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Hi All,

Welcome to this week’s quick tips email. As always, please forward this message to any of your archery friends who might find it helpful.

🛠️ Equipment Tip

This week I want to cover a Recurve Tuning topic that can be quite confusing: diagnosing a clearance problem where a part of your arrow is contacting a part of your bow.

Almost every archer will experience this at some point, and there’s a very simple test you can use to help find the solution.

If you’re getting clearance issues, just judging how to change your tune from your bareshaft test alone might not be accurate.

In this situation, you need to check what happens when you increase and decrease your poundage as an extra check.

For example, if you increase your poundage by 4 turns on your limbs, and your arrows now appear more weak than before. Or if you decrease your poundage by 4 turns and they appear more stiff than before, then this shows your arrows are behaving as you would expect.

This then means you can use your bareshaft test with confidence and adjust your tuning accordingly.

However, if you increase your poundage and your arrows do not behave as you expect. This is an indicator of a false tune.

For example, your arrow could be so weak that it’s hitting the bow and then appearing stiff on your bareshaft test. If this is the case, increasing your poundage will just make it worse!

False tunes like this are a very common cause of clearance issues and this simple test is a great way to confirm what’s happening with your tuning and fix a clearance issue.

🏹 Technique Tip

When it comes to archery technique, it can be very easy to overcomplicate things. Especially when it comes to your expansion phase through the clicker, which is one of the most important parts of your shot.

One of the most common things archers get confused about is what muscles to use and how to expand through the clicker.

I’ve had countless questions like the ones below:

• “Should the rhomboids be activated during the expansion?”
• “What percentage of upper trap and lower trap tension should I be using?”
• “Should I be using bicep tension during the shot?”
• “Should my forearm be completely relaxed?”
• “How much lat tension should I be using compared to mid trap tension?”

And my favourite one:

• “Is it ok to feel like I’m squeezing only with the Teres Major muscle and the lower lats, but not feeling that much activation in my mid traps and rhomboids?”

The level of complexity here is insane! It’s no wonder people get confused.

Do you think you could shoot well if you’re worried about whether you’re using the Teres Major vs the Rhomboids? Or if you’re trying to control what percentage of Upper Trap vs Mid Trap tension you’re using? Of course not.

The solution is to focus on creating a real movement using body cues that are simple and easy to create and replicate.

For example, in 2017 I asked Kim Woo Jin what he thinks about in order to expand through the clicker…

He said he focusses on moving his draw elbow away from the target to pull through the clicker.

How simple, effective and repeatable is that!

As a final example, imagine you’re doing a pull up. Do you focus on all the different muscles you’re using and what percentage of Lats vs Bicep vs Forearm muscles you’re using?

No, you focus on pulling yourself up and creating a simple, human movement. Interestingly, a good pull up cue for many people is to imagine you’re pulling yourself up from your elbows, rather than pulling from your hands. This is very similar to how I always mention to draw the bow by leading from your elbow and not from your draw hand/wrist.

You don’t have to copy this cue or any cue you’ve heard, but find something simple and repeatable that works for you.

That’s it for today, have a wonderful weekend!

Happy shooting,

Ashe