8, 13, 14, 15, 16 Mar2025 Doing indoors and outdoor stuff

Used my old bow on Tuesday but now I'm beginning the transition to the 35lb one. One thing I had to change was my grip. My old way of gripping was I would wrap the pinky, ring, and middle finger around the grip of the bow and grip tightly. The thumb would be straight and run along the side of the grip with a slight angle (20°-30°). The index finger would be curled but be loose, the tip of the index finger touches the left side of the thumb where the base of the thumbnail is. I use this grip so that the arrow will pass through the the little "V" shaped notch I made using the the index finger and thumb.

However, trying to arrange the index finger and thumb like this feels awkard when moving up in bow weight. Now the thumb rests over the index finger. Unfortunately with this new grip style I was made painfully aware that my nocking point is too low. So I spent an entire session rectifying that issue.

On Sunday I decided to do some distance training by shooting at some old milk jugs. I threw down 3 and just started shooting. For this type of training I decided that if I land a hit on one the jugs it moves up by 10 yards. It's a nice push-back drill and you can make it more difficult by landing a hit multiple times before moving it up. I was able to land a hit ~30 yards away.

For the distance shooting drill I also got new arrows, these ones are 32" feathered. I found it easier to achieve full draw and more importantly perform "expansion release".

8Mar2025 and 9Mar2025-Outdoor

Using my old bow, even though my new one has arrived I don't have good enough technique to handle a heavier bow.

Since my last update I've been using thumb draw with my old bow. Feels great to use a form I'm used to. The first session was rough as always, and I'm reminded that locking both shoulders is integral. Fortunately I stumbled upon this video which goes into amazing detail on how to go about it. Which lead me to their book "The Way of Archery", which is loads better than than what I've been reading from which was "Arab Archery."

Learning to lock in the shoulder by retecting it down and towards the spine is definitely a game changer, it seriously adds a lot of stability during full draw. The elbow contributes a lot to good structure the trick is to rotate it so the elbow points outwards instead of down. This can be easily demonstrated by leaning against the wall using your fist. If the elbow is pointed down it will bend easily compared if it was pointing outward.

Any way for this weekend I went to a park where they have an archery range. It's much cheaper than the indoor range since it's only parking you pay for. On both days I just used the shortest range they had which was 10 yards. Technique and form is the only thing I'll be focusing on for awhile.

19Feb2025-Indoor range

Back again still renting out equipment so still stuck with Mediterranean draw.

After the first session, I was looking up vides on Comanche archery, since for that style arrows are loosed on the left side of the bow with a right hand draw. One thing that stuck out to me was that they tilt their bows, sometimes they hold it completely horizontal as well. Needless to say when I tilted the bow (30°-45° CW) for this session it felt right to me. I also was on target more for this seesion compared to the previous.

Later on a couple of friends and one of them signed us up for a lesson. So we can have a session together. In my arrogance I thought it beneath me, but it was valuable to have a learned instructor watch me and point out my bad habits.

One bad habit was drawing the bow poorly. While reading Arab Archery I must have misinterpreted the section on drawing. I was trying to draw halfway slowly, and then to full quickly. This is very tricky to perform don't do this if you're a beginner, reason being you may not accomplish this in a controlled manner. Remember consistency is the primary objective if you don't have good control of your bow it will result in inconsistency.

Despite all that the instructor did say I have good grouping so at the moment of release I'm decent. It's just that once in a while I do something dumb.

I won't go back until my bow arrives so I can return to thumb draw again. Once I'm back to form I'll practice the concept of double release.

13Feb2025-Indoor range

First time doing archery in almost three years I think.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my own bow with me at the time so I had to use the range's bow which was convenient however, it is a modern bow. Meaning there's a small shelf in the bow where the arrow rests. Also in that range there's a different style of drawing that they teach which is new to me. Mediterranean is where you use three fingers to pull back the arrow as opposed to what I'm used to which is the thumb. The arrow also flies on the left side of the bow if you use your right hand which again I'm not used to.

With that said, this session was embarrsing for me. I kept hitting another person's target since I'm not used to compensating to the left. One of the instructor's also noticed my thumb guard and he threw a bunch of draw styles, but I'm super ignorant of anything else besides what I learned from Arab Archery.

Despite all that it was still enjoyable and all the bits and pieces of concepts started to come back to me. The most important concept consistency. Meaning if you loose (shoot) 10 arrows in the same manner. All 10 should land in the same spot.

How does one obtain or maintain consistency? Through good form. In the style I learned the main focus were the shoulders. That's a subject for another time though.