Return to to spilt.

[Earthdog]

For the last 2-3? years I've been shooting 3under.
With my recurve this has been fine,although my point on distance did drop from 50 some yards to around 35-40.
Anyway,last week I hung up my recurve and returned to shooting just longbow for a while,as I do every few years.
Since I can't shoot NZFAA or IFFA 3under, and those 80 yarders are way out there,I thought I'd go back to split fingers.
The first few arrows were pretty frustrating,like two feet high at 20 yards,so I started anchouring with my middle finger instead of my usual index finger.
This put the nock at much the same hight as I'd had with 3under and an index anchour,and everything came back togeather.
The last couple of days have been very interesting,my release is still as clean as it was 3under,the bow is quiter even though it wasn't bad with 3under,the bow seems to shoot better in the hand shock and over all feel department,,,and the best part,,I seem to be shooting with a slightly faster and smoother action myself.
Also,my instinctive shot seems to have improved by returning to split.
I do mix my aiming style from shot to shot depending on the situation,but I'm seeing a real improvement in my instinctive shot,as proved by my group patterns and the 3 arrows I've robin hooded over the last week :rolleyes:
Because I've changed my anchour to match my 3under angles,I still have the reduced point on range,,but that's going to be the final change in my return,one thing at a time I guess,we'll just see that works out when it happens,but so far I'm very happy.

[zetabow]

I'm shooting my Recurve 3 under and my Longbow Split (IFAA rules), I seem to switch back between the two styles without any issues and enjoying shooting the Recurve, I think my Longbow form has improved due to shooting the Recurve.

When I shoot the Recurve there's a lot less guesswork as to what went wrong i.e I know 95% of it is form error, with the Longbow it's a little harder to tell what went wrong when such a light in the hand Bow with natural materials like wood arrows, off the shelf. So the Recurve has helped me to trust my form and shot sequence more and allowed me to take that confidence back to the Longbow.      

[reddogge]

I shoot split and anchor middle finger in corner of mouth and get a point on between 35 and 40 yards.  When playing archery games and shooting targets over 50 yards I drop my anchor to first finger in corner of mouth.

[Earthdog]

Zetabow,I find the same thing but more the other way round,because I've always shot recurve more than longbow,the step back to longbow makes my recurve shooting better.
I have to work harder with my longbow and that helps a lot when I shoot recurve.
I must admit,some of your comments about the European longbow scene have been a big motivator for me

Reddogge,I thought about doing that myself,but to tell the truth I've just been through a year of being pretty dissapointed with some of the politics in NZ's archery scene toward longbow shooting,and I was starting to withdraw from the whole thing because of that.
This return to longbow and split is more about me just getting over myself an sticking with the rules,,,so face walking "for what ever reason" is against the rules in IFFA shooting,,so I have to go with the flow.
You can bet I will be practing it outside of competition though.
Next comes Wooden arrows,and I'm going to  have get my act togeather there as well.