Compound Archery: Beginner Shooting Tips and Techniques With Pro Shooter Kevin Wilkey

Hey Archie friends, this is Coach Tara. I am in beautiful Utah and last week I picked up my compound bow and the shop did a great job. They got everything tuned, the arrows are flying great, but now I need to learn how to shoot the bow and I want to make sure I do it correctly. If there's one piece of advice that I can give you, it's to get good habits from the beginning. If you just get out on the range and you just start shooting some shots and you get used to how you're shooting and it's not the best form, it's going to be really hard to change those bad habits down the road. So you guys are in for a big treat today. I get to shoot with Kevin Wilke. Kevin Wilke has been in archery his whole life pretty much and he is an avid bow hunter. He's been on the national competitive level for a long time and he is a Hoyt shooter. So Kevin, come on over here. Kevin gets to hang out with me for the next hour and Kevin's going to show us three basic tips to get you on the road to shooting really good with a compound. So Kevin, just give us like a quick background of who you are and what you do in the archery world. Yeah, so I've been shooting archery like you said pretty much my whole life. I started out as a bow hunter and my first year of hunting, I was not that great at it. Like I missed a lot of animals and I knew if I wanted to get better, I had to practice and I did a lot of, you know, I'd come to the local range where we're at today. This is my hometown range. This is where I grew up shooting. Okay. And at the Timpanogos Archery Range in Utah. Beautiful place if you're ever in the area. Super pretty. At any rate, so I, and then I started keeping score and competing and then I found out I was good at archery and so that's what led me into the competitive side of it. I've been on Hoyt's pro staff since 2004. I shot professionally for quite a while and I made three U.S. world teams, won a gold medal at the world games and, you know, close to 20 other pro level podium finishes, but kind of retired now just shooting for fun and bow hunting a lot still. So still take what I learned while I was competing a lot and put it to use how I know the best I know how. Well, I feel like we're in really good hands today. So come along, join us today and you guys are going to be super awesome shooters after this video is done. Today, we're going to focus on three big things that make you a better shooter. Can you tell us what we're going to focus on to kind of organize our thoughts? So yeah, if I just had a limited amount of time with someone and I wanted them to get the most bang for their buck, I would say form is number one. You know, you got to have a strong foundation to build everything off of. So having proper form and then have a solid strategy on how you're going to execute the shot. Okay. There's many different ways depending on your personality type, release type. There's so many nuanced things that go into how you execute the shot. Okay. Talk about those different methods and then how to tie it all together in a shot process that will that you can rely on, especially if you get a little nervous or you're shooting around other people or you're going to the range for the first time. Right. Just a process that you can follow so you're always shooting the same shot regardless of what's going on around you. Yeah, that sounds perfect. Okay, so we're going to start with the form then. Yeah, mainly my end goal on form is a feeling. Okay. Having everything feel like it's in alignment. So the first thing that I do is I start with my feet shoulder width apart. Okay. That way you're just building a good foundation from the ground up. You don't want to go too wide or too narrow. I always just, for good reference, run them shoulder width apart. And then the next, probably the most important thing about your form is how you grip the bow. Okay. Because this is where, this can be a determining factor of whether somebody ever wants to shoot a bow again. Oh really? Yes, if their first shot doesn't go well. Yeah. Like, and the string hits your arm, it's painful. Like, that's one thing you really want to avoid. Okay. And so when people, and this is just a natural way of, you'd grab a bow is to grip it like this. But that puts your, the string right against your arm. So if I were to shoot my bow this way, the string would hit my arm and be really painful. And I would think archery sucks. I don't ever want to do it again. So the proper way to grip a bow actually feels a little bit awkward at first, but you get used to it and you actually find out that it gives you a steadier aim. Okay. But I start with making a letter L. Okay. If I'm right-handed, my bow hand, I make an L, or a gun, or if you're left-handed, you'd make a backwards L. So I just tuck those three fingers, just like that. And that forces my hand into the right spot. Okay. Now, as I've shot enough, I don't actually do that all the time, but if I'm just starting out and teaching someone. This is what you tell them. Yep. Okay. Put that right there. And that puts the grip into the perfect spot. It puts your knuckles at a 45 degree angle. And then I just wrap that one finger around the front. Okay. Now on your grip, you want to treat it like a baby bird. You don't want to squish it, but you don't want to let it go either. Right. So there's a balance there. You don't want to squeeze it too tight because that'll make your aim wiggly and not so steady. And then as far as your bow arm and how you want that to go, I like mine straight. And for the same reason, like our arms are built a lot like our legs, right? Similar bone structure, the strongest way for your legs to keep your body up off the ground is with your legs straight, right? You don't stand around with your knees bent or on your tippy toes, like you wear down and break, like that uses a lot of extra muscle. And so I teach people to run a straight bow arm. Okay. Same way that, just think about how your leg is straight right now, holding up the weight of your body. Right. And then I put my wrist all the way up, kind of the same position you would as if you were doing a pushup on the ground. Okay. So I want my wrist all the way up, bow arm straight, and then remember the L and I'll raise it up, point it right at the target, and then I'll come straight back and anchor. So that's one thing we haven't talked about yet is your anchor point. And typically what I try to do is get my anchor, the string to come to the tip of my nose. Okay. And whether you're shooting a wrist strap style release like this one, or a hinge style release, which we can kind of get into later, or a thumb button, your anchor will be different on each one of those. Oh, it will. So it'll come back to different positions? Well, so the string will come to my nose at the same spot, but where I actually tuck everything in like bone against bone, that would change a little bit depending on the release. Do you always have it touch the corner of your mouth or will that change a little bit depending on the release as well? So I usually try not to have the string touching anything because compound bows, they have such little light string tension at full draw that if you're, if you're pushing your nose or your cheek or any part of your face into the bowstring, like it will influence the shot. Oh, wow. Yeah, to illustrate that, don't try this at home, but as I pull this back, this lets off so much. Look, I can turn my string completely. Wow, yeah. Like a recurve that you grew up shooting, there's so much string tension that it doesn't matter. Right. You could really, it's hard to manipulate, you know, 40 pounds of tension where at full draw, I'm only holding 12 pounds. Right. I'm really careful to not like have the string touching anything. Yeah, no, that's perfect. Because shooting recurve, I would have thought in my mind when I pull back, get up against the nose on that corner of the mouth, and I would have pressed it right against there. Yeah. So you're just barely touching the tip of your nose. Yeah, a lot of times, like I used to work in an archery shop and I worked at a bow manufacturer, we'd get customers that their bows wouldn't fit or they couldn't get good arrow flight. And that was a lot. Oftentimes it was either from the way they were holding the bow or by how much string contact was against. So it was either their grip position or their anchor position. Oh, that's, that is solid information. That's great. Okay. One question I do have for you as you're going into your anchor, what is the best way to pull the string back? Because as a recurve archer, I stay a little bit lower and I come back so I can really feel it in my back. With a compound, I've noticed that I have to come up higher and down. How, how do you explain how do you draw? I think the best thing you can do is just start out with really lightweight. Everybody's bodies are built different and you'll see different techniques. Yeah. With a compound, I would, I would just make sure you start out light enough that you can draw back without a lot of, without any struggle. A lot of movement. Yeah. Just where you can come back really nice and steady and your body will kind of find the easiest way for it to come back. Okay. You're really ingrained into one way of doing it. I can understand why it doesn't quite work the same as a compound. I don't have a whole lot of recurve experience. So when I go to shoot a recurve, I do it the same way as I'm, as the compound. I mean, you're holding it, your hand at a different angle. So things do come in a little bit lower. Right. But with your hand turned around, sometimes your elbow could come in at a higher angle. Okay. Yeah. So when you draw, do you, is your shoulder stays down, but is your elbow up higher? Or I guess I'll have to watch you. Yeah. I mean, I'm, my elbow's pretty high. Eye level. Okay. Yep. And then, uh, my elbow's right in line with the arrow. Okay. And you know, if my drawing goes too long, I'd be leaned back. If it was too short, I'd have to like change the position of my shoulders. So getting the proper draw length is like very... I've learned that's number one with a compound, which recurve, it doesn't matter quite as much, but at the compound, it's a huge deal. And the best thing with that is go to somebody who knows, uh, with a high level of expertise on setting up a bow. They can take one look at you and tell you exactly what you're drawing. They've set up enough people over the years that they can just take one look. Like somebody that's fit a lot of suits to a person. Right. A tailor. They can look at you and tell you what size you are. Same way with, uh, with setting up your bow. If you go to somebody that really knows what they're doing, they can help you dial in that draw length. Yeah. What I found was really interesting as well was when I went, I, it started out with a shorter axle to axle bow. And I noticed I kept trying to dip my head down to get to the string. So they actually put me on a longer axle to axle. So that way I didn't have to move as much. Yep. So, um, yeah, lots of things we're learning here as a beginner compound shooter. And it, it can be a bit overwhelming, um, but it's well worth it. You put in the work. It's enjoyable to shoot your bow and you know, have something, a goal to work towards of whether that's attending a tournament or going hunting or whatever it might be, but you're in for a lot of work. That's the thing I learned. It's like, you gotta go, you gotta go to a shop to get set up with the bow. Cause there's so much that goes into putting it together. And then with that too, is, um, really getting the knowledge of good solid form from the beginning. So that way you create good habits from the beginning. All that's super important with the compound. Yeah. I would reiterate the number one thing is just make sure you get your grip proper. Like everything else will kind of sort its way out naturally, but the grip is the one thing you really want to start out with in the correct spot. Just so you don't have a bad experience on your first time. Okay. Sounds good. So nice, solid, straight arm L position. You're kind of saying it looked like on the meaty part of the palm here. Yeah. And so everything else is not even touching the grip. It's just your knuckles are 45 degrees, but the rest of the hands off Yeah. Just like that. And then the more I shoot and I keep it relaxed, okay. At first you'll want to tuck those kind of tight just to get you in the right position. But if you remember to tuck those each time, it forces your hand into the right spot. Okay. So getting that grip forces everything else to kind of, yeah. Tucking those three fingers will always force your hand into the right spot. Perfect. The next thing that we're going to get into step two of becoming a great shooter on your first day of archery is the execution of the shot. Execution is really important. And Kevin's going to tell us a little bit about that and why it's important. Yeah. So there are a lot of different ways, depending on the type of release that you're shooting. We'll start with a, since I have one right now, the wrist strap style release with an index trigger. This is the most popular style of release for hunting. You'll see a lot of competitive shooters using them, but out there on the market, this is probably the most popular styles or wrist strap style release as far as how you make it fire. There are a lot of different ways and it kind of depends on your personality. Like for me, the easiest way to fire the shot is I draw back, I'll put some tension on the release and then I'll just expand. I'll just push and pull. Like I'm keeping tension here on the back end while I'm driving my pin, my sight pin straight into the target. So I'm kind of expanding. Okay. And then as I build up enough tension, it'll fire and it, and the shot fires while I'm aiming. So you're going to cut a rope. You can't do it when it's loose, right? You got to cut a rope when it's tight. Yep. So that's, that's kind of the mentality that I have is cutting the rope while it's tight. So that way I'm expanding and I'm tightening everything up, my finger on the trigger. So I grew up, you know, working construction and on a farm and using a lot of power tools. And in my mind, I, like if I had to drill a hole into a wall, right? Right. With a, with a, with a drill and I'm going to drill a nice clean hole. I'm not thinking about holding the drill steady up and down or left and right. I'm thinking about pushing it forward into the hole that I'm, I'm boring a hole like straight into the target. Right. So that's, that's kind of where my mind's eye is at with my bow arm. Okay. I'm not really focused on keeping my sight pins steady up and down, left and right. I'm thinking about my pins going forward into the target. Oh, interesting. So I'm, I'm preloading my front bow arm into the target with my finger on the trigger. And I build up tension until you reach that two pounds of pull weight, whatever, whatever your trigger weight might be. And some of that comes from your bow arm. Like you don't see me. Like if you watch me shoot, it doesn't look like I'm pushing really hard with my bow arm or pulling hard. Like it's a. It's an internal visualization that you are imagining yourself. Like you are like in your mind, you're pushing, so you don't see it, but you are doing it. Yeah. That's how from, for the way my brain is wired, that works the best. So this is a trigger style release. It's activated by squeezing that trigger. And then there's an internal mechanism that lets that hook go. Um, sometimes they have Gator jaws on them. There's hundreds of styles of different types, but they hook inside your loop and then they're activated just by squeezing the trigger. I like mine on the pad of my finger. I like it right there on the tip. I see a lot of archers very successfully hooking deep. And that's, like I said, it's going to be really personal preference. I shoot a lot of firearms competitively as well. And that's just where my finger naturally goes on the triggers right there on the pad. Okay. All right. And you know, if that's feels like too much of a sense that you feel too much movement on that, you might want to go in between. Okay. So there's, there's no right or wrong way as far as where to put your finger on the trigger. Just make sure you're doing it consistently every time, every time and pulling it straight back. A lot of times, um, people's releases are too long for them and they feel like they're squeezing it, but they're just pushing down on it because there's nothing hooked around it. And so make sure that you're, you're actually pulling straight back, whatever tension you're applying to make that release fire, make sure that you're pulling it straight that way and not down. That will help the release fire a lot. Really consistent anchor point is to take your knuckle, your first knuckle there and put it against the back of your jawbone under your ear. You don't want to go over just under your ear against the back of the jawbone, find a spot back there that's repeatable and consistent. And I'll show you what that looks like at full draw. So the weight of the bow is entirely on the wrist strap of the release. I'm putting my knuckle against the back of my jawbone. My nose is lightly touching the string and you can see that the bow string is not touching anywhere on my face. And then I'll come in and put my finger on the trigger to execute the shot. So another style of release are the handheld, they're thumb butt activated. They have a similar internal mechanism as a wrist strap release, but they, instead of squeezing them with your finger, you squeeze them with your thumb. And I use the same process on both styles. Like I'll draw back, I'll preload the thumb and then I'll drive my pin into the target and make shot fire. But what I do is my, between my first and middle finger, there's a gap there. I'll put that right against my jaw, the line on my jawbone. So as I draw back, I'm going to anchor somewhere along that line, depending on where your drawing is. And there's a lot of other factors, but that's a really good starting point right there. I'll show you what that looks like. So I'm just anchored up to where the split between my first and middle finger are on the rail of my jawbone. My nose is lightly on the string and I'm going to center up the peep and squeeze through the shot, just like that. So with a thumb button, another way of activating the shot is just through pure squeeze, where you just lay your thumb on the trigger and just build up tension until it fires. But just remember to keep tension on there. Like I said, cutting a rope while it's tight, will give you the cleanest, most perfect shot, and it'll put you into a perfect follow through. Or you don't even have to think about follow through if you're activating it correctly. So another type of release that I use often is a hinge style release. So instead of having a button or a trigger that you pull, the entire handle is the trigger and it's activated by changing the angle of the release. So as I rotate, there's a little click in there that lets me know when I'm close and then I just keep that steady tension until the shot fires. So you'll see this style release is really popular with target competitive shooters. If you're ever struggling with aiming and executing a good shot with a trigger style release, your personality might align really well with a hinge or often called a back tension style release. So we went over form, we talked about execution, and now we're going to move on to shot process. With shot process, it's so important in archery because you always want to have the same shot. If you're thinking about different things on each shot, it's never going to be the same. You want to make sure if you want to move forward in archery and shoot really well, that you're continuing to have that same perfect shot for more accuracy. So tell us a little bit more about shot process. Yeah, it's like building a routine that you can rely on every step of the way. Regardless of where you're shooting or who you're shooting with, having a routine or a shot process keeps your mind on track to where you can focus on shooting accurately and not really get nervous or have other outside influences really impact you. So my shot process starts out with visualization and that is just simply me picturing what I want to happen. I picture my sight pin, what it'll look like on the target, and where the pin will be when it fires and my arrow going in the middle. I kind of picture that as something that's going to happen, like I'm planning for this to happen, like I'm picturing it in my mind. Another way to think about visualization, we naturally do it all the time. Like if you're having to go to a certain store and pick something up, you immediately visualize where that store is, what aisle to go down, and what the item is you're going to go purchase. You picture all that in your mind before it happens. That is exactly what visualization is. So that is my first step, is visualizing what I want to happen. And you want to be careful you don't visualize the wrong thing. Oftentimes people are shooting between trees and there they see an obstacle and the first thing they picture is their arrow hitting the obstacle. And guess what's going to happen? You're going to hit the obstacle. So picture the path through the obstacles and your arrow going into the target. Paint that picture in your mind the best you know how. The second step of my shot process is the alignment or what it feels like to have everything at full draw to where everything on this bow is meeting me perfectly. I've got my anchor point, my bubble level, my stance, all of the things we've talked about. It's too much to think about, so I just think about what it feels like. And that comes with a lot of time and a lot of practice of getting the feel of where everything's in its perfect place. And once you can check that box off that like everything's in alignment, everything feels good, it takes me a split second to know if I'm in the right spot. If I'm not in the right spot, I let down and I start over. Now once I'm able to complete and everything feels good and I'm ready to go into my shot execution, I preload my trigger and I push my pin into the target. And I give myself a conscious thought, something that I can really focus in my mind. It could be a mantra or a word you say to yourself. A lot of times mine is steady, steady, steady, or drive, drive, drive, like or squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. It can be anything, something positive that you can think about that drives your arrow into the target. Whatever process you decide to do it, you kind of just got to figure it out on your own. But that's really what I focus on is driving my pin into the target until that shot fires. And then the fourth step is evaluation. You think about how did that go? Like did I hit low? Did I hit left? Or did the shot fire too soon? Was it too long? And that naturally rolls right into your visualization stage of you planning your next shot to go in the middle.