For many newbies to archery, hitting the first arrow can be difficult. You may have read a lot of articles like: 6 steps to practice archery, how to shoot successfully,… But then you still fail with your shots. Why? In this article, I will show you the important things you need to keep in mind to get the perfect shots.
Table Of Contents
1. Keep Your Cool
Archery or any other sport is not something you can master in one day. So it’s totally fine if your shots don’t go anywhere in the first few days. Even professional archers can deflect when they lose their cool.
So this may sound boring, but you always need to stay calm in any situation. Breathe evenly, hold your posture, and shoot.
2. Repeating and Practicing
Always practice and repeat your shot over and over again. It may not work the first time. But as your body gets used to archery, your accuracy will gradually improve.
Again, it’s perfectly fine if you’ve followed the instructions perfectly but still miss. Let’s keep repeating the process.
3. Proper Archery Posture
A common mistake with archery beginners is practicing the wrong posture. This is very important for successful shooting. Practicing with the wrong posture makes the body tired, tense, painful and can cause other injuries if continued in the wrong way for many days.
You should always keep your head in a natural upright position at full draw by always adjusting the bow to your body and face, rather than contorting your body to fit the bow.
Keep your elbows, forearms, hands, and arrows in a straight line, instead of raising your elbows higher or lowering them slightly lower.
You need to keep your upper body straight above your hips, instead of trying to lean back to stretch the bow. When you try to lean back, you’re using a lot of muscle in your core. While what you need to do is to focus on the thighs, spine, pelvis and leg bones to keep the body straight.
4. Use The Right Equipment.
This is extremely important if you want to shoot the first arrow successfully. If you are a newbie, don’t be confused and use a bow for the expert level. Never think, oh, a bow, that’s okay, maybe all bows have the same design.
Make sure you read and understand the beginner’s guide to choosing a bow. Or more simply, take an archery class and ask your instructor for advice.
Above are all the notes I want to make. Hope you will have successful training sessions and enjoy this sport.