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A Basic Illustrated Guide to Using a Bow
Keeping your bow arm straight, draw the arrow to your face (the right side
assuming you're right handed). There are various points on the face which can be
drawn to (e.g the mouth, the base of the ear, the temple). So long as you are
consistant, you can draw it to wherever seems best, however if you wear glasses
it might be better to draw to the lower half of the face so that you don't shoot
them off!
You may find at first that arrow falls off the side of the bow as you raise and
draw it. This is probably because you're curling your fingers for better grip on
the string as you pull. There are a couple of things you might do about this:
-
Try and take a firmer grip on the string to begin with. This will make your
release less smooth; don't grip past the first joint of your fingers.
-
Raise the first finger of the bow-hand, to hold the arrow in place. Remember
to drop that finger before shooting (unless you want to get a nasty
paper-cut).
-
Keep the bow slightly tilted when drawn, so that gravity holds the arrow to
the side of the bow.
You will not draw the end of the arrow directly to your eye, so when the arrow
is drawn, imagine an arrow drawn to your eye, lying parallel to the real arrow.
Keeping the arrows parallel, and aim the imaginary arrow!
When aiming, move the bow arm, not the string hand, as if you were pointing at
the target.
You're now ready to release the arrow. The first time you will probably release
badly and completely miss the target. Don't be disappointed, good aim and a
clean realease will come with practice. Concentrate at first on holding,
drawing and firing the bow correctly, until you're comfortable with it.
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