arrows going to the right with the thumb draw technique

Kyudohund · Post by **Kyudohund** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:48 pm

Hi Ashbow,

there are two different technics. One is horseback-shooting (no twist) shomen-style (lifting the bow in front of the body) and the other is for battlefield by feed (lifting the bow sidewise and twisting the bow).
The Yumi has a so called Iriki, that means the bow itself has a twist so that the string goes about 2-3 cm over the right gripside. For a Yumi twisting is "healthy", because of that twisting the string does a curve at release and the bow turns around 360? in the bowhand. The effect is the arrow goes the direction you aim.

I will soon post a picture of this Iriki, so you can understand what I mean.

Peter

Ashbow · Post by **Ashbow** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:16 pm

Hi Peter,
I?m familiar with the Iriki term. A picture of the correct Iriki-Yumi would be nice (how far the string should be off-set to the right).

I found the passage I was thinking of when referring to the two different ?twisting? approach;

"Inagaki Sensei reminded us: "Nowadays in Japan, 90% of the masters disagree with me and they teach not to twist at Hanare. It is true that you may deform the bow if you twist too early: the torsion must begin after Uchi okoshi. However, the big difference between the Heki Ryu and the other schools is to KEEP TWISTING during Nobi ai until Hanare."

The quote is from the ?The art of shooting the traditional Japanese bow
according to the HEKI INSAI HA SCHOOL?
Full text here:
http://www.shuitsukankyudojo.de/texte/manual.pdf
(look for the page 18 )

I'm interested what do you think about the above statement (the quote)?

Kyudohund · Post by **Kyudohund** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:58 am

Hi Ashbow,

Inagaki Sensei was my teacher. He visited Europe every year and held Seminars in Austria, Finnland, Germany and Italy.

On the picture below you can see the Iriki.

Peter

Jos?Dom · Post by **Jos?Dom** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:48 pm

Hello Peter.
I remember your nice yumi. Now I have a doubt: There are 3 forms or shapes. 1 is desirable, the other 2 need to be corrected with shaping blocks. The yumi should be slightly centered to the right but not farter than the side of yumi, this is iriki, the right way. Deki is the opposite, string at left, which is the worst condtion and needs correction. The other form is extrem iriki, where the string is located too far to the right and also needs to be corrected. Now I don?t know if it?s the picture angle or not, but your string seems to be too far to the right (extreme iriki). Maybe when you situate the yumi looking at the grip, the effect is correct. Is that a visual effect or not?

Kyudohund · Post by **Kyudohund** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:53 pm

Hi Jos?,

the foto i did, is to try holding the bow the grip stands parallel to the ground; can be that the sight is not correct. On the other side i made the experience, each bowmaker has his own "perfect" Iriki. Some prefer more, some less. Even the length of the bow is important: as longer the bow, as less the Iriki. The image i posted is a Ni-Sun-Nobi (ntn 227cm). In the attachement, here, you see my practice bow, its a Yon-Sun-Nobi (ntn 233cm). You too can see, my practice bow has a more "compensated" form.
When i brace my practice bow, i massage it cold. I shoot this bow more than 6 years and it keeps his form totally.
On the other side, if the bow is, in case of really out of form, heated up and bend to the correct shape. But, this has to be done by an experienced....

By the way, a "perfect" measurement for a "perfect Iriki" is when the string cross on the right side the second knot in the upper part and in the last knot on the lower part of the belly side. So you see my Yumi is not perfect, but it shoots wonderful.
For Iriki the string HAS to LEAVE the bow on the right side.

Sorry Ashbow, this is not the discussion you started.

Peter

ginni · Post by **ginni** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:55 pm

A question related with this yumi tillering: a korean hornbow tillering is like iriki, with the limbs slightly curved aside, or the limbs are straight, paralel with the string and only the siyah tips are pointed to one side of the bow?

Jos?Dom · Post by **Jos?Dom** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:23 pm

Peter, thank you for the detailed explanation. I knew you were going to have more information. I have a yumi that often goes into a extreme iriki, so from time to time I need to use the shaping block.

Ashbow · Post by **Ashbow** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:49 pm

Peter,
No need to sorry, that's me that should rather thank you. Actually thanks to that discussion we can learn some new useful things.
Thank you very much for making clear how the correct Iriki should actually look like, I'm surprised though because I was thinking like Jos? that the string shouldn't leave the right bow-edge, now I just learned another precious thing.

Kyudohund wrote:

Inagaki Sensei was my teacher.

You never know what you are going to find out

.

jiao · Post by **jiao** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:31 am

thanks for stpphen

i try half draw shooting yesterday, a very lovely game, not walk arrows, i try lots way got a stable pose for the half draw but failing,so i am not care any pose and draw length ，Ishoot it as a hosepipe bow (two hosepipe shoot the pebble)

the target is a water bottle in 20m, i am hit a lots by not arming, i am never got this accurate shooting ,use the feeling of push the bow aiming and the pressure on draw hand know draw length ,it can done in 3 hours ,quite fast got the ahead, but sometime i not know where wrong the feeling lose,so i shoot a lots at last i stop it cause my two hand has many blood blister

what a good game!try it !

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:20 am

Ginni, you are right. I hawe same experiences vith Korean hornbow.

Ashbow · Post by **Ashbow** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:05 am

An update;

Dear all, during last few months during those few practice sessions I tried all the advice you have generously given, there was not much improvement though there were a couple of times when the arrow flew true and not to the right of the target.
After some time I slightly injured my drawing shoulder, I wouldn?t ever think that a slight change in the position of the drawing hand (i.e. as opposite to the three finger loose) would cause such an injury but I strongly suppose that was the case. Anyway after some time my shoulder healed and now it bears the thumb draw without any problem. Well, I suppose I should start with lighter bow or make more exercises. Anyone had similar experience?

Last week I was to Czech Republic and I was fortunate to have this rare opportunity of having first hand coaching from experienced Turkish traditional archers. I have learned a lot of very precious things one rather can?t get from reading.
This quick session worked like magic, the ?right of the target? problem became less frequent now and I?m able to see what faults I?m still making.
Now I think my main fault was the release and the drawing hand itself.
I won?t try to describe all I was taught because there is much of it. The aspects I learned that had the greatest impact on solving my problem were; forming the correct lock with the drawing hand (again a lot of details), position of the drawing hand and arm and finally the loose itself - earlier I have tried without any success first to let go the forefinger and then the thumb (I was told it?s rather a presumption.) ? instead I was taught to make the loose something like if pretending to flip the coin with the forefinger and thumb, but again without tensing the forefinger and it worked very well.

Now I would like to thank all the Turkish team that was present for all the help. I?m especially grateful to Murat for his demonstrations and advices and to ?zg?r for teaching me, pointing out the faults, lending the bow and a fine and well fitting Turkish thumb ring. Also thanks to Buket for using the Mongolian bow, G?kmen for the mounted archery tips and to Mert and all others for the time spent together, tasty dinner, Turkish coffee and having an opportunity to have a glimpse of the wonderful Turkish culture.

Apologize for an awful lengthy post.

Franciszek

Murat ?zveri · Post by **Murat ?zveri** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:30 am

Dear Fransizcek,

Your welcome. It was our pleasure.

I haven't been around for a while, so Paul sent me an e-mail to let me know about this discussion.

Here is the answer I gave to Paul:

quote

What I am going to tell you is just my analysis from all I read and experienced on field. However, I never taught anyone anything until I'm quite sure it's the correct way. Still, there is no direct explanation in old treatises about how to clear the arrow except the description of the follow thru, which is unfortunately not too clear. But I think it's the grasping the grip that makes the difference. In the Turkish style the connection of palm and the fingers of the bowhand should be put onto the midline of the back, called "metn" in Arabic. Both the Mamluk and Ottoman scripts describe the same holding method.

If you hold the bow that way it's prone to twist during the shot naturally without any conscious effort. If you combine that with back tension, the bowhand jumps outside with a very slight twisting on the wrist. That's why I find it necessary to practise kepaze with a proper grip so that the trainee learns the proper holding method and acquire the necessary muscle memory.

String slap on the forearm and the arrow flight seem to be related to the follow through of the string hand as well. It should kick backwards without getting away from the face (different than what Kyuodokas do).

Additional to these, Turkish composite bows might have had a slight distortion. Old treatises mention that archers could choose the way they use the bow, i.e. the upper or lower limb may have changed from time to time due to the instability of composite structure in general. But we're using synthetic material replicas with perfectly aligned limbs and we still have good arrow flight.

Another factor may be the spine which has not been considered too much by ancient archers. But I saw in an old text that a bowyer recommended the archer to shoot a little bit to right with a particular arrow. I'm pretty sure that they were aware of the spine even if they were not able to make fine adjustments based on this parametre.

unquote

Paul Slawik · Post by **Paul Slawik** » Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:43 am

Thanks for posting you reply here, Murat. Much appreciated!

You mentioned to practice "kepaze". I read under the Training-section at www.turkisharchery.info that kepaze was a special bow for beginning archers working on correct drawing form. It also said that they did this with the mediterranean finger setting on the string (no mentioning of the thumb grip).

Do you also advice your students to practice kepaze with a three finger draw or do you encourage the thumb grip as well? Or does it depend entirely on the level of the student in question?

Thanks,
Paul

Hermitking · Post by **Hermitking** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 2:14 am

I think I know what your problem is.

I read a mongolian woman describe her shooting method and figured out the source of this problem, ...at least for me.

When shooting on the right side of the bow handle with a right hand thumb draw, the arrow naturally shoots far to the right if you sight down the arrow. I don't know why, but it is not a shooting form problem but rather a problem with aiming method.

The solution is to aim with the left eye sighting on the left side of the handle. I started placing the view of the target right on top of the left side of my bow hand, on the left side of the handle. Bingo! the arrow started flying dead ahead, no more shooting to the far right.

In other words you do not sight down the arrow with the right eye.

I also tried focusing both eyes on the target until the bow handle blurs out of sight, but again the arrow started spraying to the right.

Ashbow · Post by **Ashbow** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 10:47 pm

Hello to you all, please forgive me for not answering before.
Thank you for all the tips, every one is much appreciated.

I studied all the pictures and videos of archers using the thumb draw available many times, reading, taking advice from others and working on different aspects of the technique. It was a lot of work and I was really about to quit sometimes.
Though I shoot very rarely now it seems that the above problem disappeared completely. I was really trying to find what actually causes the deflection in the arrow flight but unfortunately it isn't that easy. The problem just ceased along the way.
So there isn't any clear conclusion from me, I can just share my observations. Firstly I need to stress that I probably wouldn't go far not all the advice I got from experienced thumb draw archers, it's important because I could tell if my overall techinque is correct.
It seems to me that the problem may be linked to switching to the different technique than one has been using so far, after some time I found out that the arrows were flying to the left, as if they were too stiff in spine, when I was trying to shoot with the mediterranean technique again, I knew of course that the arrows were not too stiff, as I had been using them before I had tried the thumb draw. Similar problem may occur when one is switching his hands, my friend experimented with shotting left handed, because of his left-dominant eye and at first his arrows were also behaving as too stiff. My experience here is that, of course, the stiffness of the arrow isn't the main cause of that dramtic deflection to the side in flight.
The problem is cured with enough practice, it sems that the 'muscle memory' is an imprtant issue here.
Now I can shoot using the mediterranean and the thumb draw in one session without having this kind of problems with defletcion in the arrow flight.

Dear Hermitking, thank you for your imput, unfortunately I can't say for sure if it was only the aiming that was causing my problem, it's hard to say, I still believe that it was a more complex problem for me, I'll check your advice out.

Dear Paul and Murat, thanks for involving.
I'm not sure if what I'm doing now with my bow hand is like kepaze but definitely the bow is twisting a bit after the release and I think I work with the back muscles in a way that makes the bow arm and hand jump aside during the release as well, at least the bow arm and the bow moves and probably the arrow can clear the bow better. In comparision, when shooting with the mediterranean release you want to keep your bow arm and hand as still as possible during the release, any sideways movement of the bow is not desierable here. But I'm not quite sure this sideways bowarm or just hand movement with the thumdraw is practiced everywhere though, is it? Does the Korean style involve any bow hand movement like that, at least I'm not aware of any?

arrows going to the right with the thumb draw technique

Aiming with thumb draw...