Hi All,
Welcome to this week’s ‘5 quick tips’ email. As always, feel free to forward this message to your archery friends.
🛠️ Equipment recommendation
When it comes to tuning,
changing point weight is pointless.
I’ve seen so many archers try to improve their bareshaft tune by adjusting point weight, but the truth is that it does almost nothing.
Why is this? Firstly, the amount of weight (10-20 grains), simply doesn’t make much difference. And secondly, when you add weight to make the arrow weaker, you also make the point longer which adds extra stiffness to the end of the arrow.
So, forget about point weight and focus on the three main things that actually affect your tuning: poundage, arrow length and arrow spine. Get your bareshaft in the group at 18m
and 30m by matching these 3 things, and for 99% of archers, this is more than good enough.
If you want step-by-step guidance on the full process, read my
Ultimate Guide to Recurve Tuning.
🏹 Technique tip
If you’re working on changing your hook, make sure your tab isn’t limiting you.
If you have a worn-in tab that has a strong string line, it can be almost impossible to change your hook because your tab will force you into your old position.
Get some new tab leather to make your life easier. And while I’m at it you should change your tab leather more regularly anyway. Try it out and your release and grouping will thank me 😜
🧠 Mindset
The recurve shot can feel complicated at times, and archery also tends to attract a more analytically minded person. So it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to get everything perfect or trying to focus on multiple things at once.
Trust me, I’m pretty analytical too and this approach doesn’t work.
Learn from my mistakes and
focus on one thing at a time, for a period of at least 1 week. Pick one thing that if you improved this week, you’d feel you made great progress.
And stick to it all week…
💪 Try this in training
Ah, bow training. The dreaded bow training.
The truth is, for 99% of archers,
being able to control your bow more is the single biggest thing you can do to improve your shooting.
Here’s a simple bow training session to get started. When you finish your normal shooting session, do some draw-up repetitions. It’s better to do it at the end of your session so you’re properly warmed up.
Simply draw up, aim at your normal target and expand slowly and smoothly for 5 seconds. Then draw down and repeat immediately. Repeat for 6-12 reps depending on your strength. You want it to feel like you could do 1 or maybe 2 more reps with correct technique.
Rest for 2 mins and repeat for 2-4 sets, depending on your strength.
Make sure you start very slow with this, and build up gradually. It’s not a bad idea to start with a lighter bow than normal too.
You can also find more bow training exercises in my
Bow Training and Exercises Library.
🎬 Cool video or podcast I’d recommend
Here’s a great video of Lee Woo Seok shooting. You can see lots of great detail and the different angles are really helpful to see as well.
What do you think is the best part of his technique? And can you spot how his anchor has changed from previously?
That’s it for today, have a wonderful weekend!
Happy shooting,
Ashe
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