in the following rap, i am NOT telling anyone how THEY should shoot a stick bow. i'm explaining, in my own thoughts and words, how and why i approach holding a longbow at full draw.imho, in the best of all worlds, there should be one pressure point of contact 'tween the back of the bow handle, as close to the arrow shelf as possible to reduce any unwanted leverage, and some single point of the bowhand's palm.
no, not the entire palm of the hand, just one point. if you reference asbell's latest gem, 'advanced instinctive shooting for bowhunting', you'll see the best general area for the bowhand pressure point nicely depicted. the sweet spot is somewhere 'tween the thumb and forefinger, and at or about the base of the thumb.
once you have found that sweet pressure point spot (which should be almost too easy to feel), the rest of the hand - the palm and fingers - exert
ALMOST ZERO PRESSURE on the handle. this allows the bow to pivot on your bow hand's pressure point and will prevent the common 'heeling' of the bowhand on release that cause so many bad arrows.
the bowhand's forefinger and thumb touch, thus holding the bow from punching out of yer bowhand upon release.
this type of bowhand pressure point also allows the bottom of the bowhand (pinky et al) to angle slightly away from the riser/arrow shelf, which gives lots of bowstring clearance on release. it also demands that you need to do what you should be doing all the time - using yer back muscles to 'push-pull' as you aim and release -
this is absolutely critical for all archers, targeteers and hunters ... most archers fail to use their back muscles and their efforts are relegated to hit and miss, mostly miss..
you can use this type of single pressure point grip with most any type of handle grip - straight, dished, soft locator or recurve pistol. all serious target archers use a single pressure point grip. it's simply the most consistent of all ways of shaking hands with a bow handle. there is NO reason why a bowhunter couldn't/shouldn't employ this same single pressure point grip style. there's nothing unwieldy about it that excludes the bowhunting community and *many* bowhunters use it - some without even knowing.
it is easier to find that pressure spot with a soft locator grip. you can wrap a straight grip with one turn of 1/8" leather right under where your pressure is located for quicker reference, as mentioned by mr. asbell.
i won't talk about the wrist or bow arm placements. those are matters for each of us to suss out and decide what's best. what works for me may not work for you, in those two criteria.
however, the 'single point of bow handle/bow hand' matter is, imho, irrefutable - it's physically the most consistent approach to allowing the flow of energy during release to consistently move the bow in one direction.
this is due to just that one, SMALL pressure point.
if you have a broader pressure point, or multiple pressure points, you can easily see how consistency becomes much more difficult to achieve as that type of grip is too easy to "float" the bow hand's pressure point at various locations on the bow handle, thus adding variable torque to the release. i see this ALL the time with archers who have good shooting potential but are being held back by a bowhand that's "sloppy" and quite inconsistent, and that leads to spraying arrows all over the butt (if the butt indeed gets hit) as opposed to far closer arrow groupings. the same is true for archers that are decent to pretty darn good "shots" but have those occasional "flyers" or who have good and bad accuracy days. look to the bow hand.
there are MANY factors of form that affect consistent accuracy. imho, it all starts with picking up the bow and how ya hold it. it's the first thing we all do before we even reach for an arrow.
hope some of this rap makes for more consistent shooting for some of you good folk.
typical straight "choke" grip, with heeled palm pressure ............ versus ............ single thumb base pressure point grip
Topic: HH bug got me ... Part One! (Read 153889 times)
