How To Learn Archery At Home

Recurve archery is a very technical sport and it can be really hard to progress especially if you can't get to the club that often. Sometimes you might feel like okay I can get to the club once or twice or maybe even three times a week but are there ways to improve between those sessions? In today's video I'm going to go through some ways that you can learn archery at home whether you've done a beginner's course already, whether you're doing one currently, whether you're an advanced archer that wants to improve between sessions or maybe you're a really advanced archer and the weather is just terrible and you're wondering what you can do at home to improve while we're going through winter in the Northern Hemisphere. So essentially I've got some drills for you today. I actually lied in the title. I've got four key things for you today and we're going to go through them now. So the first thing that I want to mention is drills. Even though you're not going to be shooting, even though for example maybe you'll shoot at the club on the other days like I mentioned, drills at home are really really important. So we're going to look at this from the point, from the perspective of a beginner archer first and kind of what drills you would do but actually when we look at it like this it's going to be the same way for advanced archers. This is how you would also work on things for an advanced archer. So we're going to get started here. I'm going to go over here. You'll see why I've got this up in a bit but I'm going to go to the drills page. So if you go to my website onlinearcheryacademy.com there's a whole section on the training section, archery drills and bow training library. So if you've not seen this before, what are you doing? It's there. You should go and have a look but they're all split up into specific sections. So bow training we'll speak a little bit about later but the drills are split up into different sections you can see here. So for example stance and posture. For some reason the website has split them round but stance and posture, set position, set up, then we've got draw and full draw, expansion, release and follow through. So the reason I split them up like this is essentially so you can break down your shots into parts and think okay what am I working on and then what drills maybe can I do to help me work on that. So let's take for example a really good one is let's go to the set position actually. So for a beginner archer maybe you've done a beginner's course or you're currently doing one and you need to practice getting your hand in the bow and your grip on the string, your hook on the string. So this set position repeats drill is a great drill to do because essentially if you have the bow on your foot it's just practicing lifting the bow off your foot into that position getting that that correct set position and then going back down and then repeating that. So that kind of drill it might seem a little bit karate kid, a little bit Mr Miyagi kind of not shooting and just doing this drill but it's really really good. Another example might be for example here if we go to the release and follow through there's a lot of different drills you can do but for example shot trainer shooting that's something we'll get to a bit later but shot trainer shooting or drawing specifically with a elbow sling of some sort is really good because it teaches you to draw with the elbow. In this example on the page here I'm doing it with a bow but actually it's really good I can't remember what one it's on maybe it's the arm bow training? One of them. One of them is a picture of me doing it with a band you don't have to attach the form master to your bow you can actually attach it to a band which means that you can then actually obviously train with a lighter weight. So drills are going to be your kind of staple for doing at home and it's about picking a drill for a specific area of the shot and then also doing that with an appropriate poundage. So I wouldn't recommend doing it with your main bow I know that's pictured on a lot of these things here but I would actually recommend doing it for example with a band first and then with a light bow. So here we go this is the one I was mentioning shot trainer draw ups. So you can see I'm doing the draw up there leading from the but I'm using a band and once that gets easy and I feel like I'm doing the right movement then I can move to a heavier band then I can move to a light bow that kind of thing. So drills as a whole is the first kind of section if you like that's the first key tip is use drills you can go on my website to have a look at what drills might be applicable for different areas of the technique but the second thing when you're doing the drills is how do you improve? If you're doing the drills and you don't have feedback from a coach it can be quite hard to improve so what I'd recommend obviously is check out my website for ways on you know looking at what is good technique there's guides on everything here on technique there's stance and posture guide set position guide there's literally a guide for everything that you can look at that but then you need feedback as to then when you're doing those drills at home when you're doing the technique at home is it correct? So that's why what you saw earlier I've mentioned this in previous videos but you can get a delay app so my favorite one for iPhones and iOS and stuff like that or iPads or whatever is BAM video delay I don't know if they've got an Android version maybe someone in the comments can let everyone know but this is by far the best that I've found for iOS it lets you add not just one so this is a delay here but you can have two delays four delays even and change the timing on each delay so you can check something different on each kind of quadrant of the phone I wouldn't recommend doing that for beginners I would set this up with a delay so that you can practice something and check but even before you do this even before you need a phone and a delay app and all of that kind of thing using a mirror for feedback is really good because the thing with a mirror hopefully if you've got a good mirror is it's live you don't actually need to wait for any feedback delay at all and you can check instantly what you're doing so what what this gives us is a really good way a mirror is even better sometimes than actually having a coach because you can literally see exactly what's happening as you're doing it and then your brain can learn okay this feeling means this thing so for example you can aim if I move back there you can aim into the mirror so you can come up you can raise up and then you can align and you can check live what it looks like what your technique looks like as you're doing it and you can check okay my alignment looks good when I'm doing it my bow but the draw shoulder is looking a bit high for example and you can manipulate yourself because you're doing it in the mirror without too much weight maybe with a light bow maybe with a band you can essentially adjust as you're doing it and learn much quicker so I'd recommend to start with using a mirror is really really good to start with and then when you use a mirror use a light band then use a light bow aiming into the mirror for example and then when you want to migrate away from that a little bit for example you can use the mirror still but then use that video delay feedback then you go to something like this band video delay and you're relying less on that instant feedback but now you're doing the technique you're feeling what it feels like to you you can then judge whether okay I think that was good I think it wasn't good and then you can check the feedback and check whether your judgment was correct or not so this is really good the other thing I want to mention I've got a whole video on this OBS is a program it's what I'm using right now to record this video but OBS is a free program that you can get as you can see on Windows and Mac OS and what this allows you to do is set up basically with any camera you can connect the camera to your laptop I've got a whole video on this you can search on my channel but you can set up delays which is great but it's very similar to that band video delay that I just mentioned so why am I the reason this is more useful in a lot of ways is because you can set up things like an overhead you can set up at home this is possibly one of the best things that you can do is essentially get a webcam or if you're feeling fancy a phone that you don't use anymore and put it on the ceiling and essentially connect it to your laptop set up a kind of a scene in OBS in the software and my video shows you how to do this but you can basically leave that webcam on the ceiling for an overhead view like this and then when you want to use it you just connect to your laptop you just plug it into your laptop or your computer and then you can get feedback from the overhead what's great about this is you can choose the delay you can choose to have no delay and because the laptop if you get a long enough cable you can actually be aiming into the laptop or the computer screen and see live what's happening in the overhead so you can be looking into the computer moving around your shoulders and seeing what that looks like directly live from the overhead this is one of the best ways to improve your alignment and to improve your shot cycle so whether you're a beginner wondering what the hell alignment is how does it look what does my shoulder feel like when it's here versus here all that kind of stuff is so good to see on an overhead and so few people have it so i'd really encourage to use something like OBS it's completely free setting up an overhead camera is really good and then playing with the delay time sometimes using no delay sometimes using five seconds ten seconds whatever depending on on what you're looking at so this is really good the other thing that you can do with the feedback we've got the drills we've got for example using the video delay the overhead the mirror something else you can do at home which might not be as appreciated at a club is you can shoot without a t-shirt so this is something i'd recommend for basically everyone to shoot without a t-shirt because you can see so much more what's going on especially if you're working on alignment especially if you're working on for example bow shoulder position your scapula coming around you want to check if you're kind of too high on the scapula or not you want to check if your scapula movement is close enough to the spine basically everything is easier to see the only downside is it's obviously a lot colder and you can't really do this everywhere but at home shoot without a t-shirt using the overhead you can see your shoulders better using the back view that we've got here you can see your shoulder blades better using the front view you can see your twisting of your stomach better and how your stance looks as well so it's basically much much better to check things and this is something else you can do at home as well so for example if you shoot once a week on a Wednesday between those sessions you might be working on your stance and posture for example you don't need to wait till every Wednesday to shoot and then just basically not improve much each week between each session on Wednesday you can go home and do okay i'm going to do 25 or 50 light bow draw ups working on my posture and my stance and i'm going to do that using the mirror first of all and when i feel comfortable using the mirror and i feel like i'm keeping my stance well i'm getting my alignment without bending away or bending towards the target then you can wean yourself off of that mirror and then maybe go to the delayed video feedback with your iphone and then that way you're not relying on the mirror and then eventually when you get better feeling with that you want to kind of wean yourself off that delayed video feedback because you don't want to rely on it too much you don't want it to be a crutch so that you don't know what your shot feels like and you're just purely relying on the video because that can happen as well so these are some of the things that you can do i definitely recommend so we've got the drills the video feedback and then shooting without a t-shirt is really good as well and then the other thing you can obviously do is shooting so shooting at home if you're lucky enough to have a long distance range then that's great and you obviously know what to do there but also there's a couple of points i want to mention with close range blank bail so the thing with close range blank bail shooting at like two three five meters or whatever it's very good for working on your technique if you can keep focused on something it's incredibly easy to i don't want to say waste but it's incredibly easy to spend a whole training session shooting close range blank bail and kind of just throw arrows down and i'm saying this from someone who has shot probably 400 000 arrows at close range blank bail or something like that it's so easy to think you're working on something but actually you're not really challenging yourself you're not really learning a new bit of your technique you're not really getting proper feedback you're just going through the motions and shooting arrows there is a place for that in terms of physical conditioning but most of the time people aren't pushing that hard enough either to get much benefit from it so the big caveat i want to give with close range blank bail is you must have a goal of something you're working on and you must be getting feedback on that it's completely essential on that point as well a great way to do this this is a very good segue is actually another another great tip this isn't one of them another great tip you can do as to how to learn archery at home is my courses my online archery academy video courses are perfect for this kind of thing so i've got a beginner's course and an advanced course and they're yeah they're literally designed for this because you can go through you get lifetime access courses you can go through each technique section and say okay today i'm working on my release what are we looking for in the release what looks good what do i want to feel because i explain that in the courses and then you can use these tips that i've mentioned today about okay if i keep moving around then we're going to this is what we want to see use the feedback to have a look at that and this is just perfect so if you've not checked them out already go to onlinearcheryacademy.com you'll see here this is explore the courses you can click that button by doing that you also get a special 20 discount as well if you don't want to join the courses i'd recommend you check out my membership instead which is just a monthly membership which is much much less expensive but you get access to me you can ask q a questions in my community you get full access to all the content on the website as well and finally if you don't want to do anything paid that's cool i completely understand it but do make sure you sign up for my email newsletter here so make sure you sign up every friday i send out an email kind of quick tips newsletter completely free of charge and everyone loves that as well so if you don't want to do any of the paid stuff just make sure you get the good tips with the newsletter as well on that point i mentioned about the shooting at home the release that kind of thing i want to give you kind of an example if you like as to how you would work on this so i said about shooting home you need a goal you need an aim for close range blank box so let's take that i've got some videos here that i want to show you so if we bring them up i've got some videos that i wanted to show you here for example say you've been working on your release and you want to improve it when you're shooting at the target phase you get very obvious feedback because the arrow is not going to go in the middle if you don't have release hopefully so i just wanted to give an example of what this would look like when you're working on it from home for example if you're working on your release you could get the camera and put it here and look at your release right so you could get a video delay on that you could even get a slow motion most phones these days take really good slow motion videos you could get some slow motion uh video of your release and see in slow motion what that's doing what you can also do is so let's take a look at this video for example let's watch at the moment of release watch my elbow here might not look like anything bad right maybe that was hard to see i'll rewind it once more and let you have a look have a look so maybe some people watching thinking that looks fine maybe some people have spotted the the error here but if we rewind and now this is an example of because it's exactly the same you don't need to rely on the feedback of the target but let's go frame by frame through the video now and see this look at this this is a classic draw side collapse or execution error on the draw elbow and if this is happening the release is basically soft the arrow is probably going to go low right in this example so let's have a look at this see this here so the the elbow position at full draw here is good spine on release collapse collapse forwards and you can see the elbow essentially if i go to the full screen elbow collapses forwards and you can see that from the back view and also you can see the the scapula coming off collapses off here i'll show you again so maybe if i scroll through it's slightly more visible it comes off so it collapses and then shoot collapse and then shoot and bring backwards so essentially if i exaggerate this just to make it really really clear if i exaggerate this this is what's happening that's an exaggeration but you get the point you get the point of of what's happening and the reason this is really good to see this is why i wanted to demo it is you can work on this at close range blank bale not even with a slow motion camera not even with the video delay app just with your phone take a video of an end of your shooting and check okay i shot eight arrows that end how many of them did my draw elbow stay strong on the release that's just such a good such a good way of working on this and that brings us to the next thing which is in the thumbnail of the video which is the form master so there's other pardon me there's other things you can do as well for example with the form master this is a way when you shoot with the shot trainer or form master or whatever you want to call it i always mix them up but same thing when you want to shoot it basically trains you to keep that elbow movement backwards so this is a great way to do it on this example i want to show you now with the um this example that i showed you with the execution error i want to show you an example of what we're looking for that's better so this is an example here where there's less collapse where it's a stronger shot so we're going to go to hit so you can see on this shot i'm going to go this was a slow motion camera as well but i'm going to go frame by frame and you can see my fingers are opening here fingers are opening there's basically nothing happening in the elbow fingers are opening and the elbow is rock solid and then moves backwards that's what you want to so that's an example of something that you can check at close range it is more likely to collapse when you're aiming at a target but you still can work on it at close range and make sure it needs to be absolutely spot on on every single shot of close range to have any chance of being good when you're shooting at a target place in a competition so that's what we need to get to this also brings us to another point about close blank bale shooting so shooting at close blank bale is the kind of overall key thing but you must not only have a goal you must also aim which might sound a bit weird but if you're not having any sort of aiming at close range blank bale then you're missing out on a whole part of your shot and also when you then go to aim it can be very confusing depending on what you've been doing maybe you've been dropping the sight without realizing it maybe you haven't been incorporating aiming into the shot sequence so your aim is very wobbly there's a whole kind of host of things that can happen so whenever you're shooting close range blank bale yes the idea is focusing on your technique but you still need to have some kind of point of aiming some people will aim at the arrow hole some people will get scaled target faces and put them up that's fine as well some people will draw chalk things on the target that's fine as well so these are all good what i would say there's another thing that i really want to mention this is really important and i actually forgot about it until just now so i hadn't planned to talk about this but when you're shooting close range blank bale you obviously don't want to smash your arrow and shoot them all in the same spot it's just stupid you're going to destroy your arrows so most people spread them out which is great the massive mistake people do is they spread them out left to right so if you imagine you know you've got the target they're going to shoot so they'll be standing they shoot one and then they aim right a bit and then they shoot another one and they aim right a bit and they shoot another one or left whatever this is a real big problem because most people when they do this don't change their stance and essentially it means that you're completely changing your alignment on every single shot so you're going from for example here good alignment and then the next one you're going here maybe even more open and then maybe the next shot you go to the right and then you're massively closed now and because the target is so close because you're at two meters or four meters or whatever it is it might not feel like you're aiming very far right on the target but the change in body angle is really big so the two things you need to do here either keep your angle of your alignment the same and move your stance between every shot so you shoot one arrow and then you adjust this is not the way i recommend the better way is to go up and down up and down is much better because you don't have that issue that i mentioned and also it trains you to go up and down which is a valuable thing for those of for those of us who still shoot you know feet around or rounds with different distances essentially field rounds helpful skill for people who do field archery and also if you shoot you know full feet around as well so i definitely recommend going up and this video has been a little bit longer than i expected but that's pretty much the kind of everything i wanted to cover the last thing the fourth point which is the bonus point if you like i'm not going to spend a lot on this bow training i mentioned it in the last video i've mentioned it in the video before the final thing you can do at home is bow training you must do bow training because that's going to make every single thing else easier and this is why i mentioned when you're doing the drill you need to start with the lighter weight with the band if necessary light bow and then eventually your main bow with the bow training it's the same you do the bow training with a weight you can do it well and using the correct muscles and the correct technique you don't just ramp it up to a massive poundage and then get an injury by doing the bow training this is really really important but those are the four main things the four keys of how to improve i definitely recommend if you haven't checked it out i don't know what you're doing but you need to check out the drill section on my website because basically i've broken this is exactly why i spent ages making these so you've got drills for every single part of your shot and you can choose these like okay the coach at the range said i need to work on this or i felt like my bow hand wasn't great in the grip set position drill i felt like my setup position was different every time setup repeats drill there's basically one for every part of the shot so have a look at them i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you in the next one