Bowstring fingers

[fmscan]

I have seen some talk about Cupped Hand, Twisting, Flexing and Torquing the string. Frequently I get a real flyer and do not know what caused it. I shoot a 45# very light mass weight bow and they say that can magnify the form issues.
I am interested in the proper hand position and finger angle on the string. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Moebow I will thank you in advance!

[moebow]

LOL Frank!

I do describe and show a relaxed string hook/hand/wrist/forearm in the "release tips" video I did a while back on You Tube.  

It starts with the hook.  In or very near the first joints from the finger tips and the finger tips curled back towards you. The pad of the thumb aggressively pulled down so it hovers over your palm.  Fingers should essentially be perpendicular to the string and NOT pointed or angled down the string

Then treating your hand/wrist/forearm as a loose chain that the bow weight straightens as the weight builds up during the draw.  You can get so relaxed that you can actually feel the bones in your wrist pulling apart a little. This flattens the hand too.

You must TRUST the finger hook -- it is MUCH stronger than you will believe!  IF the only tension in your hand is the hook, EVERYTHING will line up correctly by bow weight alone.  There is NO need to try to muscle anything.

It is that muscling that causes most release problems.  Tension will/can twist the string both in the horizontal and vertical planes.

As far as the bow's mass weight, I don't find that it has anything to do with it.  The bow will settle into a relaxed bow hand where it needs to be AND at the same time align the string side.

Many of us try too hard to CONTROL the bow and string rather than LETTING the bow and string do the work.

This is not easy and takes some practice (took me LOTS of practice) but any of the difficulties you mention in the OP are because we try to control everything (or too much) with muscle.

Arne

[Jack Hoyt 75]

Great advise. Thanks. I use hook but need to work on the relaxing part of it.  Good video!

[fmscan]

Arne, I am sure that I do not relax anything when I shoot, much to tense. When the snow leaves the yard, I am going to work on blind bailing with eyes closed until it happens. Needs to be second nature when I get the shot at the big 8 pter. Torquing the string is something I did not understand, your post helped when you said "tension will twist the string, both horizontal & vertical planes". The "control" comments were spots on, I have been called a control freak many times.
We can always count on you!

[slowbowjoe]

Vertical finger pressure affects my arrows a lot... I do best with most of the weight, at release, on the middle finger (shooting split).

Relaxed (cupped) hand helps a lot with the torque. As far as follow through, I like the Hill style lately: "Upon release, the bow hand and string hand should do nothing", or something close to that.

Bow arm matters... lots!

[moebow]

SBJ,

I agree with Howard's statement (who would disagree with the master?) BUT I think it is often misinterpreted.

To me, "Both hands do nothing" means that we do NOTHING to affect their motion.  IF we try to allow NO movement (dead release) then we are doing SOMETHING to hold them in place.  AND IF we are artificially moving them, we are still doing SOMETHING to cause that movement.

"Both hands doing nothing" should, IMO, mean that we are in NO way trying to cause movement but rather allowing them to move naturally due to proper set up and execution.  We do NOTHING to stop OR cause movement -- it just happens.

Arne

[olddogrib]

Don't know where I read this simple trick, but you can make a loop of parachord at your draw length and loop it over the base of your bow hand thumb where the grip should contact and draw the loop to anchor with your eyes closed.  If you're not imparting any twist/torque when you glance down you should only see one (the top) length of parachord, as the bottom length will be perfectly parallel and hidden beneath it.  Made sense to me. I cant to about 1 o'clock but was over compensating (clockwise)to where the back of my string hand did not remain parallel to the bowstring.  I think form nuances such as this probably manifest themselves as subtle undesirable pressure of the string fingers(pluck, at its worst), as a pronounced visible string hand rotation of a bow under load would be tough to do.  My bare shaft flight did improve noticeably when I got the back of my string hand realigned with the natural path of string travel.

[moebow]

Absolutely olddogrib.  There are many ways of checking your alignment, that many just don't bother with.  A string bow and a rubber band in front of a mirror will do wonders for alignment and for detecting torque, inconsistencies, miss alignments and even efficient movement.  It is a shame that so many ignore simple self-assessment tools.

Arne

[olddogrib]

Arne,
I'm with you on the perpendicular fingers, too.   There's another well known trad site more devoted to field archery I visit that has a "sticky" advising finger shooters to angle their fingertips down at an approx. 30 deg. angle.  Listening to that great tip is how I developed the crapppy form problem mentioned above that took me so long to figure out. Believe me, fellow Americans.... Moe knows bows!

[slowbowjoe]

Arne;agreed!