Where Is Your Anchor?

[Bear Heart]

I am thinking about changing my corner of the mouth anchor point to one slightly farther back to get proper alignment.  Just curious about the different anchor point you all are using.

[Rooselk]

I do exactly what you are considering. I anchor slightly further back from the corner of my mouth. It works for me.

[TomMcDonald]

I had to do that too.
I moved it all the way back to where my upper and lower jaw meet in the corner about an inch from my ear lobe. My shooting improved heaps.
My elbow was lower, and my shoulders and back were much better alligned.

[wtpops]

I put the back knuckle of my thumb under my ear lobe and the cock feather on my upper lip.

Just a heads up, with a longer draw you may have to retune, your arrows may end up week depending on how much longer your draw ends up being

[Bear Heart]

I'm gonna miss that easy to find corner of my mouth.

[Thebear_78]

I draw until my thumb rests just under my jaw bone, this puts my index finger right behind the corner of my mouth.

[Rick P]

I anchor the first knuckle of my thumb in the notch between my cheek bone and jaw. This point is further back and it doesn't change depending on my mood the way the corner of the mouth dose. Also for me my thumb really locks into place so repeatable form is unmistakable.

[longbowguy]

Bear Heart- Good thinking. We are all built differently but I think the corner of the mouth anchor causes many of us to short draw. The forearm does not get into line with the arrow and the target line like it should. This means the draw forces are not in the target line and left-right arrows occur. Further, the neck, head and therefore the corner of the mouth can move in any direction but especially fore and aft, forth and back. This affects draw length.

So further back is better, but still variable. I try to feel my anchor not so much on my face but in my shoulder, back and elbow. If they are lined up where they should be it doesn't matter much what the corner of my mouth is doing. - lbg

[Bear Heart]

I just check my form in the mirror.  I stood with my shoulders and bow arm facing the mirror.  Kept my head in place and drew back until my elbow just disappeared.  This gave me an anchor about 3/4" back from the corner of my mouth.  My back tension felt better than ever.  Can't shoot any arrows until tomorrow so I will have to wait and see.

[KrEn]

I just changed from corner of mouth to 2. thumb joint on bone below ear.

as it turned out that gave me MUCH better alignment (while still keeping head in a reasonable position) At first my shooting got alot worse, and will probably have to scrap all my arrows since i now draw 30.5". Might have to get a new bow too since the 48#@28" recurve is too much for me at 30.5", It is VERY fast though    

I then tried a lighter bow and longer arrows. My shooting is still way too variable but some sessions and most shots i now shoot better than i ever thought possible.

My bottom line is one need to find where the body needs to be to have optimum alignment, and play from there.

K

[junker]

went from corner of mouth to tip of index finger touching cheek bone.

bone on bone

[Bradd]

A good, repeatable, consistent anchor must be a bone on bone contact.  Everything else are 'touch' points for confirmation only because they can change.  The best is the web of the hand fitting snugly along/around the jawline with one of the fingers touching a specific tooth.

Remember that the higher the anchor, the harder it is to engage the back muscles.

Also, keep the mouth closed, with the teeth resting together (not clenched).  Try a shot with mouth open and then closed to see the difference it makes!

[McDave]

I also noticed that I wasn't getting my elbow all the way back when I anchored in the corner of my mouth.

In trying to correct this problem, I noticed a couple of other things:

If all you do is pull the arrow further back, you're not really solving the problem, and your elbow tends to stick out even when the arrow is hauled back quite a ways.  You need to engage your back muscles, which will pull your elbow around into allignment with the arrow.  It feels more like a rotary motion of my elbow than a straight back motion, and doesn't require as much of a change to get your elbow into allignment.

In  Precision Archery by Ruis and Stevenson, they recommend using back tension as your anchor, rather than some point on your face.  It doesn't mean that you abandon touching a particular point on your face, since that's still your rear sight.  But it means that you focus on reaching a certain state of back tension each time you shoot, and don't release until you achieve that level of back tension.  They point out that when you get tired, your head may droop forward, or your shoulders may slump, and if your only reference is a point on your face, you will start missing shots and not know why.

Terry Green, in the Tradgang DVD, recommends dragging the knuckle of your thumb across your face as you come to full draw.  This assures that you have the same allignment of your bow with your face each time you shoot.

Making the three changes above has improved my shooting, although being aware of reaching a certain degree of back tension is subtle, as it's not something we have focused on most of our lives.  But if you look in the mirror, and focus on the feeling in your back when your elbow comes into allignment, you will find that you can recognize the feeling when you're shooting.  It only required me to move my point of contact back from the corner of my mouth to a point directly back of that on my jawbone, about 1" I would guess.  A side benefit is that I pick up an inch in draw length, which brings me pretty close to a 28" draw length.

[Terry Green]

Yes...I use a double anchor...I drag my thumb base knuckle along side my cheek...I keep dragging even though my middle finger is in the corner, and the arrow don't go till the thumb base knuckle slides behind my jaw under my hear.

You can see my face being distorted as I drag....

  Close up Clip

[Bradd]

I found a really easy way to engage the back muscles every time.  For those that can't feel it, try this.

As you draw, pretend that there is a 'bump' right in front of the riser that you have to go up and over, and then you are going to rest your forearm on the bump, bring the shoulders down.

I was also taught to always try to 'cut the face' with the thumb or index finger on release.

[Bear Heart]

Terry, upon watching the video I noticed that you tilt your head slightly.  Can you elaborated on the correct use of this.

[Terry Green]

My head is tilted to the same angle as the cant of my bow.

[Rick P]

Originally posted by Terry Green:
My head is tilted to the same angle as the cant of my bow.

Ditto except when hunting duck from a canoe, then I hold the bow dang near flat, that might hurt if I tried to match the cant angle.

[Greg Owen]

When I lock my thumb under my jawbone I get a good solid anchor, but if I look into a mirror I see my hand is twisting the string.  How do you keep from putting an 'S' in the string with this anchor?

[McDave]

Greg - if you let the bow float in your bow hand, it should come to some natural angle such that there is no torque in the bowstring.  In other words, let the angle your fingers are gripping the string determine how much the bow is canted.  Unless I'm misunderstanding your question.