Raising or lowering the anchor point essentially changes your point on distance, which is why the fingers under high anchor point is so common with traditional bow hunters. Changing the height of the anchor point will not make a lot of difference to the lateral distribution unless it brings the shaft more closely in line under the dominant eye. If you do a lot of long target shooting a lower anchor is probably more effective.
Actually, I used to anchored at the same place at the beginning of my archery training. It's easier to aim with the nock close to your eyes. However, later on, I changed my anchor point to the corner of the mouth when I upped by bow weight to 40 lbs. When your bow weight increases, the higher your anchor point is, the harder it is to keep your arms steady. The reason is the pulling force isn't put on your bone frame and your back but your arms. Now I'm using a 45 lbs bow and anchoring anywhere above the mouth would noticeably affect my performance. If you want to have the nock close to your eyes, it's better to use three under than split fingers. But in my opinion, three under generally has higher rate of getting a paradox as the nocking point is rather unstable.
3 under with the arrow near the eye just requires a different tillering of the bow, the nocking point isn't inherently unstable. You get a paradox when you try it because your bow wasn't made to shoot straight that way... you need the upper and lower limbs to be a bit different in strength for that setup to shoot straight. The pulling force is pretty much never on your bony frame, people say things like that because they don't understand shoulder architecture. There's no bony support in the pull, the only bony support is acromion-clavicle-sternum, and that's only able to offer support during a push... and even then, you're actively pushing towards your target, which is basically stretching the clavicle so it isn't providing support there either. The reason you feel it is easier is that the angles are all more in line with the joints, and that minimizes the force needed. That's just trigonometry and moment arms. Getting stronger allows you to shoot with a higher anchor with heavier bows, I shoot 50 lbs and I use the anchor Alan does most of the time with great results. You are right though, you have to be stronger to shoot this way and not shake with heavier bows.
I've already found Jeff's great videos, and I am very happy for you that he has helped you to achieve better accuracy. Thanks for your vid, you're a very nice, humble, gentle fellow.
I had good results with this as well. It's funny that I hadn't noticed that Jeff's anchor point is considerably higher than I'd realized. I'm glad this rolled through my recommended videos. Thanks for pointing this out.
+usernamemykel I actually adjusted based in the distance between his eye and the arrow. Because I'm not as tall as he is and have smaller hands my middle finger is on my top row of teeth just above the corner of my mouth. Monumental improvement in accuracy and groups.
Guess what, whenever I change literally anything in my technique, the accuracy is immediately improved A HELL LOT but only for a short time like a day or two. After that, even if I continue with the same technique, the accuracy newly acquired is gone, relatable?
Nice video Alan and you're absolutely correct. Jeff is one incredible archer. Disregard those comments about shooting bullseyes at that distance. The internet has so many "Howard Hills" now that it defies belief. Doubt if any of those naysayers can shoot half as well as you. And your delivery is excellent. Keep up the good work. I'll be checking back to view your latest installment. Dave
Awesome shooting Allen. I use the same anchor point and I didn't think anyone else did. it feels really good to have someone else do this so I don't feel pressured to use corner of my mouth. keep it up leo
Good video. I'm getting back into recurve after years of not shooting. Jeff's channel is very good, and that's a very good point to bring up. I may try a change to the anchor point to see if that makes a difference. Thanks Gordon.
Hello, Alan: I know this is an older video, but I had the exact same experience. I now anchor just like Jeff and my accuracy is so much better. I think that anchoring with the ring finger at the corner of the mouth is nearly equal to shooting three fingers under, without changing the tiller of the bow or knocking point.
How do you anchor at the same place every time? What are your points of reference? When you anchor below you have the corner of your mouth, for example
It's just practice and familiarity. The more I shoot, the easier it is to anchor without actually thinking of where I need my hand to be. In this video for example, my point of reference was having my middle finger touch the corner of my mouth. So everytime I'd shoot, once my middle finger touched the corner of my mouth I'd just release and that worked for me. I hope that's helpful.
Nice shooting. Don't worry about all these form tips people shoot at you, focus on your results. What you're doing works just fine, I found out early on that this worked best for me too... before I saw any archery videos. Then I tried to do things "the right way" and it just didn't work as well. I went back to doing what I do, and I shoot better than most even though my arrows are absolute trash. The people who say that most of your arrows should be touching each other at 10m aren't really wrong... but that will come with practice. Maybe you're already there now. Moving to that from where you're at now is all about the finer details, like what you're doing with the push of your bow hand, the finger pressure in the grip, and making sure the bow hand and draw hand are both reaching the same height with the same pressure on each shot for any given distance. Jeff's video on shooting a hay wall and just focusing on how these things feel is by far the best thing you can do to develop that awareness, but if you don't have a hay wall you can just practice them with an empty bow... lets you practice everything but the release, and serves as good strength training because of the eccentric component.
What pound bow is that? I'm still struggling with barebow, I used to get a lot of yellows (at short distance) when my eye was almost directly behind the arrow but I don't think I was shooting right. Need to get comfortable doing it with the inch or so gap between arrow and eye like everyone else seems to be :)
Hallo. Like your video and stile. I´m still new to this so maybe my question is hard to answar but do you have any explanation to what it is that is making the difference? For me as a newcomer it do not seem that different; you move your hand 2-3 cm up..! :-) Hope to se more from videos from you. (sorry for the spelling..)
Hi Leo, I bought it on some website sadly I don't remember which for about €150 but you can get it here for cheaper: www.merlinarchery.co.uk/raven-blackhawk-68.html It is a 68" bow and you can get it in the following: RH 30 Ibs, RH 35 Ibs, RH 40 Ibs, RH 45 IBS and RH 50 IBS. LH 30 IBS, LH 35 IBS, LH 40 IBS, LH 45 IBS and LH 50 IBS. It's an amazing bow. I can't really recommend any other longbow/flatbow as this is the only one I've used. I hope that's helpful :)
I have never shot a bow before but I would imagine that this new method is only better at close ranges. Bec when you bring the rear of the arrow higher you are causing the arrow to be close to parallel to the ground. This means the for long distance shots you will need to hold your reference point considerably higher in order to hit the same point of aim. Again this is all in theory as I haven't shot a bow yet. Im curious to know what you experienced archers have to day about this?
+אבי פ. Abraham P. There are a couple factors - line of sight, arrow trajectory and preferred anchor point. So the amount of hold over/under differs, some folks manage with his style a zero point at 50-65m. If you have to adjust with fixed anchor/string position, you pivot in the hip. By just raising/lowering the bow hand you will also change the draw length and point of impact.
at the last end you obviously had one arrow way off up in the high right of the 9 ring. There are 7 holes plus the 3 arrows. You shot really well and I enjoy the videos, just don't appreciate the sneakiness.
I am glad you enjoy the videos. And that wasn't really sneakiness. I used the wrong anchor for the first shot of the last end by mistake, which resulted in the arrow going higher than the mark. Seeing as this is a video about the new anchor point, I cut that part out. I don't try to make myself look better than I am.
***** Exactly I'm glad to hear :) before I switched I could still do fairly well, but I was much more inconsistent. Since I made this adjustment all my arrows are consistently going where I want them too :)
If you draw a line through the arrow you will see that your draw arm is out of line with the line arrow, being above it. This will cause you to have an inconsistent release because you are inducing extra forces through your arm into the bow in order to keep your draw. I'm going to guess you did this before your changed your anchor point. By bringing your anchor point up you minimized the off-angle, but did not eliminate. Keep your forearm straight in line with the arrow and use your lower jaw as the anchor point. This will minimize the forces you are inducing into the blow, give you a smoother release and a bone-on-bone anchor point. Archerywinchester has a wonderful set of video's on form faults and how to correct them. By the way, I'm new and I've got a butt load of form faults to work out. I'm not saying I'm better than you are.
Thanks Waltham for the that, it's always good to get constructive feedback. I know I'm not perfect at archery by any means. These videos are intended to provide a baseline of tips and guidance rather than being intended as 'do this and you will be great' :) Having said that I will work on what you've suggested and hopefully I can improve my form, thank you.
I've got to say that I don't think that's as important as you think it is. The reason I say that is that the forearm positioning you mention helps a lot of people because they are not aware of the tension they keep, and that they don't reproduce the same forearm angle and tension each time. If they do take note of that tension and angle, just about any given setup can be super accurate and super precise. Keeping the forearm in line with the arrow is just a cue that helps a lot if you aren't aware of your body, especially when you have a large angle between the line of the arrow and the line of sight, as you do with a lower jaw anchor. If you watch the competitive archers, you'll see that the arrows are nocked to be in line with the cheek bone and the hands are where you describe, with a 3-under grip on the string... but those bows are tillered to shoot straight with that specific combination. When you're using a split grip, it is much easier to make shots from 20m or closer when you anchor at the cheek bone, not the lower jaw. As you get further out, everyone has a different strategy. Some people like to do a pure gap method, others like me find that starting my alignment with my usual anchor and then moving it down for longer range shots without changing anything else is easier for variable distance shooting. From 15-16 meters out I put 4 out of 5 arrows in the same tennis ball, and if the 5th isn't in the ball it's right next to it. That's pretty solid, and I don't shoot the way you describe. There's only one thing that matters: Can you consistently hit what you want to hit? If you reproduce the same angles and forces, the answer is "yes." Not saying you're wrong for what you're doing, but understand that it's not a rule written in stone. It is a simplistic guideline for people who don't really understand what makes an arrow fly the same way with each release.
@@topstrekker5579 lol I'm just pointing out the obvious, you don't need an anchor point at that distance, if you want to show accuracy and and precision you need to move back, not trying to be mean or anything but this type of content with clickbait titles is extremely misleading and uninformative. No matter what kind of arguments anyone wants to try
@@topstrekker5579 for practicing 30 yards is where you want to be, I would only recommend anybody at a smaller distance for anything if A) they are new to archery B) if they are testing s new style of shooting B) using new equipment And then I would place them at 10 yards for a controlled shot so you can narrow down exactly is wrong with your equipment 20 yards is a good distance to determine errors in handling the bow and/or shot process, anything below 30 yards isn't impressive in any way shape or form, and groupings should be expected at those distances
no offence here mate.... but at this distance, you should be in the bull every time. i appreciate you are limited in the space available, but you are so close to the target, you could throw the arrow and get a bullseye
No offense but not many people start out at bull every time level with trad gear regardless of distance. But yes everybody should with practice eventually be able to hit the bull nearly every time especially with proper instruction. There are too many people that are all talk and hit their target every time until you practice with them...
I use the same anchor Alan does, I shoot those distances (20-30m), and on the 10 point blue target that people play 300 on I usually don't have anything outside the 6 ring at 20m. And that's shooting off the hand with the ugliest, most beat up arrows you've ever seen. Vanes are torn up, some have 2 vanes, they're different brands, they're not tuned, and they're all like 30 bucks for 12 arrows. I'd probably shoot a lot better with really nice arrows that were properly tuned, but I do what I can.
Jeff kavanagh is the best archer I’ve found on TH-cam. His videos have help me a lot.
Raising or lowering the anchor point essentially changes your point on distance, which is why the fingers under high anchor point is so common with traditional bow hunters. Changing the height of the anchor point will not make a lot of difference to the lateral distribution unless it brings the shaft more closely in line under the dominant eye.
If you do a lot of long target shooting a lower anchor is probably more effective.
Actually, I used to anchored at the same place at the beginning of my archery training. It's easier to aim with the nock close to your eyes. However, later on, I changed my anchor point to the corner of the mouth when I upped by bow weight to 40 lbs.
When your bow weight increases, the higher your anchor point is, the harder it is to keep your arms steady. The reason is the pulling force isn't put on your bone frame and your back but your arms. Now I'm using a 45 lbs bow and anchoring anywhere above the mouth would noticeably affect my performance.
If you want to have the nock close to your eyes, it's better to use three under than split fingers. But in my opinion, three under generally has higher rate of getting a paradox as the nocking point is rather unstable.
3 under with the arrow near the eye just requires a different tillering of the bow, the nocking point isn't inherently unstable. You get a paradox when you try it because your bow wasn't made to shoot straight that way... you need the upper and lower limbs to be a bit different in strength for that setup to shoot straight.
The pulling force is pretty much never on your bony frame, people say things like that because they don't understand shoulder architecture. There's no bony support in the pull, the only bony support is acromion-clavicle-sternum, and that's only able to offer support during a push... and even then, you're actively pushing towards your target, which is basically stretching the clavicle so it isn't providing support there either.
The reason you feel it is easier is that the angles are all more in line with the joints, and that minimizes the force needed. That's just trigonometry and moment arms.
Getting stronger allows you to shoot with a higher anchor with heavier bows, I shoot 50 lbs and I use the anchor Alan does most of the time with great results. You are right though, you have to be stronger to shoot this way and not shake with heavier bows.
I've already found Jeff's great videos, and I am very happy for you that he has helped you to achieve better accuracy.
Thanks for your vid, you're a very nice, humble, gentle fellow.
I had good results with this as well. It's funny that I hadn't noticed that Jeff's anchor point is considerably higher than I'd realized. I'm glad this rolled through my recommended videos. Thanks for pointing this out.
+James Clawson
Jeff shoots "three under", anchoring with his middle finger to the corner of his mouth
...and he's just p[lain incredible.
+usernamemykel I actually adjusted based in the distance between his eye and the arrow. Because I'm not as tall as he is and have smaller hands my middle finger is on my top row of teeth just above the corner of my mouth.
Monumental improvement in accuracy and groups.
Keep up the good work. Jeff Kavanagh is something special!
Guess what, whenever I change literally anything in my technique, the accuracy is immediately improved A HELL LOT but only for a short time like a day or two. After that, even if I continue with the same technique, the accuracy newly acquired is gone, relatable?
You're a nice fellow and you made a nice vid.
Now that you're out of college, I wish you the best in your business ventures.
Nice video Alan and you're absolutely correct. Jeff is one incredible archer. Disregard those comments about shooting bullseyes at that distance. The internet has so many "Howard Hills" now that it defies belief. Doubt if any of those naysayers can shoot half as well as you. And your delivery is excellent. Keep up the good work. I'll be checking back to view your latest installment. Dave
Awesome shooting Allen. I use the same anchor point and I didn't think anyone else did. it feels really good to have someone else do this so I don't feel pressured to use corner of my mouth.
keep it up
leo
Really terrific form.
I like the move of anchor point.
I'm going to try it and report back.
Thanks for the keen instruction...
j.j. Buescher Thanks man. Let me know how ya get on?
Good video. I'm getting back into recurve after years of not shooting. Jeff's channel is very good, and that's a very good point to bring up. I may try a change to the anchor point to see if that makes a difference. Thanks Gordon.
Great stuff Alan
+Jeff Kavanagh Only seeing this comment now, thanks a lot Jeff, that means a lot :)
Nice, I use a low anchor point too, might have to try the high one also
Ofcourse it's easier to aim with the arrow almost inline with your eyes, but it's not the anchor but your aiming that helps.
Hello, Alan: I know this is an older video, but I had the exact same experience. I now anchor just like Jeff and my accuracy is so much better. I think that anchoring with the ring finger at the corner of the mouth is nearly equal to shooting three fingers under, without changing the tiller of the bow or knocking point.
what was distance ? im guessing 14 yards ?
Good shooting, I also subscribe to Jeff's TH-cam site, I'm trying to make this anchor at cheekbone, to the ear second anchor of the release.
from which distance did you shoot?
How do you anchor at the same place every time? What are your points of reference? When you anchor below you have the corner of your mouth, for example
It's just practice and familiarity. The more I shoot, the easier it is to anchor without actually thinking of where I need my hand to be.
In this video for example, my point of reference was having my middle finger touch the corner of my mouth. So everytime I'd shoot, once my middle finger touched the corner of my mouth I'd just release and that worked for me.
I hope that's helpful.
I looked on Jeff's site but was not able to find anything related specifically to anchor. Can you help?
Thanks
Nice shooting. Don't worry about all these form tips people shoot at you, focus on your results. What you're doing works just fine, I found out early on that this worked best for me too... before I saw any archery videos.
Then I tried to do things "the right way" and it just didn't work as well. I went back to doing what I do, and I shoot better than most even though my arrows are absolute trash.
The people who say that most of your arrows should be touching each other at 10m aren't really wrong... but that will come with practice. Maybe you're already there now.
Moving to that from where you're at now is all about the finer details, like what you're doing with the push of your bow hand, the finger pressure in the grip, and making sure the bow hand and draw hand are both reaching the same height with the same pressure on each shot for any given distance.
Jeff's video on shooting a hay wall and just focusing on how these things feel is by far the best thing you can do to develop that awareness, but if you don't have a hay wall you can just practice them with an empty bow... lets you practice everything but the release, and serves as good strength training because of the eccentric component.
Lol, I did the same thing! I tried his style and improved quite a bit.
What pound bow is that?
I'm still struggling with barebow, I used to get a lot of yellows (at short distance) when my eye was almost directly behind the arrow but I don't think I was shooting right. Need to get comfortable doing it with the inch or so gap between arrow and eye like everyone else seems to be :)
nice accuracy... how far is the shotlengh? ... 6 meter maybe 8?....great...
10 meters, and that's the length of my garden. I make do with what I have :)
Just seen this and thank you for sharing. Good luck!
Nice shooting Alan!
What aiming method were you using at the time? Let me know if you can remember.
Hallo. Like your video and stile. I´m still new to this so maybe my question is hard to answar but do you have any explanation to what it is that is making the difference? For me as a newcomer it do not seem that different; you move your hand 2-3 cm up..! :-) Hope to se more from videos from you. (sorry for the spelling..)
where did you get that bow and do you have any longbows you can reccomend me. 50 or less draw wheight would be nice
Hi Leo,
I bought it on some website sadly I don't remember which for about €150 but you can get it here for cheaper: www.merlinarchery.co.uk/raven-blackhawk-68.html
It is a 68" bow and you can get it in the following:
RH 30 Ibs, RH 35 Ibs, RH 40 Ibs, RH 45 IBS and RH 50 IBS.
LH 30 IBS, LH 35 IBS, LH 40 IBS, LH 45 IBS and LH 50 IBS.
It's an amazing bow. I can't really recommend any other longbow/flatbow as this is the only one I've used. I hope that's helpful :)
Thanks so much
nice form, wish I was that consistant
yep, Jeff is awesome, so are you....
Thanks for that :)
I have never shot a bow before but I would imagine that this new method is only better at close ranges. Bec when you bring the rear of the arrow higher you are causing the arrow to be close to parallel to the ground. This means the for long distance shots you will need to hold your reference point considerably higher in order to hit the same point of aim.
Again this is all in theory as I haven't shot a bow yet. Im curious to know what you experienced archers have to day about this?
+אבי פ. Abraham P. There are a couple factors - line of sight, arrow trajectory and preferred anchor point. So the amount of hold over/under differs, some folks manage with his style a zero point at 50-65m. If you have to adjust with fixed anchor/string position, you pivot in the hip. By just raising/lowering the bow hand you will also change the draw length and point of impact.
Nice shooting!
Hi Alan, I would like to know the name of your bow, and how much draw power it has. Nice shooting btw!
Nicola Grillo The bow is a Bucktrail Blackhawk and it's 30 Ibs :)
what poundage is your bow?
Sorry for the late reply, my trad bow is 30 ibs, my recurve is 38.
Nice video,
This may be off topic Alan, but what subject were you studying at college and what college did you go to? :)
Vccine Hey thanks, I was studying Enterprise Computing in DCU :)
I saw you adjusted your feet on the last shots.feet are importabt too
Nice form man. I'm no archery coach so I will not pretend to be. But if this was me shooting I'd slow down just a bit.
nice shooting!
at the last end you obviously had one arrow way off up in the high right of the 9 ring. There are 7 holes plus the 3 arrows. You shot really well and I enjoy the videos, just don't appreciate the sneakiness.
I am glad you enjoy the videos. And that wasn't really sneakiness. I used the wrong anchor for the first shot of the last end by mistake, which resulted in the arrow going higher than the mark. Seeing as this is a video about the new anchor point, I cut that part out. I don't try to make myself look better than I am.
the middle of your fletchings are coming loose,but awesome shootin'
Great video.
Thanks Joe :)
***** Exactly I'm glad to hear :) before I switched I could still do fairly well, but I was much more inconsistent. Since I made this adjustment all my arrows are consistently going where I want them too :)
Nice. Tried it once but it didn't feel right. Gave it another go and now i'm a convert.
I thought he said tiger face I was like awesome he's got a tiger 3-d target
Slow your draw down a little and you will improve more. Nothing fast and jerky. Slow, smooth, and graceful. Like ballet as corny as that sounds.
The closer to ur eye the more accurate u will be
seriously. at that distance, you should be hitting the bulls eye
If you draw a line through the arrow you will see that your draw arm is out of line with the line arrow, being above it.
This will cause you to have an inconsistent release because you are inducing extra forces through your arm into the bow in order to keep your draw.
I'm going to guess you did this before your changed your anchor point. By bringing your anchor point up you minimized the off-angle, but did not eliminate.
Keep your forearm straight in line with the arrow and use your lower jaw as the anchor point. This will minimize the forces you are inducing into the blow, give you a smoother release and a bone-on-bone anchor point.
Archerywinchester has a wonderful set of video's on form faults and how to correct them.
By the way, I'm new and I've got a butt load of form faults to work out.
I'm not saying I'm better than you are.
Thanks Waltham for the that, it's always good to get constructive feedback. I know I'm not perfect at archery by any means. These videos are intended to provide a baseline of tips and guidance rather than being intended as 'do this and you will be great' :) Having said that I will work on what you've suggested and hopefully I can improve my form, thank you.
I've got to say that I don't think that's as important as you think it is. The reason I say that is that the forearm positioning you mention helps a lot of people because they are not aware of the tension they keep, and that they don't reproduce the same forearm angle and tension each time. If they do take note of that tension and angle, just about any given setup can be super accurate and super precise. Keeping the forearm in line with the arrow is just a cue that helps a lot if you aren't aware of your body, especially when you have a large angle between the line of the arrow and the line of sight, as you do with a lower jaw anchor.
If you watch the competitive archers, you'll see that the arrows are nocked to be in line with the cheek bone and the hands are where you describe, with a 3-under grip on the string... but those bows are tillered to shoot straight with that specific combination.
When you're using a split grip, it is much easier to make shots from 20m or closer when you anchor at the cheek bone, not the lower jaw. As you get further out, everyone has a different strategy.
Some people like to do a pure gap method, others like me find that starting my alignment with my usual anchor and then moving it down for longer range shots without changing anything else is easier for variable distance shooting.
From 15-16 meters out I put 4 out of 5 arrows in the same tennis ball, and if the 5th isn't in the ball it's right next to it. That's pretty solid, and I don't shoot the way you describe.
There's only one thing that matters: Can you consistently hit what you want to hit? If you reproduce the same angles and forces, the answer is "yes."
Not saying you're wrong for what you're doing, but understand that it's not a rule written in stone. It is a simplistic guideline for people who don't really understand what makes an arrow fly the same way with each release.
nice work. slow it down a bit and you will improve more. confidence breeds success.
Edited. 10 holes in target. Lol. Didn't show the top right red line cutter.
Gotta work on your release bro
Hope it's accurate at 5 yards lol
What a noob comment...
@@topstrekker5579 lol I'm just pointing out the obvious, you don't need an anchor point at that distance, if you want to show accuracy and and precision you need to move back, not trying to be mean or anything but this type of content with clickbait titles is extremely misleading and uninformative. No matter what kind of arguments anyone wants to try
@@topstrekker5579 for practicing 30 yards is where you want to be, I would only recommend anybody at a smaller distance for anything if
A) they are new to archery
B) if they are testing s new style of shooting
B) using new equipment
And then I would place them at 10 yards for a controlled shot so you can narrow down exactly is wrong with your equipment 20 yards is a good distance to determine errors in handling the bow and/or shot process, anything below 30 yards isn't impressive in any way shape or form, and groupings should be expected at those distances
Your fletching is coming off lol
no offence here mate....
but at this distance, you should be in the bull every time.
i appreciate you are limited in the space available, but you are so close to the target, you could throw the arrow and get a bullseye
I agree. Any test at 20-30m?
No offense but not many people start out at bull every time level with trad gear regardless of distance. But yes everybody should with practice eventually be able to hit the bull nearly every time especially with proper instruction. There are too many people that are all talk and hit their target every time until you practice with them...
I use the same anchor Alan does, I shoot those distances (20-30m), and on the 10 point blue target that people play 300 on I usually don't have anything outside the 6 ring at 20m. And that's shooting off the hand with the ugliest, most beat up arrows you've ever seen. Vanes are torn up, some have 2 vanes, they're different brands, they're not tuned, and they're all like 30 bucks for 12 arrows.
I'd probably shoot a lot better with really nice arrows that were properly tuned, but I do what I can.
Nice video man, you were shooting great. Don't let these guys run you down!