3 Tips to Hold Steadier (TToTW #64)

Hey everybody, this is Robert with RC Archery. In today's Tuesday's tip of the week number 64, I'm gonna give you three tips on how to hold our bow arm steadier. All right guys, on tip number one, I'm gonna be going over our release hand and how that along with our wrist and our release arm work into helping us hold steadier. So there's a couple of ways I'm gonna break this down. This is actually gonna be a multi-segment tip one. So the first thing that I'm gonna be going over is looking at just the shape of our hands and then trying to adjust a release based off of what that needs to look like. So many releases that are out today are a lot like this True Ball Goat that I use. This release has an adjustable arm where you can adjust it as a three finger or a four finger. You can even shoot it as a two finger if you want to, but if you're using these extensions, these can go up and down. So this doesn't exactly mirror the shape of my hand, but I wanna use this as a starting point to kind of go over everything. So if you were to just look at your hand like this and curl the fingers in, you can kind of see the shape that it takes through here. And this is what we're looking at, just through the fingers that we're using on the release. And the reason that is important is because we need to understand how that correlates to what our release is going to do in our hand as we're using it. So for me, I don't actually wrap all the fingers around when I use a four finger. So I mostly use just my index and my middle finger, and then my third and fourth finger just kind of long for a ride like you see here. But what I have done with this release is I want to feel my fingers have a certain amount of engagement on the pads of this release here, so on the base of this release. So what I have done is use this as a leverage point, and whether this was a thumb release or a hinge release, I would do this the exact same way. And what I want to feel is the majority of pressure coming right through here in my index and my middle finger, but I want these outer fingers to be engaged because as I work through a thumb button or work through a hinge, this release leverage is going to help me because it's less input that my body is going to need to use. So that actually helps us stay steadier on target. It helps our sight picture have less movements. And later on in this first tip segment, it will explain as to how it helps relieve some of the pressures and some variances that we can have from shot to shot. So a lot of the times what I'm doing is pretty similar. I'll use this as a hinge because it will probably be most easy to understand for a lot of people. So on a hinge release, it has to rock back and forth and have motion, right? So if we have a positive weight balance on this side of the release, and this side of the release has no weight on it at all, we're going to have to then force that release to move. And that forcing of that release to move actually creates some extra tension in the shot and some extra movement. So what we want to do is allow our outer fingers on the release to have some pre-loaded tension into it. And then to have this adjusted to where the leverage and the balance point there allows us to just naturally want to settle by rocking this release a little bit. And kind of settle through doing this. You can micro adjust this and spend as much time on this as you want to. I have a ton by just using the hash marks on the back of these releases and kind of adjusting that and playing with it. But use that as a way to help you work through that release and make that release work for you versus you having to force it to do something. Now the other side to what I'm going to be talking about is our wrist position and the pressures that that imparts on this release. And I've actually got my shot trainer here that you noticed in the last video because it helps us really see this and visualize it very well. So if I get to full draw here, if I were to adjust the tension in my wrist and make it turn, so making it turn this way, left and right, you can see that the trainer aid as I do this is actually moving just a little bit here at the release. And what that's doing is it's creating on a bow, it's making the string want to pull further away from our face or more into our face. Obviously we don't want to have a lot of string tension and pressure running into our face. It's hard to replicate from one shot to the next and it has to come away from that face to go down range whenever we release the arrow. So we want to stay away from that. By having a neutral wrist position to where it's not bent left and right like this and it's just straight. One, straight lines are easy to replicate. They're stronger and they're easier to hold on target. And two, it helps us keep from having any variances left and right. Now, I know a lot of people will say, well, if you do that every shot, then it's fine. And I mean, while that may be true, we are not a robot. We will move from one shot to the next. So if we're here one shot and here the next and here the next, and we're moving that string around on this back end, when we go to release the arrow, that string is going to come out away from our face in a different platform every single time. Whether that be popping it out away from our face where it's coming out over here and we're getting a miss there, or we're pulling it and it's coming this direction and coming through our face. So we want to avoid that obviously and stay away from it. And the other side of this is what we're doing with our wrist in this position. And this actually, in my opinion, probably has a bigger movement profile with what you'll see down range on a target. And it really just comes through as to how aggressive you are on your shot. If you're a very aggressive archer where you're pulling into the wall and creating a lot of tension, or you pull through your shot or whatever you're doing, having that variance with your wrist up and down will actually move what we're seeing in our float as well as actual shot execution. So when we're pulling up on this release like this with our wrist bent, all the pressure is then pulling this direction on the release. And the same thing if we're here, it's all pulling here. It's shifting it in our hand. And you'll notice that a lot of the times archers that want to use the back of their hand here and run it up the side of their face, your wrist will bend some. And when you're doing that, you're pulling up on the release and that's pulling the bow down. You're actually pulling up on the back on the D loop and forcing the front of the bow down. So you're creating some issues with your aim. The other thing that you can do is as you're coming through that shot, you're pulling up, or if you're the opposite and you're really cranked here, you're pulling down. And as that shot breaks, we're seeing the same replication as what we did left and right, where it's coming up and down. Now, these are minute differences. And obviously what I'm doing is extreme with examples, but those two areas will actually hurt you a lot in your accuracy. Now, the last part of this is what we are doing with the location of our entire arm through our elbow. And what I tell archers in an ideal world is we want to feel like the elbow is running in a straight line through the wrist, through the hand, through the release, through the arrow. Now, that's the idea of what I am trying to feel and replicate as I'm making my shot. And the reason I'm doing that is because when I am expanding and creating that tension in my shot before I start to work my release, that is a straight line from the target. And it actually will help you hold steadier on target. It helps you have a little bit of less variance in what we're doing down range. All right, so tip number two is pretty self-explanatory, and I've talked about it a ton on this channel in different videos, but it's our drawing motion. Now, in today's video, I'm going to combine multiple different videos that I have done in the past on how to hold steadier with our draw motion, muscles to use, and different things of that nature. I'm going to put it into this one tip. That way, it's a little bit easier for you to go back and look at things, know what you're doing, and you have one video now to look at to give you a little bit better idea of what we're doing. So let's start with a pretty basic setup of what we're doing with our bow arm for the motion that we're looking for. And what I tell everybody, and what I try to replicate is our natural motion of if our hand is down at our side and we lift it up with no weight in it at all. This is naturally where our shoulder wants to put itself into place. It's going to have the most benefit of all the stabilizing muscles in it. The joint is going to be compressed enough to where it's stable, and then we're using our core, our hip, and our body below it to be able to help hold that arm up and keep it stable on target. You don't want to be stiff and locked out with the elbow. Best thing that I can tell people is to take your hand, make a fist, put it against the wall, lean on it a little bit, and then you can almost feel without even needing to move your elbow. But if you want to, you can experiment with that. You can almost feel where you want to be naturally by just holding it here like this. It'll show that the elbow having a little bit of give in it is good for shock absorption. Whenever we're looking at aiming on target, float, things of that nature, bobbles, if we have a bobble in the middle of the shot, things like that. A little bit of bend in it is good. It's a good shock absorber. Same thing with our shoulder. We don't want to be outstretched with it and lose all the connection here. And we don't want to be so crammed up that it starts to ride up into our neck because then the joint itself is still not working for us. Now, what we're doing with our bow in this situation is we want to naturally be able to lift our bow up and get that string to our anchor point on here. And we need to adjust the draw length on the bow to make it get to this spot. We don't want to have to adapt and adjust to the bow with the peep height or the draw length of the bow. We want it to make it fit for us. And that may mean you need to do some micro adjustments on draw length, whether it's with the cables for small increments, string for a little bit larger, work with the cam. A lot of the new bows or some of the new bows have some really cool technology where you can micro adjust the draw length with the draw stops and different things that you're looking for. So I even go as far as marking my limb pockets in the limb bolt, knowing how far I can back those off or go in a little bit if I'm not already maxed out. And that helps to change the positioning of the limbs, lengthen or shorten the draw length in very small increments. But whatever you need to do, that's a huge important part of being able to hold steady on target is getting that bow shoulder to be supported and in a good spot. The other side of this is what we do with our release hand or with our bow hand rather. With the bow hand, we don't want to cross over the lifeline. Now the lifeline is this midsection that runs through the hand here. And we need to be on that thumb pad side. And a lot of people will have a flatter area on that thumb pad that they can get to. And that will be very easy to replicate from one shot to the next. What I also tell people is to take your middle, your ring finger and your pinky fingers and curl them into the palm. Because if I do that, I naturally create a little pocket here on that thumb side. And it's very hard to cross over into that lifeline whenever I'm in the bow. Doing this is going to help us keep our arm at what people say is somewhat of a 45 degree angle with our elbow here and the way that it's turned. I wouldn't get too specific on the degree of angle there. But what I will say is that if you hold your hand like this with your thumb out and hold your hand on your shoulder, you lift the thumb up and move it back and lift it up and move it back and even move it down. You can feel what that does to your shoulder. And as that thumb comes up, the more it comes up to straight up and down or even a little bit over, the shoulder will naturally pull itself out of joint. And obviously that's bad for our stability on target. So that's why they say 45-ish degree angle keeps you off the lifeline, gets to a good part on the thumb pad and it seats that shoulder in place as naturally as possible. Now, the final thing on this tip is which muscles we're using and why. Now for us, we need to use as an archer, the largest muscles that we have access to for multiple reasons. One, they're gonna be stronger. And then two, they will create lactic acid in them much later on and a lot slower than our smaller muscles. For when we're having to hold it full draw for a long time on an animal in a hunting situation, or maybe for a target round where we're shooting multiple arrows in an end or in the round or in the day, we don't wanna rely on small muscles that are gonna build up that lactic acid and wear out faster. We wanna use the larger muscles. They're gonna be steadier for a longer period of time. They're going to change less from one shot to the next. And also those larger muscle groups are just heavier or stronger rather to hold heavier weights or whatever we're doing with forces. So the muscles that I would recommend using are in the back around your scapula and then at the upper portion of the back, lower portion of the neck. Those along with the muscles here on our side, they're going to be extremely important in holding that bow steady and how we get into our full draw position. So for me, when I am lifting up my bow arm naturally, that is loading the muscles here on the side and also loading the muscles around my scapula and my neck and everything that way. When I draw, the drawing motion that I teach is having the hand come just above the shoulder and then drawing back in a smooth motion and not trying to cram my arm down or do anything crazy with it because as I'm drawing that back, one, it seats this shoulder better because it's driving the bow into that shoulder and then I can settle down. As I settled down on target, all the muscles here on my side are helping support that shoulder and it actually helps you hold your bow arm up. On the release hand side, this smooth draw motion in this direction actually loads the muscles around the scapula on the release side of my body and that's helping me by engaging these muscles to where I can then relax my hand and my arm a little bit more. Obviously not soft and floppy or anything crazy like that but I don't have to be rigid in them because if you're rigid and stiff in what you're doing with your hand, your arms and things of that nature, you will actually see a shake or more movement down range. You want to avoid that but it's also allowing me then to get into my back, move that scapula on the release hand side over into the spine area, work my shot, build tension, hold the tension, create more, whatever your shot style is, it's allowing you to do that and helping us by staying steadier on target throughout the entire process of our shot. All right, tip number three today and our final tip for this video is talking about what we're looking at on the target and what we're doing with our float and our intentionality behind why we're doing what we're doing. So, the easiest way that I can describe this is when you're looking at the target through your scope, through your pin, whatever you're using, your aiming reticle, you don't want to feel like you're over aiming and over emphasizing trying to stop every single bit of motion on target. I actually call this trying to choke the pin because you're just, you're almost creating tension and just over aiming and over trying and trying to just kill all that movement and when you're doing that, you're actually creating shakiness in your sight picture and you're, you're creating some anxiety and some anticipation and some muscle tension that doesn't need to be there because then again, you're not holding steady if you have muscle tension that's in an excessive form. So, what I like to explain to people and what I like to tell people is we want to be intentional with wanting to be in the middle of the target and holding there in the middle of the target so that we are not letting it lower, you know, like bob down throughout the shot and just kind of drift down or left or right or whatever's going on. We want to be intentional with that but we want to do this in a way that we're really looking at what's happening down range in that float and we're allowing our bodies and our subconscious to start memorizing the pattern of what our pin is doing on target. So, our subconscious is an extremely powerful tool. Your conscious mind can focus on one thing with all of its power at a time. If you're looking at it at a very basic standpoint. Yes, you can focus on a couple things but like for instance, a lot of people ask me, do I look at the pin or do I look at the target? And I do both. I'm actually going back and forth between seeing the target and seeing the pin. My brain can't focus on just the pin or just the target for me and have success. I have to be able to see both and kind of the relation between what it's doing but I'm not making myself focus on just the pin or making myself focus on just the target because for me, that creates problems. I like to be able to see both. That's what my brain needs and that's how it works. So, what I'm doing with my subconscious is allowing it to take over because my subconscious mind can do many, many things at once. It auto drives our entire bodies, our heart, our breathing, our brain functions, whatever we're doing, by me trying to touch each finger and touch the fingertip, I can do that because my subconscious knows the hand-eye coordination that it's developed over time. Babies can't do that but I can do that. And I give that as an example because when we're aiming with our bow, if we're not allowing our subconscious to see the pattern that we're on target with and the float pattern and what we're doing from one shot to the next, one day to the next, things of that nature, our subconscious really never memorizes and learns what we need to do to allow our bodies to work for us. But if we do allow it to do that, then it becomes our best tool ever because you can literally have archers that, you know, if you go and look at YouTube and see some world archery videos or Lancaster archery classics, stuff like that, you can watch archers at a high level that move their arm really big at the end of the shot and they think it's the most awful shot ever and it donuts the X ring. You know, and the reason that's doing that is because our subconscious works so much faster than our conscious mind. If I consciously try to focus on putting the pin in the middle of the target, by the time my brain is signaled to fire the arrow after I put it in the middle, I've already moved to another spot. But subconsciously, it knows the pattern, it sees what's happening and it lines everything up for us and allows the shot to just happen. So a test that I give a lot of people when I'm working with them on coaching is to shoot a round where you're struggling and trying to hold it into the middle, put it in the middle, do all of that the entire round and not punch the release, but obviously try to keep it in the middle and make that happen and then shoot another round where it's very relaxed, where you're holding yourself on target at full draw and you're allowing it to float at your acceptable float rate for you, whatever that is. You know, for that day, for your skill level, for the time and place that it is. If you're allowing it to do that and understanding that you'll hit somewhere in that acceptable float range, then you'll see a difference. Pretty much everybody that I do with, they see a huge difference, especially over time as they get more trusting of this process and what they're doing. So allow your subconscious to take over, allow that to be what you use as your ace in the hole, you know, keep that in your back pocket to develop that skill to help you hold steady on target, to help you shoot better. All right guys, I hope those three tips help you. If they did, spread the word, share this video, text message, on Facebook, on social media, whatever that may be and subscribe, like the video, subscribe to the channel. That helps me a ton with getting my, I guess with the algorithm and YouTube and getting all the videos back to the top and helping other archers see it. So we can all benefit from all this information that I'm giving out. A lot of the information that you saw in this video today, I actually have on the videos that I sell and there's even more information on those videos where I specialize in certain directions and things, but the idea behind this is I would like to give as much information as possible for you for free so that you can actually go out and be a better archer and shoot better and enjoy our sport, you know, even more and go and help other people that you're in, you know, around or whatever you're doing. So it spreads the love throughout the community but everybody, I hope you enjoy shooting after this video. You see some good out of it. If you have questions, throw them in the comments down below. I like to read those and get through those as often as possible to be able to help you out as much as I can. Y'all have a great day. I'll see you soon.