G.Fred and advice on stance.

[Krex1010]

Originally posted by Kris:
I love G. Fred but I do NOT use his open stance and find it very unnatural and unergonomic. I fully understand and appreciate its application in the field.  I love pulling my bow across and through my shoulders, my power stroke...aligning everything along the way.  Squaring to this, to me, seems counterintuitive.  Agree with "from the hips up" but oddly do not have that flexibility and prefer to match my stance with my torso.

     

 

"We rarely align our treestand or ground blinds with our bow shoulder pointing toward the expected shot area (although I suppose some guys do) We are usually FACING our target area. "

I ALWAYS orientate my stands with my left bow shoulder (R handed) towards the area of greatest shot probability, otherwise I stand-up for off-side shots.  I call this my "power side".  

Kris [/b]

I do the same, position my stands so the prime area is about 10 o'clock. Started this when hunting with firearms and continued it with my archery gear.

[Bigmagic]

What I like about Fred's view on a front stance is that if you are stalking game and are confronted you probably don't have the opportunity to stop, turn your body into your favorite stance to take the shot. You may have only the opportunity to make the shot from the forward stance you are in. I found that by practicing this while slowly walking this way at my 3D targets it wasn't that hard to accomplish this shooting style.

[Terry Green]

If I am caught with an animal coming straight at me, I just rotate my right foot out to open up my hips so I can rotate myself to the right at the waist into my normal alignment.

I also show this in The Bowhunters of TradGang DVD.

[McDave]

Originally posted by Terry Green:
If I am caught with an animal coming straight at me, I just rotate my right foot out to open up my hips so I can rotate myself to the right at the waist into my normal alignment.

I also show this in The Bowhunters of TradGang DVD.

Actually, I've seen Fred do the same thing.  He calls it "pushing with your bow arm," but the result is that he ends up with his feet open but his shoulder pointed toward the target.  I'm not sure he ends up with his shoulders in perfect form-clock alignment with the target, but they're more aligned with the target than his feet are.

Look at his ad on p. 22 of the current TBM, and you'll see what I mean.