Bow arm shoulder placement?

[Over&Under]

I was recently on a hog hunt and the guide, a long time trad archer said that it is a good idea to roll your bow arm shoulder forward as if you were going to hit someone with it.  He stated that it helped lock in the bow arm and align it properly.  He also stated that it helped increase draw length as well as made your arm muscles not work as much.  It feels very strange to me.

It appears that Terry's picture below that his shoulder is rolled forward as I am trying to describe.  Is this proper form?

 

Originally posted by Terry Green:
     

   

[McDave]

I think rolling your bow arm shoulder into the bow is another way of saying push with your bow arm.  Pushing with your bow arm moves your bow arm shoulder closer to the bow.  I think the way many people draw the bow, their shoulders would end up pointing to the left of the target at full draw (RH shooter), unless they make some movement to bring their shoulders back into allignment.  I think that's the goal, having your shoulders in allignment with the arrow at full draw.  There's probably more than one way to get there, including moving your shoulders to the left as you draw the bow and then back into allignment at full draw, or just keeping your shoulders more-or-less in allignment throughout the draw.  I'm not sure one method is better than the other, but in my effort to eliminate any unnecessary movements, I strive more for the second method.

[Steve O]

So if you are pushing with your bow arm, how do you get the "bone to bone" alignment to be solid?

[McDave]

Several of the changes I made after attending Rick Welch's class seem to diverge from the solid "bone to bone" allignment.  He teaches shooting with a bent bow arm, and I shoot much more accurately that way.  Of course, how much the bent bow arm contributes to that I couldn't exactly say, as he made about a half-dozen or so other changes to my shooting form at the same time.  His double-anchor, for example, is a combination of thumb knuckle touching the bottom of the ear lobe (how less solid can you get than that?) and your nose against the back of the cock feather.  Used correctly, his double anchor is practically free-floating, with just a tiny contact with your earlobe and your nose.

I can't tell you why these elements of form work better than other alternatives that might offer more "bone to bone" allignment; I can just tell you the fact that for me, they do.