When I first took up archery in the mid 1960's I was taught to put the string to the tip of my nose and the middle of my chin so that my forefinger was under the jawbone. After a few years I gave up archery (wish I hadn't) and did various other things. I returned to archery in 2007 to discover that the thinking then was that the string should be to the right hand side of the chin (I am right-handed) so that the arrow was below the eye.
So, I drew the bow to slightly to the right of my chin and got on reasonably well, making Bowman without any coaching at all. That attracted the attention of the County Coach who put me with, the then, chief coach for said County. He decided I wasn't properly getting into line and that I should draw further to the side of my face. I tried this for a while, shot longer arrows, and gradually got worse as an archer and with a painful left shoulder. I got to be so bad that I gave up altogether.
When I started with the coach my only problem was that on occasion I plucked the release and asked if we could concentrate on that. He told me that when I got properly in line that my release would be cured as a result. It wasn't! At that time I was in my sixties, a little round shouldered from working at a desk most of my life, and not as flexible as a teenager. The final straw was that at the last coaching session I attended he observed that he thought I was so far in line that I had nowhere to go as my shoulder blades were already up against one another. I know of another, pretty good, archer who went through the same process and then tried to get back to how he shot before and couldn't. Neither could I.
Anyway, to bring this long post to a conclusion, I have returned to archery and am intrigued to notice that many of the top international archers are now drawing the bow to either the middle, or close to, of the chin. Is this the new thinking, and why the change?
So, I drew the bow to slightly to the right of my chin and got on reasonably well, making Bowman without any coaching at all. That attracted the attention of the County Coach who put me with, the then, chief coach for said County. He decided I wasn't properly getting into line and that I should draw further to the side of my face. I tried this for a while, shot longer arrows, and gradually got worse as an archer and with a painful left shoulder. I got to be so bad that I gave up altogether.
When I started with the coach my only problem was that on occasion I plucked the release and asked if we could concentrate on that. He told me that when I got properly in line that my release would be cured as a result. It wasn't! At that time I was in my sixties, a little round shouldered from working at a desk most of my life, and not as flexible as a teenager. The final straw was that at the last coaching session I attended he observed that he thought I was so far in line that I had nowhere to go as my shoulder blades were already up against one another. I know of another, pretty good, archer who went through the same process and then tried to get back to how he shot before and couldn't. Neither could I.
Anyway, to bring this long post to a conclusion, I have returned to archery and am intrigued to notice that many of the top international archers are now drawing the bow to either the middle, or close to, of the chin. Is this the new thinking, and why the change?