Alighnment, DL and Speed

[Farmingdales Finest]

I stumbled upon this video last night on Youtube with John Demmer and Frank McDonough going over alignment and how it affects your DL and accuracy.

It made me realize that I was drawing mostly with my arm and shoulder and not enough with my back. Today I was trying to emulate what I saw in the video and while it felt awkward I had no pain in my shoulders and noticed that I picked up almost two inches in draw length. I am not really interested in Barebow and more interested in hunting and shooting local 3D for practice. One thing I can't really see as carrying over to hunting is where they predraw and have the draw hand pulling the string to even with the front shoulder before transferring to the back muscles. I may be wrong and I just need practice but it seemed weird to me.

My questions are first am I wrong and it will transfer to a hunting situation, second is that much increase in DL common and finally does 1" draw add up to approximately 10 fps like it does with a compound?

[McDave]

“I can't really see as carrying over to hunting is where they predraw and have the draw hand pulling the string to even with the front shoulder before transferring to the back muscles. I may be wrong and I just need practice but it seemed weird to me.”

The video is totally about the effect of alignment, not transfer to back muscles.  I believe John had already transferred to his back muscles when he drew the string even with his front shoulder.  I don’t believe John would usually draw that way.  He was just showing an out of alignment position he had inadvertently slipped into while trying to correct some other error he was working on.  After he demonstrated the out of alignment position, he was able to move into alignment without having to re-draw the bow.  The coach asked John if he thought he could move from his out-of-alignment position into the correct position, and John demonstrated that he could.  I doubt that everybody could do that; I couldn’t.  Your comment that it seemed weird is correct, and I think they would agree with you.  However, it was helpful to me to observe the difference between John in an out of alignment position, and then in alignment.  I think the point of the video is that there is more to shooting than using back tension; as Terry Green has long said, the key is alignment.

Sorry I really can’t answer your other questions.  There has to be some increase in both draw length and speed by using proper alignment, but I can’t tell you how much.

[Wudstix]

Now you've given me sometime else to fix!!!
 

[Farmingdales Finest]

I am learning it's a process! 

[Terry Green]

I've been preaching the benefits of proper alignment and what I call  the 'Magic T' for 20 years. Check out the Form clock thread on the shooters forum.

And you don't have to dress like a Nascar driver to achieve it.

[Matt flint]

What a great video.
Ive been struggling a bit with a higher anchor. In so doing my draw has dropped to around 29”… super odd but I didnt care much. Raised my brace and brought my rest in and been tuning fine.
Watched this video and it clicked.
Rotated my shoulder back in line and Im rock solid again and stretched back out to over 30. Hand coming out is so freakin tell tail as was spoken of. I need to remember that.
Funny how focusing hard on something else lets other parts of my form go to crap. Hopefully after years of this that will not be the casez
Really screws up my point on though. Going to need to find a higher reference.

[PrimitivePete]

The proper alignment is for the root of all success, too many fall out of alignment based on their anchor. They may be anchoring solidly but they are no where close to being in the strong position that you get once in alignment. You mention on how you noticed a difference in how you shoulders felt, that is a perfect example of not being in a strong hold.
I've mentioned this before that I believe many suffer from perceived target panic when it can be traced to a form issue. When you are not in alignment, there is stress that you can easily feel in your form. That stress adds to the anxiety of the shot and leads to unfavorable results. When I an in good alignment I feel like I can hold all day, and better yet feel the pull to execute the final part of the shot. For myself a mirror test shows me where my draw elbow is in relation to the bowstring. If my elbow is outside the string I know I am not where I need to be. Can't say this is true for everyone because we all built differently but that is what I use as a quick check.
The biggest change once you discovery your true alignment is the likelihood of the anchor changing and might be slightly lower or further back depending on your build.