Archery for beginners

How hard? An afternoon to learn, a lifetime to master.

If you are weak, start doing stretching and exercises that target the arms and back. Plachs, push ups, burpies, pull ups are all good options, as well as squats because everyone should do squats.

Also consider a bow with a low draw weight, 30 or even 20 pounds. If you want to increase the weight later consider a bow with modular limbs.

I bought a samick sage kit with 30# limbs for about $300 and have spent maybe another $100 on arrows because I lose and damage them often, it's a great bow I enjoy shooting it but you could buy a cheaper bow first to see if you like it. You can spend thousands too, if you want.

Wear an arm guard or heavy long sleeved shirt, the arm that holds the bow will get hit by the string and you won't like it one bit.

>>1003350

Sound advice.

Ultimately, being physically weak is not a problem. Just don't fall into the trap of getting more bow than you can handle. You should start at 25# - 30#. Don't move up in weight until you can hold it at full draw for a minute without shaking.

If you learn to scrounge for used gear on Ebay, get an old vintage recurve and learn to setup a lot of things yourself, you'll save a ton of money while you figure out what direction you want to go.

Remember that decent and *consistent* arrows are far more important than the bow when it comes to accuracy. Hand almost any bow to a robot, and it will put every shot through the same hole. Sights, clickers, stabilizers, fancy training wheels with draw let off, and other doo-dads were all developed to compensate for human weakness and inconsistency.

But before you do anything, buy "Shooting the Stickbow: A Practical Approach to Classical Archery" by Anthony Camera. It would be difficult to find a more comprehensive guide than this, on any hobby.

>>1003350
You shouldn't have to were an arm. Either your arm is not in proper position or the string is to long and needs to be shorten. Most likely the latter.

How do you fix this?

Take the string off and start tightening it by twisting it. Then put the string back on. You'll notice the bow will appear to be under more pressure we'll it's do to the fact that you just shorten the string.

Shoot the bow it does hit your arm you're good. If it does, tighten it some more. If it continues to do it then it might be your form.

Seriously a thousand year old book called Arab archery talks about the striking of the forearm. It shouldn't happen.

I used to get slapped all the time now I never get slapped. Arm guards pointless. I'm not sure about it if it's a compound though.

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>>1003302
Also there's two different forms of archery and there's three different types of bows you can buy.

There's instinctive shooting and shooting by sight.

There's compound bows, recurve bows, and then traditional bows.

Instinctive shooting is much harder to master than sight shooting. But I suggest you learn that over sight shooting since sight shooting is much easier to learn.

Sight shooting uses some kind of "sights" or optics. While instinctive is based off of you just knowing the distance and using no sights. Try not to look down the arrow shaft with one eye but keep both eyes open.

I suggest you start with just a recurve because the you can switch to either compound or traditional with ease.

Traditional is the hardest of all forms and bows to learn. I'm ok at it from 30 yards.

It involves a bow with no sights, no rest, no knock and shooting instinctively. Shooting off the nail from the left side for a right handed shooter or shooting from the right side for a left handed shooter.

It's why I suggest to learn on a recurve first because you start with a knock and rest and can add sights and stuff. They're good for learning instinctive and sight shooting. Overall very versatile.

I might add that's one way of shooting traditional there's others but it's the best way to shoot in my opinion.

Examples of traditional bows would be like English long bows or Mongolian horse bows. There's others. I have a traditional recurve from Sammick sage. Really nice bow.

>pic related my real traditional bow.

>>1003302

Don't do this, it's fucking stupid.

Different bows have different recommended brace heights which you need to stay within. If your form is off, you'll hit your arm anyway. If you increase brace height above the recommended range in a moronic attempt to stop string slap, you will fuck up your bow.

If you're shooting a recurve or a longbow, wear an armguard and shoot with proper form - i.e. with the inside of you elbow 90 degrees to the ground and holding the bow with a loose "grip" with your knuckles at 45 degrees from the riser.

>>1003596

In competition your disciplines are indoor & outdoor target (set distance, "normal" targets), field (walking a course, "normal" targets at unknown distance) and 3D (field except the targets are game animals with scoring rings in the vitals).

There are categories for all types of bow in these disciplines, being compound, barebow compound, recurve (with sights and stabilisers), barebow recurve and longbow.


cont.

>>1003583
A full minute with no shaking???!!! I would still be on a 5lb bow if that was true. A minute is a long fucking time. Even olympic athletes don't hold bows that long without shaking. I would say 30 sec MAX. Other than that, if you can pull and hold for 10, you're good.

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>>1004559

On types of bow, there're compounds (target or hunting), recurves (target or hunting) and longbows. Compound bows are like pic related. They manipulate the amount of weight you draw back with cams to shoot arrows faster and reduce the amount of weight you hold at full draw. In practical terms compounds are the most accurate and powerful option, but they're also not the trad archery experience. Usually shot with sights and stabilisers.

The kid in your picture is shooting a recurve. Recurves are slightly faster than longbows and usually have articulated grips that make shooting with good form easier. Target models are colourful, often expensive and mount sights & stabilisers (as per Olympic recurve target shooting). Hunting recurves are usually wood and one piece or takedown. You usually shoot them without sights (either instinctive or gapping).

Longbows are usually American flat bow style with a shelf cut into them. Basically as hunting recurves but trading stability over speed.

As for arrows, just get carbons. If you want to shoot longbow or barebow/hunting recurve, they need feathers (not synthetic vanes). They come in different spines (i.e. stiffness) like 600, 500, 400, 340, 300 and 250. Lower numbers meaner a stiff arrow. Consult spine charts/pro shop to pick the correct arrow for your bow.

As for expense, the cheapest way to get into archery is to get an entry level takedown recurve, a glove or tab, arm guard and half a dozen feather fletched carbon arrows (correctly spined).

Most rookie mistakes can be avoided with an archery pro shop or a local club to talk to. I guess ones to look out for would include overbowing yourself (too much draw weight), buying shit gear, buying the wrong gear (especially arrows - just buy carbons from a reputable manufacturer in the correct spine and you're good) and shooting wrong (avoid by not doing any meme bullshit, ideally find a club or course, watch form videos, practice form, etc).