Shooting tips...The "other" hand gem.

     "The secret is in the hands"  Howard Hill

     After I'd shot some arrows with John Schulz and he had observed my shooting form, follow through and my hands staying as stationary as possible through the shot, he unloaded a gem on me.  We'd left the straw bales and were roving around, he was having me shoot at various targets, near and far, large and small.  Practicing his teaching of using various bow cants depending on the distance and downward angle to the shot as he explained in his video. 

     "Nate, what hand do you think is the most important?"  By now I'd gotten used to his sometime rhetorical questions and I figured maybe this was a trick question.  "The bow hand?"  I'd replied.  "Yes", he said..."Why?"  He had me there. I stopped shooting and waited for his answer.  "Why?" he says..."Because it's the hand that points the arrow where you want it to go.  It's in front of you.  Where it points and how steady it is will affect the arrow being on target".

      John started his lesson by saying that most guys get all caught up with the release hand.  He said when things go sour with our shooting, everyone immediately focuses on the release and follow through.  He said the focus should instead be on the target that is in front of us, and the bow hand which is in front of us.  Everything concerning concentration is on the target...in front of our eyes...during the shot and the eyes see the hand and how it aligns with the target.  I asked John if he used his hand to help him aim, because he wrote about it to a small degree in his books.  "I know my hand is there, in front of me, but I choose NOT to look at it."   He meant that he saw his bowhand in peripheral vision, not focused vision, and relied on his brain remembering where the bowhand was during the shot in relation to the target, to help future shot consistency.

     In John's book "Straight Shooting" he quotes a question from Hill.  "What's your arrow doing at 30 yards?"  John explained to me that the statement from Hill was in reference to what our minds remembered of the arrow trajectory and if we could point our bowhand at the correct place (without a bow in hand) to be on target at 30 yards.  Was it automatic or did we have to think about the motion?  John demonstrated by quickly pointing at a bush at about 30 yards.  "If I want to shoot that bush, my bowhand is right here", and he held his bowhand out and on a level with the bush.  He knew where his bowhand needed to be pointing, by muscle memory and awareness and peripheral recognition.  

      "Nate, do you remember reading the story of Howard shooting the buck while riding on the hood of the jeep?"  I sure did.   "Well, I was sitting about 3 feet from Howard in the front seat while he rode the hood and held on to the Jeep windshield frame with his string hand.  The buck got up beside the road and ran down and across the road.  Howard yelled for the driver to stop the Jeep, but instead more gas pedal was applied.  Howard let go of the windshield frame and drew the bow with the string hand coming on to a level with his sternum...about 10 or 12" below his usual anchor point.  His bow hand tracked the deer and he released and shot the buck through the chest, on a full run, as it ran between two trees about 40 yards distant, all the while Howard was bouncing on the hood".   An amazing shot for sure.  John stressed to me though, that it was successful because Hill's bowhand tracked the deer's movement and pace more importantly than the string hand being so far from a usual anchor point.

      John then went into detailed explanation about his thoughts on this.  He said that when our concentration is focused in front of us, on the target, and we are pushing our bowhand at the target, the opposite action is the rearward movement of the string hand to anchor and to a solid release.  He said you can't have a bad release if you are pushing directly in line at the target and your focus is there.  He said guys get caught up in the release, and follow through and they forget to keep pushing the bowhand to the target.  The result is a sloppy, unsteady bow hand and that influences the release...which in turn affects the bow hand and it's a vicious cause and effect cycle.  He said that if we keep our form steady...both hands stationary as Hill taught, then neither hand negatively affects the workings of the other.  But if we get sloppy or overly-attentive with one...it surely affects the other. There must be a balance...hence "with both hands do nothing" has a lot of meaning behind those Hill words. It wasn't as if the hands did actually nothing, but as if they didn't seem to be doing anything because they're kept as still as possible.

       John taught long range wand shooting to help the form because it forced the shooter to hold his form for many seconds before dropping the bow hand.  He referenced to me that if the bow hand is held steady and on target as the eyes are concentrating on the spot, even at long ranges, then the mind will allow the anchor and release some automatic function.  Performance without cognitive thought.  The proper release happens as an opposite reaction to the bow hand pushing the bow directly at the target.  This allows some forgiveness in the anchor as well, since it all is happening in a fluid motion and the entire shot cycle remains fluid and relaxed.

      So what is John showing in his video that he doesn't say?  His bow arm is pushing down to preload the muscles and start the shot process, and then towards the target during the swing.  It's not just swinging upwards.  With some of his shots it's easier to see than others due to the camera angle or if it is a moving target shot.  However, I shot with him and it is there.   That push to the target starts as the swing draw starts. The push is aligning his body and bow arm in a preload of sorts in line with the target his eye is burning a hole through, which then results in a crisp, slightly backward moving release that sends the arrow on an accurate flight regardless of how precise the anchor happens to be.  Can't have one without the other.  Upon release, the string hand is slightly moving rearward but not away from the face.  It moves directly in line with the bow hand push.  

    If the string hand is allowed to move laterally or fly back unnecessarily to the shoulder by a false manipulation after the release, it can easily move off alignment with the bow hand.  This is usually seen by the string hand moving slightly away from the face to the side and the bow hand moves slightly off line to the opposite side.  Result is a misaligned shot.  This is why the gem of the string hand moving through the first anchor reference to the second anchor is so good.  It keeps everything aligned and the result is that the bowhand will stay on target as well.  And if the concentration is on the target and the eye is seeing the bowhand in periphery, aligned with the target and pushing to it, then the string hand will also take care of itself.  A beautiful cause and effect situation.  Taking pressure off our mind to get a good release, takes pressure off the shot that can cause target panic. When our focus isn't on the target, what's in front of the bow, then it's on what's behind the bow which isn't where we should be concentrating at the moment of the shot.  Sometimes we complicate the process and brain overload leads to the panic in a lot of cases.

    So when Hill shot the running buck from the Jeep hood...his concentration was on the deer, his eye and mind saw the bow hand tracking the buck's chest and his string hand automatically was pulling in a direct line to the bow hand's push. The result was a crisply shot arrow, with enough power and speed to put the arrow on target.  Walt Wilhelm shot a bow in this manner after he hurt his arm in an accident and he was a deadly shot by anchoring his string hand against his sternum. Watching his movie shorts, the bow hand push is very noticeable.  I know Howard and he were friends and probably shot lots of arrows together.  It makes sense that Hill would've watched Walt and imitated his shooting style once in a while as part of his practice to always be prepared. I don't believe that Hill did the running- Jeep shot cold turkey.  His mind knew he'd shot similar shots before and could pull it off again...as long as that bow hand was pushing at the target.  

     The secret is "in the hands" to 

      Shoot Straight