Tracker, I had a similar experience to yours. You may be a candidate for the dead release. While less popular than the dynamic release, it does work better for some people. It's similar to left-handed being less popular than right-handed: if you're left handed, you don't worry about it being less popular, you just do things left-handed anyway.
The dead, or static release has been promoted by Rick Welch in his classes and videos. In a dead release, you draw the bow to full draw primarily using your back muscles, the same as with a dynamic release. However, after you reach full draw, the pulling is balanced, so no more movement or increase in back tension, however slight, occurs during the hold. The release can be triggered by some kind of non-anticipatory psychotrigger or just by relaxing the fingers and letting the string push them out of the way.
On release, there may be a slight backward movement of the hand, or no detectible movement of the hand at all. If there is a flyaway movement of the hand, this would be an indication of creeping or plucking.
With a dead release, movement definitely stops and there is a hold for however long you wish. Rick Welch recommends a two second hold. I don't believe the dead release is compatible with snap shooting, as by definition, I believe, the release occurs at the same moment anchor is achieved when snap shooting. Rick recommends looking at the target while thinking about your form, alignment, and relaxation of muscles in the hand and forearm during this hold. The word "looking" was purposely used rather than "focusing" on the target because your focus should be on the whole shot, including what your body is doing, rather than just the target. When he says "think" about your form, he means awareness, as in physical awareness of what your body is doing. All critical thoughts should be avoided during the shot; any Saturday night quarterbacking should take place in between shots, or better left for blank bale sessions.
The biggest problem with the dead release is creeping during the hold. I combat this by maintaining a constant pressure of the string against my eyebrow, and you need this or some other way of ensuring that you don't lose back tension during the hold.
The biggest advantage of the dead release is that you only have one thing to do when you release the shot, which is to trigger the release. There is no other movement to be coordinated with the release, like steadily increasing back tension through the moment of release. Rick Welch makes the comparison with shooting a rifle, where you make every effort possible to eliminate all movement at the time of the shot.
But talking about advantages and disadvantages of the dead release is really counter-productive. You just have to try it and see which method works the best for you.
Topic: The release (Read 1088 times)
