long draw length thumb ring anchoring, shooting

[loon]

By drawing my Korean style bow to behind my earlobe and watching videos and photos of Korean archers, I thought I could anchor with the string on the earlobe and through the chest, but I find it very difficult to do when actually shooting, more often than not resulting in getting hit on the face by the string. Even scarier is seeing people pull way behind the ear like Kyudo archers, it looks like they could get their ear ripped off if they made one small mistake.

But... I guess I could anchor with the arrow going under my lip or something, the draw hand sort of floating behind and under my ear, and with the arrowhead on my thumb on the draw hand side of the bow. Could try that tomorrow.

Does anyone else use a long thumb draw? What do you use for anchor, and how accurate are you? I'm still a long way from being able to hunt

Also, it seems that Chinese archery manuals mention keeping the inner joint of the bow arm pointing up and the elbow pointing down, sort of twisted the "wrong" way. Not sure how much better this is for having good joint alignment. It is still rather difficult for me to get archer's kiss with thumb draw. The most comfortable for me so far seems to be to keep the inner joint pointing sort of 20 degrees of the vertical in front of me, as opposed to the 90 degrees of most archers.

I have a lot of computer user's back, too..

I think I might "lose consciousness" too much and don't put enough of myself into shots. Rather absent minded. My bow that is too heavy for me right now does not help with this, either.

Follow through? I should keep pulling, right, and just as I pull more when I'm going to release, I relax my draw hand letting the string pull through? Or would this be a bad way to do it? My releases aren't very good, the arrow goes all over the place

Thank you

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Are you shooting off the bow hand side of the bow or the draw hand side? That makes a huge difference in how the string travels across your body on a long draw. I shoot my manchu bow on the draw hand side (since I don't have the coordination to do it the other way, lol) and draw back till my thumb is right about in that hollow between the jaw and ear lobe. I keep my grip as loose as possible without risking an accidental release so that release requires the slightest loosening of the grip. In manchu style (thought I do combine other composite bow styles like turkish bow hand grip etc. due to lack of materials/manuals etc so I take what I can get and what works) the draw has a lot to do with back tension, I read a great description that said it should be like trying to force open stuck elevator doors and pushing your upper torso through the gap, so upon release I tense the back just a little more as I loosen my release at the same time and it helps affect not only a good release but also tends pull the bow away from the arrow. I don't have any issues with the string hitting my face or anything because if done right your bow should want to turn outwards ever so slightly, also if you have the arrow right against your face your too close anyway, just as the arrow is on the outside of your bow the arrow should be outside of your whole...stance I guess is the word I'll use. Also my thumb on the release hand barely brushes my jaw/ear lobe, it's not buried tight on my face.

I hope that made sense, lol, and good to chat with another asiatic archer!

 

[loon]

Are you shooting off the bow hand side of the bow or the draw hand side? That makes a huge difference in how the string travels across your body on a long draw. I shoot my manchu bow on the draw hand side (since I don't have the coordination to do it the other way, lol) and draw back till my thumb is right about in that hollow between the jaw and ear lobe. I keep my grip as loose as possible without risking an accidental release so that release requires the slightest loosening of the grip. In manchu style (thought I do combine other composite bow styles like turkish bow hand grip etc. due to lack of materials/manuals etc so I take what I can get and what works) the draw has a lot to do with back tension, I read a great description that said it should be like trying to force open stuck elevator doors and pushing your upper torso through the gap, so upon release I tense the back just a little more as I loosen my release at the same time and it helps affect not only a good release but also tends pull the bow away from the arrow. I don't have any issues with the string hitting my face or anything because if done right your bow should want to turn outwards ever so slightly, also if you have the arrow right against your face your too close anyway, just as the arrow is on the outside of your bow the arrow should be outside of your whole...stance I guess is the word I'll use. Also my thumb on the release hand barely brushes my jaw/ear lobe, it's not buried tight on my face.

I hope that made sense, lol, and good to chat with another asiatic archer!

Thanks

Yeah, I put the arrow on the draw hand side (the right side, since my bow arm is my left arm). I find that thumb draw on the bow hand side makes the arrow go way more to the left than Mediterranean draw. I was drawing a bit past and below the earlobe...
The feathers appear to touch the cheek in manchu style archery. I suppose a way of helping accuracy is getting a consistent draw hand elevation by feeling the arrow feathers or the arrow if it won't hit the face, and for a consistent draw length one would draw to the arrowhead or have some sort of marker on the arrow? though your way seems easier, even if the draw's a bit shorter

Do you use a thumb ring or a glove or tab?

Does your Manchu bow happen to be Mariner or from Jia Zhiwei? I've considered a light bow of Jia's a bit, though they're kind of expensive. I could just make a PVC bow for practice, or maybe even a long recurved self bow..

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I use a thumb ring I made myself out of PVC. My bow is from a chinese maker that sells to several resellers such as Longbowmaker and Buffalo on Amazon. The limbs are fiberglass but I find fiberglass really does a good job of mimicking the properties of a composite limb without the expense and maintenance hassles. I got my bow at 50#@28" and paid $150 for it and I LOVE it!

[loon]

Cool.

Would be nice to eventually make a thumb ring to replace my glove. I know Tim Piatek casted them out of some sort of resin.

I ended up buying that Ottoman Turkish hornbow making book by Adam Karpowicz. I've never made a selfbow, how long before I can make horn bows? :p Pretty interesting. Also has information on strings, etc. Didn't see much on arrows, except that apparently the lighter Ottoman arrows have better penetration than heavy English arrows on his tests?

With the string positioned in its proper place, the ring should exert pressure on the sides of the thumb knuckle, not on the flesh of the thumb pad.. [to avoid the ring pivoting and accidents]

Some other stuff about his preferred angle for the ring, about how to shoot with a simple lipped ring, having the index finger only cover the tip of the thumb, and that the index finger should not press onto the arrow/nock upon release to avoid fishtailing.

Hm. Adam wrote something about the string being not center-aligned not being, ever, an attempt to make a bow more center shot, and that a horn bow should be shot the opposite side of the side where the string is close to, in order to help the bow align and not unstring itself due to twist. What about "korean tiller", then?

I want to raise my brace height on my Korean bow now. It's less than 6"... but it stacks more if I increase the brace height. I think 7" would be a good brace height in general.

The shape of the Turkish bows seem somewhat more appealing now..

I'm not sure about draw length, or why Ottoman archers chose to have a short draw length. Just because of the helmets? Or in order to have thinner, lighter arrows? What I don't like about a short draw is that the back muscles are used less, so it can be more uncomfortable, and there is less energy stored for the same draw weight. What I do like is that it seems to be easier to have an anchor point. I think I'll settle for 33" where possible.

edit: went shooting again and was way more consistent with having my arrow touch right under the lips/chin bone. and it didn't hit my face or anything. my arrows are very out of tune for my bow, though...

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I've noticed that this type of shooting is pretty sensitive to the arrows, when I got the right set of arrows it was night and day with my shooting. I now use bamboo arrows at 35" because of my long draw (I don't draw a full 35" but I noticed on my 33" arrows that if the tip of the arrow was too close to the bow at release it shot worse than if I had an inch or two in front of the bow). With the forgiving spine of bamboo and the proper length these arrows are like guided missiles compared to others. Search the popular auction site for "bamboo yumi arrow" and you'l see what I use, at a dozen for $53 you can't beat them with a stick (is that an arrow pun?).

[loon]

niice. Still gotta try the 33" chinese bamboo arrows and some bamboo flu flus I got made. Hopefully not too short. The chinese arrows aren't all very straight, but they were pretty cheap. they're finished but I might try heat straightening them anyway.
Maybe I'll end up with over a hundred arrows if I keep this up... I should get some meter long bamboo shafts, cut, spine them and put some nice bulbous hard wood nocks on them

How does your bow arm elbow look when you draw?

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

This is not quite full draw but close enough:

[Olanigw (Pekane)]

For traditional korean shooting, your "anchor" is the back of the point touching your thumb.

See Mr. Er



Mr. Er draws until the target point touches his thumb, and touches the arrow to his jaw.

Of the many complex factors that come into play preventing Mr. Er's face being stripped off by the string, how the bow is gripped is the biggest.  It's much easier to show than to tell.


When I shoot with a thumb draw, I tend to draw until my fingers brush my clavicle.

Then again, as you've discovered there's nothing at all wrong with a shorter draw length and anchoring to your face.

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Do you know the length of Mw. Er's arrow?

[Olanigw (Pekane)]

Do you know the length of Mw. Er's arrow?

I believe 33"

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Ok, figured he was a smaller guy. If I were to draw to my shoulder like that I would need a 38" arrow...