Setting the shoulder- Arguably the #1 reason you don’t feel consistent! Week 4

The next part of the shot routine that I wanna focus on is shoulder position and setting the shoulder. We've covered stance, we've covered grip, now we're moving into the third part of my shot sequence that I think about every time and I go through the thought process of, does this thing look right if I'm looking at myself and does it feel right? Because I can feel variation in my shoulder and the variations that I'm looking for is mainly when this thing starts to get too high. As soon as my shoulder starts to creep or compress, I can either feel that humerus coming up, I can feel my trap pressure building on my neck or if I've drawn and done like a push and pull and set my scapula back to where it's pressing against my spine, if I've set that shoulder back like this, I can feel the pressure of my scapula sliding against my spine and I can feel that pressure. So either I'm feeling the pressure of the humerus being in, the humerus being up, I'm feeling the pressure here or if I'm compressed back, I can feel the shoulder blade or the scapula pressing against the spine. Neither of those are gonna be good. When it comes to front shoulder position, what you need is you need a front shoulder that is down and forward and the easiest way to do that is if you're standing with your arms relaxed and you're facing directly towards the wall that's paralleling the range and then you look towards the target and you raise your arm up, this is going to be down and forward. We make this so complicated as archers by drawing and driving right here. This is already compromised, okay? If you raise and drive this back like this, I'm already compromised. When the shoulder is forward and down, it allows the rear scapula to have movement and it allows you to have back tension and to be able to pull harder on your wall and for this elbow to be able to move and come through the shot. All that is determined by this shoulder position and where your big shoulder blade and your spine and the other shoulder blade where all that stuff comes together. So the very start of my shot routine, looking at my feet, looking at my grip and then I'm taking attention to my shoulder and if you watch me shoot and if you watch me interact either at tack events or tournaments, you'll notice that I am not gonna be like this. This is already compromising shoulder. It's using strength to hold it in this, this is likely gonna fatigue, there's a good chance my shoulder's gonna collapse if I'm never relaxing it. So using your cam or your stabilizer as a way to relax that front shoulder is absolutely critical. If your front shoulder feels tight, get that bow out of the front shoulder and relax it and make sure that it is down and it is forward and utilize your release and your D loop to be able to hold this bow in position and relax that front arm. And when you're relaxed like that, then I move into the second part of my process and that happens once I'm addressing my grip, I actually shift a little bit of my weight forward to the front foot and you'll notice that my shoulders, instead of being in a position like they are at full draw, I'm actually tipped down and I try to elongate and relax the front shoulder down and forward. And I do that because I want to be able to do the same motion that I talked about for correctly putting your bow in the right position, which is essentially making a T and looking at it. I'm doing that same thing from this position here, this is completely relaxed, I wanna be able to just raise it to the target and it is down and forward, it's not back, it's not up. So I'm relaxed, I raise, it's seated down and forward, I can see that, I draw my bow and I can feel no tension on my neck, no tension on my spine right now and I can pull through. Now let me show you what I would refer to as a collapse and this is something that when I'm shooting tension releases during training and during my school of knock, I'm using this release to identify when this shoulder collapses because if you haven't built shoulder strength and the stability muscles within that shoulder, then this can get pretty tricky but I can show you if I push and pull right here, this is already compromised, as soon as I would come into position, this would be forward and I can feel that pressure or another example would be coming into full draw and then as I'm holding and waiting, that shoulder is moving and that is the shoulder is giving back as I'm trying to take and that is a form flaw. The shoulder has to be down and forward, relax it down, relax it out, don't keep tension on it all the time while you're loading arrows. If that's down and forward, the weight's there, I'm forcing some of the weight, I'm imagining this front shoulder falling over that front foot and now it's allowing me to dip that front shoulder down, raise it to set it, drawing back, my anatomy is holding it and it is stabilized while I'm pulling through. Setting the shoulder, number three and arguably one of the most critical things. The shoulder is off, your drawing feels off, your anchor feels off, your clearance with your front arm for some people can be off, it's a disaster if you don't get it right. Work on setting the shoulder and you're gonna find your shot and find your accuracy.