Archery Posture – Learn How To Get Your Body Properly Aligned Before Shooting (The Setup)
This lesson goes through what is known as the “Set-up”, which is ensuring you properly align your elbow, have the best positioning of your shoulders and chest and finally raising your bow arm up.
Like the lessons before this, it all sounds pretty simple and in some respect it is. You just need to make sure that it is done correctly, as this will ensure you have the right alignment of your body which will determine the accuracy and the strength of your shot.
Before we get into the steps of setting up correctly, there are a couple of things you need to review and check first…
Things To Check Before Set Up
- Is your grip set right and will it stay like that whilst your raise your bow arm? – It’s very common for people to forget about previous steps when focusing on the next. If you find yourself adjusting the grip as you raise your bow, you should either focus on getting it right before raising or lower the bow again and start again.
- Check how your hooking the bowstring – Make sure that you are not hooking to tight as this will impact how the string leaves your fingers during the release. You also need to make sure your not bending your hand around the bowstring, this will result in the arrow falling off the arrow rest.
- How is your stance? – When I started, I would always adjust my feet while I was focusing on lifting the bow up. This impacted my entire stance and the accuracy of the shot. Before going through the “set-up”, check that your footings are still in the right place.
The Set Up – Step by step
- Once you have your bow hand gripping the bow and your fingers hooked around the bowstring, you need to extend the arm that is holding the bow forward. (but don’t raise it just yet)
- Make sure your elbow on the arm that is holding the bow is vertical.
- With the bowstring hand, hook your fingers onto the bowstring
- Pull back slightly on the bowstring to secure the bow into your hand. You will notice that the pulling of the bowstring will mean that you don’t really need to grip the bow too much.
- Make sure you do not fully draw the bowstring, you will only be drawing it a little bit.
- Look up with your head, facing perpendicular to the target (You will not be looking at the target but straight in-front of you)
- Turn your head towards the target (without looking at your hands).
- Raise your bow-arm up above the point in which you are aiming, a good point of reference is just above your nose. (The bow should be pointing towards the target)
- The hand that is holding the bowstring should be in-line with your nose, however you should NOT draw the bowstring anymore than you already have (you will do this on the next step)
The set-up is now complete, in the next lesson you will learn how to correctly draw the bowstring back.
NOTE
There is a lot going on in this step and it’s understandable if you do get confused. Simply take your time and focus, don’t rush through the steps and as you continue to repeat this process it will soon become second nature.
NOTE #2
It’s important to remember, when you raise the bow with your hand that you are not actually gripping the bow. The thumb should not be wrapped around the bow but should be pointing towards the target.
This might feel strange at first but by slightly pulling back on the bowstring, this is keeping the actual bow in place without having to grip it.
NOTE
There is a lot going on in this step and it’s understandable if you do get confused. Simply take your time and focus, don’t rush through the steps and as you continue to repeat this process it will soon become second nature.
NOTE #2
It’s important to remember, when you raise the bow with your hand that you are not actually gripping the bow. The thumb should not be wrapped around the bow but should be pointing towards the target.
This might feel strange at first but by slightly pulling back on the bowstring, this is keeping the actual bow in place without having to grip it.