Define "plucking the string" for me, please...

[Tom Anderson]

A video would be great also.

[Old York]

Go get a chicken and yank some feathers outta her back. Then just pull on some feathers and let them fall from your finger tips, like a rose petal parts a lover's lips.

Yanking makes the chicken fly to the right [depends which hand you used though], but the smooth pull makes her cluck & purr.

Still wanna see a video? [grin]

[Skinny Little Runt]

Tim, you been drinking the water again???LOL
Don't listen to him. He lives way "up Nort"
Plucking--pulling your hand off the string as opposed to relaxing the fingers.

[Old York]

Sorry, it's the laqcreu lacquer lak-urr laker? fumes  gasp  head-pound   gasp  cough      whew...    

[Keuka]

When you pluck the string you tend to jerk or pull your fingers off the string. Your fingers and hand pull away from your face and your bow hand tends to jump causing a poor fallow through.
This will usually cause you to hit to the right or left of the target.
When I release correctly, my fingers just relax and my fingers slid down my cheek and end up against my ear. My string hand never really leaves contact with my face and my bow hand remains on target.
String plucking can be the result of many things. One of the most common is you are not pushing with the bow hand and pulling with the string hand at the point of release.

[McDave]

Keuka is correct, but I would go a little further, and say that if you notice your fingers and hand pulling away from your face, just take that as an indication that you are not coming to full draw.  Meaning that your shoulders are not lined up parallel with the arrow on release, and your drawing forearm is not in line with the arrow.  Pushing with the bow arm and pulling with the string hand is another way of saying the same thing.  Proper back tension is another way of saying the same thing.  I suppose it is possible to pluck the string if you come to full draw, but it's unlikely.  I tend to look at any problem I have with my release as being a symptom that there is some underlying problem with my form rather than a separate problem itself.

[strcpy]

One can definitely pluck the string and be at full draw - I can personally assure you of that.

Plucking the string has more to do with trying to get your fingers away from the string instead of just letting go usually with some form of target panic (gotta get it off NOW). It is an immediate tensing of many muscles in your hand/arm that result in the arm flying away from your face and the bow not reacting in a straight line towards the target (causing left and right misses).

This also almost always results in a loss of backtension, failure to come to full draw (and proper alignment), and a whole host of other problems. However I can assure you that plucking is quite possible whilst maintaining all of the above. Were I able to video myself I can easily show you me with my formaster pluck like crazy after coming through the clicker (and thus at full draw and proper alignment) and maintaining back tension as I do not collapse while wearing the formaster.

It is a form of performance anxiety with your release - basically a belief (either conscious or sub-conscious) that you have to force a release to happen for it to be clean. It generally causes those above problems instead of caused by them.

There are many other causes for your hand moving away from your face. Alignment is one of the main ones, the other is too much tension in your arm. However these aren't really plucking the string and you will occasionally see a really good archer doing the latter (too much tension in the arm - that is consistently doable though hard).

I would generally agree that if you hand leaves your face then something ought to be corrected - I have a bad tendency to keep too much in my arm, especially expanding through a clicker. I haven't plucked the string in some time.

[BLACK WOLF]

I pretty much agree with everything that has been said so far...especially strcpy's last post.

Ricky Welch, if you don't know who he is, is one of the most dominating archers in many of the high level archery competitions here in the states.

His style of release would be catagorised by some as plucking the string because of the way his hand moves away from his face but it's consistant...which is one of the primary keys to any archer developing accuracy. He has incorporated some other techiniques within his style that help him with maintaining consistantcy so an archer's form does not necessarily need to look text book perfect to be effective.

Ray  

[Paul WA]

a good way to work on a smooth release is while you are relaxing your fingers to release, move your arm back at the same time in very slow motion...PR