Aiming with both hands

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
In my experience, many archers aim in the wrong manner and actually make the shot worse as a result. They come to full draw, stop. They move the sight onto the gold,stop. Get the shakes and loose at some point before the fuse blows. When I ask what was going on they usually explain how they tried to hold the sight still etc. etc.
"You need to use both arms."
If they were listening there is usually a question coming soon.
I use an old bowstring with the ends tied together to form a loop. They put their bow hand into the front of the loop and I hold the other end.
I then become their drawing arm/hand while they try to aim with their normal bow hand. I hold the end close to the archer's anchor point and gently apply tension while they try to aim at an imaginary target. As I build the tension slowly, they balance the tension by pushing that little bit harder.
So long as I increase the tension slowly, they manage to hold their bow hand fairly steady. Then I explain that I will copy what I saw them doing earlier. I stop increasing tension and start to move the end of the loop backwards and forwards to duplicate the way their drawing elbow moved. They find it is impossible to keep still until steady tension is applied again.
At some point, I let go and watch their follow through! Right handers' bowarms always move left. Drawing attention to this often comes as a surprise to them. It's a simple piece of kit but it can help some overcome their aiming difficulties. It demonstrates a natural bow arm follow through too.
 
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