Form questions/experience: bow arm elbow, posture, alignment

[pcoutin]

hello

It still feels awkward for me to draw, i think because I have trouble getting everything in proper alignment. I have computer user's back and always walk with bad posture (some hyperlordosis and tight muscles/tendons in upper back?), but I can sort of get my shoulders down with some tension. It's not as easy and comfortable as I'd like, though.

Guess elastic bands are helping. I can barely draw 80lbs maximum. Shouldn't do that too quickly if I don't want to risk getting injured at the joints, though. I should probably get some sort of stretching routine or even yoga..

1. I've been pestering a lot of people about this elbow alignment thing. I have watched Stephen Selby's videos on Chinese archery. I know he said not to try to twist the arm (such that elbow points backwards and joint points forwards, on vertical axis of rotation, ie clockwise on a left bow arm) and to just let it twist itself from the bow's pressure, but is that always the case?

Twisting a left bow arm clockwise seems as if it gets the arm more into the shoulder blades, but it's very awkward to do.

Here http://www.atarn.org/chinese/wubeiyl.htm , the inside of the elbow points up and the elbow itself points down such that the axis of rotation is horizontal (twisted backwards?). There are claims that this strengthens the joint, and they seem good.

Note that if the bow arm elbow rolls up, it is because the shoulder has rotated, moving out of the socket. Liu Qi provides an exercise for "Training the Inside of the Front Elbow to Face Up" in his Guide to Examination Field Archery Methods (Ke Chang She Fa Zhinan Che,科場射法指南車):


To train the front elbow, you must place your hand against the wall, and slowly make corrections, in terms of time, the longer the better. If you do this then your tendons and bones will be strong and hard. Then when you push the bow you will not have the problem of being tired or soft.


To preform this exercise, the archer essentially places his or her palm on the wall and slowly rotates the elbow down, stretching the ligaments and strengthening the arm by pressing into the wall.

Apparently Gao Ying didn't comment on this much at all.

But there are also claims that twisting the arm the other way yields "proper alignment, stability, and strength" ( http://www.mfaa-archery.org/Tech-Suppor ... ndbook.pdf )

I think I saw a video of someone drawing a 150# recurve with the elbow down, and someone else drawing a 150# English longbow with the elbow sideways, both Mediterranean draw... so maybe it doesn't matter that much? Or depends on the individuals' joints.

Maybe some knowledge of anatomy could be applied to this?.. But I'm inclined to just try to keep the inside of the joint pointing up, contrary to modern archers, unless it keeps hurting or something.

2. Even after reading through Mr. Scott Rodell's book, I'm not sure how to do the posture in Manchu archery. For one, you bow the spine, but aren't hunched, the rear doesn't stick out, and neither does the chest even though the shoulders are aligned and back?

3. Do you all usually have a straight line between bow hand, bow shoulder, shoulder blades, back shoulders?

Apparently Korean form with the feet pointing sort of towards the target doesn't...?? Or they just twist their body a lot. I think I'd rather just stand with my feet on a straight line towards the target, maybe with the feet pointing outwards a bit.

Thank you

[basilisk120]

Howdy,
I have been pondering on this for a bit, let put my thoughts down here

1. With 3 finger draw I believe rotating the elbow is important because it puts the arm in a consistent position and helps to rotate/bend the forearm out of the way of the string. With a proper thumb release the forearm is less of an issue. consistent arm placement still is important. I am trying to get better at rotating my elbow over for consistency.

Thanks to the link to the archery form handbook that helped me figure out how to properly drop my shoulder


2. not sure about this I'll have to read that to figure more out. But if you think of the back as bowed in then it could look the American Elite archer from the Archery Form Handbook you posted.

3. http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb. ... 003278;p=0 Here is another take on shoulder alignment. granted it is for 3 finger trad archers but some of the same concepts for the bow arm could apply.

I have been trying the Korean style a bit and if I'm not careful it puts a bit of strain on the knee. I need to find some better training manuals for that

[basilisk120]

Thinking about #2 again and re-reading it I realize what I said earlier doesn't work. One video I watched on Chinese archery talked about breathing. There where 2 steps:
1 lift the bow up level and at or just above shoulder height and breath in to the top part of the lungs (a shallow breath).
2: do a deep Diaphragm breath (the type were the belly extends) and draw the bow back. This involves the body settling and slightly lowering the center of gravity. Done right the back should be straight but the spine slightly bowed as mentioned in the book.


not sure if you have seen these
http://www.cinnabarbow.com/chinesearchery/ The 3rd video,Chinese Archery (Part 3), starting around the 8:50 mark talks about breathing and you can see that form develop from the diaphragm breathing.

Hope this helps

[Bede]

If I understand your problem, you are having difficulty drawing a bow of 80 lbs with the draw arm elbow position?

If that is the case, there are several solutions. Once bows get above 70 lbs in weight, the draw arm could have problems. Stephen's advice on shoulder placement is very important. In old photos and paintings from the Qing dynasty, both shoulders are level and below the chin line. That is the shoulders are low and rolled back. How you can affect your shoulder position with the orientation of the elbow, this is less certain. I have seen Japanese archers with good control of their shoulders, rotate their elbows down because their teachers advised this to correct hyper-extension of the joint. This problem occurs in some people and in Western archery requires very large bracers. However, the Japanese solution is very successful up to the strength limit of the archer.

The arm extended straight with the elbow pointing to the side is a very strong position. If the shoulder is rolled back at the same time, the arm is locked in place. However, it is important to look at the hand position on the bow. In most Middle Eastern and east Asian shooting styles, except the Korean, the wrist is what is called a low position. This means the hand does not turn up and the thumb's metatarsal bone is pointing more forwards than upwards. The greatest part of the force of the bow is transmitted through the web between the bases of the thumb and index finger. In the Korean system, which has some similarities to the western longbow tradition, the bow presses between the thenar and hypothenar parts of the palm and the upper part of the grip sits against the base of the index finger's metatarsal. This is a high wrist position. The low wrist lets the elbow rotate about ninety degrees from straight down to straight out giving a variety of effective positions. The high wrist is most comfortable with one position, between down and to the side. I am referring to the direction of the point of the elbow.

The Qing photographs show a low wrist position in format shooting stances. In some of the more posed photographs, both hands can be in the wrong positions. Usually the archer is clearly using a bow and arrow too long for his height and reach.

Regarding stance, the older Korean archers I have watched shoot rotate the waist to align the shoulders with the target. This is done partly to stiffen the torso. The position of the back and the tension in the abdomen are more easily controlled this way. Despite the canting of the bow, the body is rarely inclined as the Manchus used to do.

[pcoutin]

Thanks for the replies

http://www.cinnabarbow.com/chinesearchery/ The 3rd video,Chinese Archery (Part 3), starting around the 8:50 mark talks about breathing and you can see that form develop from the diaphragm breathing.

Hmm, thanks. I'll give that a try. I tried it earlier but didn't understand it and it always seemed to throw my shots off. Probably because it does make a difference.

Not trying to rotate the bow arm/elbow seems to be best for consistency, because then you don't need to be applying force to it to keep it twisted. For now, I think the only real reason Western archers rotate the bow arm/elbow is to avoid getting string slapped.

I don't really understand why so many Western archers advocate low bow arm, i.e. a "T", instead of a slight "Y". The latter helps to avoid hunching the shoulders. In other words, I don't really understand why a corner of mouth anchor is considered more unergonomic than a chin archer by some. Previously, I believed "Y" was more unergonomic because I thought a pointing-up bow arm would put more force on the muscles rather than the bones, but I don't think it's significant. Advantages and disadvantages?

Bede, do you mean metacarpal instead of metatarsal? I didn't know any of those terms, though. Had to look them up.
And isn't Korean form low wrist, since the hand is collapsed? Seems like low wrist is more common now in Western archers since it's more repeatable. (source: http://bowsite.com/bowsite/features/pra ... nter/grip/ )



Don't know how much the oblique torso hurts the shoulders with heavy weights. Pretty sure I want to keep both shoulders and the bow hand in a vertical plane (which the draw hand and draw elbow are out of, the elbow might be in that plane with a really long draw, around 36" for me, but 33" feels comfortable enough)

Most of my trouble has been with my bow arm shoulder, really. I guess my bow arm is the most prone to shaking.. Guess the way to fixing that is stretching, strength training, and shooting more as long as my form isn't horrible..

In The Way of Archery, p58, Gao Ying calls the hypothenar group the "root of the palm". The "big eagle claw" puts force of the bow with the hypothenar and the web of the hand. Seems similar to the Korean grip, but not as collapsed. I've found the elbow pointing between down and to the side to be most comfortable as well.

I'm somewhat confused about why Gao Ying seems to advocate hunching the draw arm shoulder. Aren't the forces on the shoulder similar to on the bow arm? Maybe not?

Gao Ying advocated for both shoulders and draw hand being in a vertical plane. But not on a straight line (not a horizontal plane). makes sense to me.

I met Justin Ma and he talked about leaning against a wall and having the arm just naturally aligned, and not twisted. So I don't have to think about twisting the arm. Trying to twist it didn't seem to help, after all.

[Bede]

Sorry about getting my carpals and tarsals mixed up. I don't think I will take up shooting with my feet.
High Wrist and Low Wrist
These terms were developed by archers and not anatomists. High wrist is what the Koreans do. The Big Eagle Claw is actually about as far from the Korean grip style as you can get.
There are some things that make looking at pictures of people shooting misleading. The Koreans rotate the hand slightly clockwise to put the belly of the grip between the thenar and hypothenar eminences near the wrist. It then came between the bases of the thumb and index finger. At long distances, most of the pressure is taken at the base of the palm near the wrist.
The low wrist technique reaches its logical extent in the Persian changal-e baz which is an extreme version of the Big Eagle Claw. When doing this the whole pressure of the bow is taken through the flesh between the thumb and index finger. The top of the forearm in line with the top of the thumb to the proximal joint (i.e. the base of the thumb).

Elbow Position
I think that many modern archers think that way about having the elbow out, but the real explanation is concerned about what the rotation does to the linkage between arm and shoulder. Modern bows correctly set up would not predispose any string slap, but people are all different and can manage to hit themselves no matter what the equipment is designed to do.

Hunching the Shoulder
Gao Ying was concerned with effective military archery. Persian paintings often show archers in battle hunching slightly while when hunting their shoulders are better balanced. I think this might have originated as a psychological reaction to being shot at or it could be a response to wearing armour. I will have to reread that section to see if I understood it properly.

It is important to develop a stance that suits your physique while maximising the strength of the draw. This sometimes causes conflicts between what is effective and what is comfortable. In the Middle East it was thought that there were combinations of grasp, stance and draw length that suited each major physical type, but some were not as effective as others.

[pcoutin]

I have been trying the Korean style a bit and if I'm not careful it puts a bit of strain on the knee. I need to find some better training manuals for that

I really don't think I'm flexible enough to do the korean stance with the body twisted. Doing it with the bow arm facing forward doesn't really feel right..

I was trying to do something like Korean grip by putting the belly of the bow on the thenar eminence itself with a collapsed hand... are there any styles you know of that do this?

I can draw over 80# if I weirdly grasp a bow with the belly on my palm (between the thenar and hypothenar) which seems to want to collapse the hand even more, but it allows me to mostly relax the bow arm. And then it is surprisingly easy to hold once I reach full draw. But the way my bow arm is when this happens just seems like it'll destroy my arm if I release.

If I put the belly of the bow on the web of the hand or in the thenar eminence and try to draw 80#, my bow arm gives at the elbow.

Even at 55#@33", I seem to have a pretty shaky bow arm most of the time, but not always.

The way the bow upper arm is aligned when the cup of the elbow is up seems to want to hunch the shoulder more and seems less aligned with the shoulder blades or something

It'd be nice if you wrote a book about gripping methods? Or are there any books you'd recommend?

Thanks

[Bede]

I reread Justin's translation of Gao Ying's book and he positively recommends that you do not hunch the shoulder on the bow side (p. 48).

The Korean stance should have no effect on your knees. Nothing really happens below the hips. For instance, if you are riding a horse and have to shoot directly forward, you twist at the waist and align your shoulders in the direction of travel. Depending on the saddle and riding style, you may be just balancing there without any other form of stability (standing in the stirrups with your body not in contact with the seat of the saddle. this is the classic square stance recommended for the shorter rounder archer on foot, but every horse archer had to be able to do it.

If your knee is sore it is because you are twisting your whole body and not just he hips and waist. the oblique grasp is the one you are talking about when you support the bow on the thenar eminence. This was recommended for people with short fingers. The matn (th ridge on the bake of the grip) was set in the crease at the base of the fingers, the ibranjak (belly of the grip also the joining piece between the horns) was on the thenar eminence near the base of the thumb.

I am starting to think that several things are happening. It is possible that the grip of your bow is the wrong size forcing your hand into a bad position, your bow is putting too much pressure on your drawing action, and your stance is slightly awry.

The first requires a close look at the grip. If the tips of your fingers touch the palm of your hand when you grasp the bow, the grip is too small according to the old books. If there is a big gap between the fingers and the palm of the hand, the grip is too large.

The second can be fixed by doing a lot of practice with a lighter bow. once you get the form right and it becomes instinctive, you will have built up the muscles necessary for the heavier bow. Shooting with the heavier bow then will consolidate your muscles instead of straining them.

About the third, I will quote Kwon Mu-Seok (Seoul Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 23 Bow).

After assuming a straight posture and placing the feet in the right places, straighten the legs by pushing both knees back, pucker up the toes to the ground, squeeze the buttocks... Make sure both feet evenly support the body weight. Be careful not to push back buttocks along with the knees.

This should protect your knees.

Of course we are all different so these ideas may need some tinkering to get it to work for you. Mr Kwon also says you should inflate the chest and hold the abdomen firm. It is best to take things one at a time otherwise you have too many things to concentrate on.