Christophe of Grey
Leathersmith/Archer
How To Practice
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” It applies to archery as well. “Yeah, but……” I’ve heard it all. “I live in an apartment”, “I don’t have an acre around my house”, “There’s two feet of snow outside!” All valid, however, you CAN still practice your target archery. Good and great archery is the product of lots of practice.
But first, what should you be practicing? The key elements to great archery are the draw, anchor and release. You should be able to draw your bow and hold the draw without excessive wiggling. You need to anchor your draw hand in the same spot every time. When you release it should be a smooth relaxing of the draw fingers. If you can not draw your bow and hold the draw without shaking, either you bow is too strong for you or you are out of shape. If you do not anchor your draw hand in the same spot every time, each arrow shot becomes a new experience. If you are not releasing correctly your arrows may be fishtailing down range or consistently hitting right of left of your aiming point. I’m going to discuss each of these aspects in future articles but let’s deal with the initial question “How do I practice without a range to shoot on?”
You need a target. First solution is a plastic trash can. Stuff the bottom of it with soft stuff- old blankets, pillows, your sister’s coat (just kidding!). Fill the bottom third on the trash can with this material loosely packed.
Second solution, get a burlap bag. If you have a steak house type restaurant in your area ask them if they will save you one of the bags their free peanuts come in. (They just toss them in the trash and you’ll be recycling!) Stuff the bag loosely with matting material. This is the stuff that mattresses, sofas, easy chairs, etc. are stuffed with. If you can’t get any of that, use a bunch of those pesky plastic bags you get from Walmart, grocery stores, etc., etc.
A third solution, for those who need to practice indoors, is to go to your local thrift store and buy a comforter. Hang it at least 2 feet off of a wall. When you shoot your blunt into it the blanket/comforter will absorb the energy and cause the arrow to simply fall to the floor,.
Now sacrifice one of your arrows. Cut the point off leaving a blunt end. Wrap this end with a mass of tape for form a blunt. An alternative, and perhaps a bit better, is to purchase a bird blunt from an archery supplier like 3Rivers Archery. Bird blunts weight as much as a regular field point and will cause the arrow, in it’s short flight, to fly like one of your target arrows. Hang your “target” at the same height as your arrow will be at draw. If youa re using the comforter you could put a 3 inch diameter “target” on it. Use that thin foam stuff from craft stores, paper or simply paint it on. Stand about two paces away from the target. Draw, anchor, release. Yes, Virginia, you will be shooting into the trash can, comforter or the burlap bag. All you need to do then is step forward, recover the arrow and do it again. You don’t really need to see your arrow flying down range. Shoot about 10 shots, then take a break. Come back to it in a bit. During the course of a day or evening you could possibly “shoot” 50 – 70 “shafts”. As soon as you feel you are loosing it, stop, take a break. Come back to it. The whole focus here is to develop the feel of the “correct” draw, anchor, release. This needs to be instinctive when you go to the range for great scores.
So this method of practice works anywhere. When you get to the range all you will need to adjust for is elevation for distance shooting. If it is a windy day you may also need to adjust for wind but all these things are relative to shooting on THAT range on THAT day. I’ll have other articles discussing where/how to anchor and draw methods, but know that good archery is the combination of draw, anchor, release. Do it the same very single time and you will hit what you aim at.