Archery Draw Technique and Full Draw
Table of Contents
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INTRODUCTION
Your draw technique is one of the most important parts of your shot cycle in recurve archery, and it’s how you get from your setup position to full draw. It is crucial to do this correctly to achieve your optimum shoulder positioning at full draw.
If you draw properly, you should be able to reach your real full draw position consistently and use your shoulders to expand smoothly through the clicker. The aim here is to bring the draw elbow, arm and shoulder blade around the body efficiently whilst maintaining your draw arm connection. As you do this, you will bring the bow further into your natural bone alignment. This means that at full draw, the tension of the bow should mostly be held by your bone structure.
Importantly, the correct draw motion should minimise compression, tightness or discomfort in the shoulder joint. Therefore, this motion is key to reduce injury risk. When you reach full draw you want to use the mid and lower muscles of the back and minimise tension in the upper back and neck; drawing correctly will help you do this.
In the next section, we will look at the expansion stage of the shot. You can also checkout our Online Archery Academy YouTube channel for more in depth videos on the draw technique and every other area of recurve olympic archery. Or if you haven’t read it already, make sure to go through our Recurve Archery Basics guide.
KEY POINTS FOR THE ARCHERY DRAW TECHNIQUE
1. Use the lower back muscles, and keep the upper traps and neck relaxed.
2. Continue leading your draw motion from the elbow.
3. Draw slightly below the chin, then come into anchor.
4. Think about the draw hand locating against the neck, not the chin or jaw.
5. Bring the string picture inwards from the setup position, to the side of the riser.
6. Reach real full draw by continuing to move the draw elbow round and come into final alignment before expansion.
Recurve Archery Technique – Draw & Full Draw
THE DRAWING MOTION
THE BACK MUSCLES
Before we get started, it is important to understand the muscles of the back and how we wish to use them. Fig 1. shows these muscles approximately.
As a general rule, throughout the whole shot we want to avoid using the muscles of the back above the orange line. Ideally, we want to use the muscles of the back below the orange line. This includes the mid/lower traps and the lats shown in Fig. 1. There are many other muscles involved too; this is a simplification to just the essentials.
Using the mid and lower muscles of the back has many benefits. Firstly, the lower back muscles combined are much larger than the upper traps. The lats alone are the second largest muscle in the body. So shooting with these muscles will be much less fatiguing. Second, using the lower back muscles will allow you room to expand smoothly and execute the shot properly. Compare this to using the upper traps which will lead to shortening of your draw length and a softer execution. Lastly, using the upper traps causes unnecessary tension around the neck and can cause the shoulders to raise up and become compressed under load; this increases injury risk.
Fig. 1 still shows a bit too much upper trap activation. You can see a great example of using the lower muscles of the back in Video 1 below.
THE DRAWING TECHNIQUE FOR RECURVE ARCHERY
To draw the bow from setup you must continue leading your movement from the draw elbow and maintain your draw side connection. You should direct the elbow around the body and behind you, this will close down the gap between the hand and the face to get to full draw. This motion is demonstrated best by the red arrow in the right hand image of Fig. 2.
In the left hand side of Fig. 2, the red dot traces the movement of the draw elbow along the orange line. Through this movement along the “V” shape path, the draw elbow is coming more into alignment and the hand is coming into the full draw position. A key point here is that the upper traps must remain relaxed throughout. You must pay attention when you are moving the elbow upwards along “path 2”. Many people lose direction here and allow the upward motion to cause tension in the upper traps. Also, the final elbow position should not be too high as that will cause you to use the upper traps more.
In summary, you need to keep moving the elbow in three directions through the draw motion.
1) It follows the “V” shape path.
2) It moves closer to the body, into better alignment.
3) It continues moving away from the target at all times.
DRAWING BELOW THE CHIN
As you draw the bow, it helps to draw slightly under the chin before coming to full draw. You can see this in Fig. 3 and Video 1 to the right. Drawing below the chin helps you to move the draw scapula around the body and into alignment in a way which allows you to use the lower back muscles properly, rather than the upper traps.
Drawing below the chin from set-up and then moving the hand upwards and inwards to full draw is a key part of using the correct muscles of the scapula and back. Most of the worlds top archers use this technique.Â
As you move from set-up to drawing slightly below the chin, the draw elbow traces “path 1” as shown in the left image in Fig. 2. Then, “path 2” is created as you move from below the chin into the full draw position. The result is the “V” shape path of the draw elbow.
The exact shape and size of the path is not crucial. The important part is to be able to move the scapula around the body properly (normally during the downward movement of “path 1”) and then move slightly upwards into the full draw position (path 2).
You can see a great example of this technique in Video 2 below, showing French international team member Thomas Chirault.
Video 1. The draw technique of Im Dong Hyun, taken at the archery practice field for the 2004 Olympic Games.
Video 2. The draw technique of Thomas Chirault, long time member of the French Olympic archery team.
THE FULL DRAW POSITION
COMING TO FULL DRAW
As you draw the bow come into your full draw position, how you think about locating your full draw position is critical. Most people think about bringing the hand into the chin and locating it there. This can lead to a variety of issues. Instead, you should think about the location of your full draw position against your neck. The placement of your hand along your chin and jaw will then follow.
The neck is much less likely to move during the shot than your chin. So using the neck as your primary feeling of anchor will allow you to get a much better alignment and reach real full draw. Often, when archers think about drawing to the chin, they will actually move the head to greet the string. This then makes reaching real full draw very hard.
When you draw below the chin and come to full draw, it is crucial to maintain your head position and keep your mouth shut. Don’t try and greet the string in anyway. Keep the head, jaws and mouth completely still.
In Video 3 you can see a good example of coming into full draw. The archer is focussing on referencing against the neck, and the draw hand position against the jawline and chin is secondary.
It is incorrectly commonly taught that the recurve grip must be as relaxed as possible. However, this causes many issues. If you allow the wrist and bow hand to be completely relaxed, your hand will slide off the grip. This compromises the bow arm positioning and your release on the bow arm side. This commonly can cause string contact issues with the arm.
There must be some tension in the bow hand in the correct places. You must slightly pull the ring and little finger knuckles of the bow hand back (see Fig 4c and 5a) and directly push your thumb straight towards the target. The thumb direction to the target is crucial for consistent forward pressure. You can see the direction created by the thumb in Fig 4b and 5b.
In fact, the knuckle position in Fig 4c could actually be pulled slightly further back to look more like the archer in Fig 5a. Lastly, it is crucial to have good bow arm elbow rotation to make the proper connection between the grip and the archer. You can read about this more on the Recurve Technique – Set Up page.
Video 3. Recurve Archery Draw Technique – Full Draw Position
THE DRAW HAND ANCHOR AT FULL DRAW
At full draw you want the draw hand positioned tightly against the neck in a consistent way. You do not want anything similar to the position in Fig 4c, which shows some common beginner mistakes. The draw hand wrist is bent inwards, the archer has located the hand along the chin rather than against the neck, and the whole hand is far from being tight against the neck like it should be. Lastly, the whole hand and upper forearm is rotated counter clockwise noticeably; this makes the hook appear as if it is slipping off the string and makes a good anchor position hard to obtain.
Figs 4a and 4b show an acceptable anchor position. Notice how the thumb is tight against the neck in Fig 4b and there is no gap between the hand and neck or between the index finger and the jawline in Fig 4a. A slight angle of the draw hand is normally needed to get a secure anchor and something similar to the position shown in Fig 4b is acceptable. Notice also that the little finger is much closer to the neck in Fig 4b than it is in Fig 4c.
THE STRING POSITION AT FULL DRAW
In Fig 5a you can see an example of a good full draw position. The previous key points we have mentioned are clear to see. The hand is close to the neck with no gap and is only slightly rotated to allow a good anchor position. The mouth is shut, both eyes are open & the head is slightly angled to the left so that the left (in the picture) eyebrow is lower than the right. Finally, we recommend positioning your string picture on the inside of the riser as shown in Fig 5b.
The string is positioned slightly to the side of the face, rather than being positioned exactly in the centre of lips and chin. This is known as a side anchor and you can see this in Fig 5a. Ideally the string would be central on the nose but it can be slightly to the side if needed, as long as you can do it consistently. This side anchor has the advantage of allowing a tighter anchor position against the neck, but has another crucial advantage. It allows you to bring the draw elbow around the body more and into better alignment. Your exact anchor position and the placement of the string on your face is personal to your hook and your face shape.
You have to find out exactly what your proper anchor position is. Then you need to work out how to consistently get there on every shot. When you are first starting to shoot it’s so important to work on this with a light bow using a mirror as feedback. By doing this you can find your position and then work on repeating it. Finally, a great way to learn your anchor position is to draw a line on your face using a pen. Then when you draw back in the mirror you can easily see if you are consistently anchoring in the same spot.
Recurve Archery Technique – Draw & Full Draw
REACHING REAL FULL DRAW
WHAT DOES “REAL FULL DRAW” MEAN?
Normally the term “full draw” defines the point in the shot when the archer has finished drawing the bow and has reached their anchor position. However, it is possible for any archer to appear at “full draw” by simply drawing the bow and bringing their hand to the anchor position. This is not real full draw, it is simply coming to anchor.
The term “real full draw” is different. It means the archer has drawn the bow, reached their anchor position and moved fully into alignment so that they feel the force of the bow through their bone structure and back.
WHY IS “REAL FULL DRAW” IMPORTANT?
Coming to real full draw is critical to becoming a high level archer. When you are at real full draw, the whole body becomes more still and you will feel a great sense of control over your direction and speed of expansion. This is because you have performed the last stage to get your body into full alignment. As a result, your execution will be much more powerful than an archer who hasn’t found this final position.
The key point here is that getting to real full draw makes you able to finely control your expansion but keep the rest of your body extremely still. An archer that doesn’t get to real full draw can still expand through the clicker and shoot to an average level. However, this expansion will not be as consistent when compared to an archer who gets to real full draw. Crucially, an archer who gets to real full draw has a huge advantage in the wind.
HOW TO GET TO “REAL FULL DRAW”
It is quite hard to show a comparison of the position of “real full draw” versus “full draw” as the difference is so small.Â
The first thing to understand is that you must actively move to get to real full draw on every single shot. The movement to achieve this final position can be thought of as the final movement of the draw elbow shown by the red dot in Video 4 below. As you do this movement, it is critical to continue the movement of the elbow away from the target, as well as around the body.
To learn the feeling of real full draw, we recommend you start by working with a light band to feel the position of alignment. Then you can move on to a light bow and on to your own bow. Doing bow training exercises such as Full Draw Holds for a long duration (10-60sec depending on strength) can really accelerate your learning of where real full draw is. Shooting without your clicker is a great drill to learn this skill too, try this at close blank boss first before moving to long distance with a target face.