Wife's arm taking a beating. Help!

[T.J.]

Hi everyone. My new wife has started shooting but we've run into a problem. When she locks her arm to draw, the bottom of her elbow sticks out and keeps getting wacked by the string. How can we prevent this? or is there some sort of guard out there she can wear? Thanks

[Don Stokes]

T.J., women are built differently from men. I know that's not a revelation, but it's important from the archery point of view, too. Women's arms are adapted to carrying babies around all day, and their elbow joints are different because of it. She must not lock her elbow! If she can't draw without locking it, maybe she needs a lower-poundage bow. Tell her to roll the elbow out, out of the way of the string.

[Tim Fishell]

Check out the Trish Farrah (sp?) section of the Masters of the Barebow Vol 1 DVD.  She explains this and how to correct it.

[R H Clark]

Get her a long arm guard.My wife uses one that covers nearly her entire arm,even above the elbow.You can also try to get her to rotate her elbow and shoulder outward.She may need to cant a little to do it though.

[dragon rider]

T.J.

Conceding Don's point, so this may not be completely helpful, I had the same problem when I had to switch from RH to LH.  Leon Stewart told me the way to cure it is to hold the bow straight out in your bow hand horizontally with a fairly tight grip, relax the grip slightly until the bow starts to turn down in your hand and then regrip it and return to a normal shooting position; that will get your elbow out of the way.

It also feels kind of stupid for a while, but feeling stupid is better than being sore and after a few days I found that I just naturally adapted to picking the bow up that way.  Hope that helps.

[Kingstaken]

The bows sounds possibly to heavy. She needs tocant the bow if she does not now and bend her bow arm which will shorten her draw.

[OkKeith]

T.J.

I taught my gal Lisa how to shoot several years ago and she had the same problem. What she found was that in trying to keep it from slapping her arm, the string would catch across her...uh, chest shall we say.

Lisa finally found her form and has no problem with either now. One of the better break throughs she had was not to heel the bow too much. She makes sure when she grips the bow (she shoots a 1968 Red Wing Hunter with a medium recurve style grip, things are different with longbows though) that the last knuckle of her bow hand is right under the arrow.

Lisa is a right hand shooter, and discovered that if that knuckle drifts to the right side of the arrow, her elbow "bent" in and would get whacked (I called this strong negative reinforcement, she called me other names...).

As others suggested, the bow might be a little heavy. Just for now though. As your wife gets her form nailed down, it will be easier for her to shoot.

Lisa also discovered what guys have mentioned above, that canting the bow to the right (for a right hand shooter) helps with the...chest thing. This tucks the drawn bow string sort of into the left arm pit (again, for right hander) away from... sensitive areas.

A little advice if you don't mind about teaching women you care about how to do new things. I have been with the same hard-headed German gal now for 16 years. I taught her how to fly-fish (our first date actually) and how to shoot stick bows. She taught me how to make sauerbraten and spatzel. Let them learn on their own.

Resist the urge to correct every little thing. Tell them how to do it, show them how to do it. Then leave them alone. Try not to make them feel like they are doing everything wrong. Make sure that they know that if they need/want help you are there, but otherwise they can figure it out just like us guys did.

Congratulations on the recent wedding and God bless. Oh... and hold on tight, you are in for a crazy and wonderful ride my friend!

OkKeith