Hello, and welcome to your beginner archery lesson.
For those of you who don’t know, I am actually a certified USA level 1 Archery Instructor. What that means is that I am qualified to teach group classes. My love of archery started when I was around eight at the same summer camp that I now counsel and teacher archery at. My mother instructs archery as well, which was one of the reasons I had first decided to pick up the bow. I’ve owned my own equipment since I was twelve, and I even competed a little in middle school, going with a team to state before I moved.
But enough about me, let’s get learning!
Since a digital lesson for archery is nearly impossible, I thought that I would try to teach the do’s and don’ts using a premade source, the media! Through rating several characters mostly based on the most readily available photos on google, I will attempt to explain the basics. The characters will be rated on their form and follow through, as that is the easiest to see through picture. Hopefully you’ll learn something along the way and if not, hopefully you at least have fun!
1: Cheryl Blossom
Starting off pretty strong, we’ve got Cheryl Blossom. Her stance is fairly good, her hips are forward and her feet seem perpendicular to her body. Her shoulders seem a little twisted which isn’t great since that means you won’t be able to access the full power from your drawback on the string, but her arms are forming that nice T position with her body. When people lift or drop that back elbow, it disrupts the T and can cause the arrows to go too low or too high respectively.
What I really like about this photo is that she seems to have just released an arrow which means that she has a beautiful follow through. Her hand is still at her anchor point on her chin (that’s where you connect your grip to your body by putting your thumb on your jawline to stabilize the shot) and her bow but not her arm have moved slightly up, which means she has kept a loose grip on the bow handle which is actually good. By holding this position after she shot she guarantees better accuracy as there will be less chance she accidently moves in the millisecond it takes the arrow to actually travel from the bow.
Overall Grade: A for Actually Alright
2: Alec Lightwood
And now, what not to do.
I’ve never actually seen this show and based off of this picture (and it’s bad reviews) I never will. I have taught and worked with beginners for years and I have never seen anyone get it this wrong. To begin with, if you look closely, you can see that he has notched (attached to the string) his arrow incorrectly. That’s literally step one. You don’t even draw back before that. If he shot this arrow one of the feathers on it would hit the bow and either cause the shot to go completely haywire and/or damage the arrow and possibly the shooter.
Another thing, he is hunched over, which looks cool in movies but would actually be terrible in real life since the tension from drawing the string wouldn’t be able to shift into your back muscles and stabilize. This means he would have a really weak shot. The hand he drew the string back with is inverted which would cause so many problems I don’t even know where to begin and his bow hand is tilted, giving the bow a cool angle that would completely mess up any accuracy he had hoped to maintain.
Grade: F for freaking Dangerous (and not in a good way.)
Archery is a fun and engaging activity that has so much history behind it. It has affected so many lives, and even though sometimes inaccurate, I am glad the media seems to love the sport as much as I do. It pushes you to compete not only against others but ultimately against yourself, using patience and accuracy to get your best score. Archery taught me that sometimes you just have to focus on the task and hand, take a deep breath, and aim for the bullseye.
I hope you learned something and if you want to learn more, here is USA Archery’s portal to finding classes near you:
Alex has TERRIBLE archery form. I’ve barely watched any of Shadowhunters, and even I, someone who knows close to nothing about archery, can tell that’s not how you’re supposed to shoot an arrow.
I know you said you didn’t watch Shadowhunters, but have you seen Riverdale? I hear very mixed reviews about it. Do you think I’d like it? Why do people like Cole Sprouse so much?
I have actually watched the first season of Riverdale but that’s about it. I started the second but it got a little too convoluted for me. I’m not sure you would like it, the plot points can be kind of stereotypical and I think you would find some of the drama stupid. As for Cole Sprouse, I’d have to say the nostalgia factor is what carries him. The Suite Life was a great kids show. Plus, Friends appearances!
I’ve seen Riverdale, but haven’t seen Shadowhunters. I do recall that Cheryl’s archery was pretty kickass, very elegant. I can tell by that picture alone that it just looks wrong. I think that this post actually really emphasized the grace that there is to archery.
In your opinion, what would you say is the hardest part of archery, and why is it so difficult?
I would say the muscle power as you get to higher drawback weights for further distances is the most difficult thing. You have to maintain enough muscle that you can hold the bow steady enough to properly aim and and follow through since, especially at the larger distances, a slight shake or quiver can disrupt the projection of the arrow. Since you keep building by going to further distances and therefore higher drawback weights, you have to constantly be building on yourself which makes archery a difficult sport.