Beginners Guide To Traditional Archery

Traditional archery is a sport that builds peace of mind and body, helps to release stress, and exercises your willpower and concentration.

Meditation

Before start shooting, the archer must concentrate and try to exclude distractions from his mind, appear awake, keep his mind focused and relaxed and comfortable on the basis of quiet thoughts and concentrated intentions.

Standing Posture

Here is the most basic standing posture: The one-line parallel posture (side stand).

Both feet open shoulder width or slightly wider than shoulder width, stand on both sides of the starting line, feet slightly abducted or slightly inwardly buttoned, toes close to the center line of the target, body and two shoulders and the arrow target into a natural straight line.

Hitching an Arrow

Insert the arrow nock into the nest of the bowstring, place the arrow shaft on the thumb of the right hand holding the bow and hold it steady with the index finger, then insert the arrow nock slot into the arrow opening of the bowstring.

Note: Make sure to check the integrity of the whole arrow such as the nock, feather and arrowhead when setting up the arrow to avoid unnecessary loss. Also, make sure that the main feather is perpendicular to the right side of the bow. Also make sure that there is no change in the body posture in the center position.

Holding a Bow

When gripping a bow, the position of the grip hand should feel natural and comfortable, and the archer should feel and maintain the comfort and stability of the arm and shoulder joint during the process of continuing to exert force until the completion of the release action.

However, the grip should be mainly pushed and supplemented by the grip, and the grip should not be rigid.

Hooking Bowstring

Here is a demonstration of the thumb hook method, where the first joint of the thumb is bent to hook the bowstring and the belly of the index finger is pressed against the thumb to form a lock, while the side of the second joint of the index finger is in contact with the arrow shaft, allowing a lateral force to be applied.

The thumb hooked string method is the most important feature of the traditional Chinese archery method, which can adapt to different starting shooting environments, and can perfectly shoot every arrow whether it is standing and static shooting or moving and stepping shooting, or even firing from a galloping horse or a bumpy car.

Head Turning & Bow Lifting

Hold the bow in the left hand, hook the string with the right hand, turn the head naturally to the target surface, and look flatly ahead; raise both arms, the height is generally appropriate so that the forearm of the bow is at the level of the eyebrow. After raising the bow, both shoulders and the plane of the body must be in a straight line with the target, keeping the balance of both feet and the overall posture of the body when standing.

Turning the head and raising the bow is the preparatory action before opening the bow, and this action should be fixed until the temporary stage of the action, not only the head position but also the eyes should not change.

When posture makes you accurate and you’ve learned to focus on your target, you’ll just need to practice more.