use that arrow tip to line up left and right now the up and down is somewhat instinctive you through repetition and and shooting you'll learn that you know how far below your target that arrow tip needs to be so when aiming with with my method that I've been describing that that's kind of what your sight picture is going to look like you know your arrow tip is going to be directly below what you're aiming at which is for me that's that green dot or your left and right you're going to use your arrow to to line up your left and right now if you're pointing on distance the site picture is going to be something more like this if I could hold the dog on arrow steady anyway your tip is going to be directly on what you're going to hit what you want to hit when I come back to full draw your arrow tip is going to be directly below whatever you want to hit unless you're beyond your point on distance your point on distance is you know the distance from the target where a direct line to the target and your arrow are those two things intersect when I'm at that distance I can put my point directly on what I want to hit and pretty much bet that I'm going to hit there now one of the things that is absolutely critical with this method of aiming is that when I come to full draw the knock of this arrow has got to be directly underneath my pupil now if it's off to one side say I'm a right-handed shooter if if my knock or this arrow is off to the right side of my eye and I line my arrow tip up with what I want to hit my arrow is going to go off to the left just because of the way that thing angles across my face so as long as you when you come to full draw your your pupil is directly on top of this arrow you're looking directly down that arrow and you're lining up left and right you're going to hit you may not hit your up and down may not be right but your left and right should be so long as your bow and arrow setup is tuned properly and we'll get into and get into that on another video so right now that nock is directly underneath my pupil and I can line that tip up and I'm not looking at my tip I'm looking at the target but I can see the tip in my peripheral vision I'll line that up left and right with what I want to hit now it helps if you start your draw with a relaxed forearm and wrist draw with your your back muscles as much as you can so you're kind of leading with your shoulder and then rotating that elbow back around push that elbow back find your anchor get settled down on your on your anchor point push that push that bow shoulder towards the target and make your release now when you release that arrow so long as you're in proper alignment your your bow hand should jump towards the target now if it jumps off to the left something isn't right you don't have proper alignment and you need to work on your form bust a knock you

Channel: Clay Hayes

Views: 815,151

Rating: 4.9212055 out of 5

Keywords: archery, bowhunting, longbow, selfbow, clay hayes, how to shoot a recurve bow, yew longbow, traditional archery, archery tips, recurve shooting technique, medieval, archer, game of thrones, lord of the rings, recurve bow, bow and arrow, traditional archery tips, how to, recurve, Hunting, archery for beginners, archery lessons, proper archery form, proper shooting form, instinctive archery, Shooting Sport, traditional recurve archery, aiming, shooting tips, good form, tutorial, Sport

Id: G-r1IqWjkKw

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2015