There’s something really special about shooting your bow and making the arrow go where you want it to. When you’re shooting a traditional setup, there’s a very special connection and fun feeling that always draws you back to shooting again.
All that fun stuff being said, it’s also the absolute picture of disgust at the beginning when things are all awkward. You try shooting with those things called hands and the arrows fly, hopefully, in the direction of the target. Getting over this beginning phase and feeling more confident will make you enjoy things so much more and that’s where you want to get to.
Archery statue
My traditional archery tips
Stand close to the target – Your pride has no place in the beginning, or ever really, so get closer to your target. When I started shooting traditional, I stood about 5 yards from the target, even when I was shooting 3D targets at the archery club with a bunch of experienced shooters. You know what I didn’t have to do? I didn’t have to spend a lot of time looking for arrows and pretending that I was as good as everyone else. They also respected my honesty a lot and that helped in making friends.
Practice proper form shooting – Form shooting is where you go stand in front of a target and don’t worry about hitting the same point on the target. You focus entirely on your actions and movements being the same each time. What you are trying to do is get your arrows to group in one spot. This helps to tell you that you are doing the same movements the same way each time. Getting the same results to happen over and over will help you develop better accuracy in the long run.
Five shots a day – If you want to shoot instinctive, there is no shortcut other than practice. You don’t have to make it a big deal though. Most of the time, you feel like you need to shoot for an hour each time you get your bow out. This is simply not true. Try shooting only 5 arrows per day at your house. You can do this in about 15 minutes or less and it will work wonders on your instinctive shooting skills. Shoot from a different place each shot to work on your instinctive skills.
Practice meditation or focusing – It might sound funny at first, but the mental aspect of archery is huge so it would be a bad idea to ignore it. You’ll find that learning to control your mind and what you’re thinking about will significantly affect every shot. You need to do this for every single shot and you’ll find that the more distracted you are, the worse you’ll shoot.
Create a pre shot routine – Before every shot you take, you’ll find yourself doing the same things. This is the pre shot routine. It’s what you do to get your mind and body in the right state to make the best shot possible. It’s actually very important to make this consistent and something that you always do. All professionals have a routine that they go through to prepare for their sport and you should do the same.
There are a lot more traditional archery tips out there and in fact there have been many books written with several of them. I just want to point out some good things to be aware of. You can also read my 5 tips for increasing archery accuracy to get some more information.
Shoot straight