Stickbow Target Archery Forums

Which do you think best and why? Is that what you use?

By dead I mean the string hand says alongside the face. To achieve it some seem to slowly open the string fingers until the string rolls off. Some seem to fling their fingers forward.

By short stroke I mean a 'pull through' but little rearward movement.

By long and lively I mean the elbow flying quite briskly back, around and down with the hand ending up behind the ear, or the head, or touching the shoulder or pointing upward behind the shoulder.

The Olympians and many freestyle wheeliebowmen us one of the latter for their sighted shooting. But what about for stickbow barebow? I'll run a poll as well but I am mainly interested in comments and discussion. What say you? - lbg

Well, I don't see any poll......so I guess that is a 'never mind.' - lbg

What...my poll is broke? hmmm...

Well, I think the latest teaching trend was the short stroke, since the long one requires pivoting of the shoulder when that portion is supposed to be locked in place to allow for proper back tension.

Personally the short stroke works for me...it seems the most natural. I don't think a dead release is as bad as many will lead you to believe IF you are proficient at it, and that means no creeping.

When I do my strength training drills, I use an arrow that has a thread wrapped and glued around the shaft that I can feel with my index finger at full draw. I practice holding for as long as I can using a metronome so I can count of the seconds accurately. If I were to try to just "hold" instead of actively pulling, there is no way I would be able to maintain contact with the draw check....but maybe I'm just a creeper.

I use the short stroke. It seems to have developed itself naturally for me. I have periodically worked on both the dead release, and the more exaggerated long release. Both of them required that I think about executing them and diverted too much of my attention away from what I was doing. I always wound up releasing with a huge pluck.

I like the long release. It comes most naturally when I try to make 'the shot' last a second past release -- not only does the string hand fly back, but the bow hand moves forward.

Mine is somewhere between 2 and 3. My hand goes back somewhere near my shoulder, but there is no pronounced "wave to the crowd". I have seen some exaggerated follow throughs from both the compound and barebow crew. Some seem very forced and obviously occur well after the release has actually occurred.

If you can find footage of Marco Gallaizo (sp) in the 2004 Olympics he had a very nice looking release (gold medal) with short follow through.

I'm with Scott. My release, when properly executed is between your #2 an #3. I don't consciously "pull through", rather just focus on maintaining back tension. When the release (poor word - loose is probably better) happens my hand moves from the side of my face to about the collar bone. Not real waving around, or at least not unless I screw something up (LOL).

Dave

Mine is long and lively, at least when I do it as I wish. I like to finish with a relaxed wrist and hand and touching the back of my neck. In the course of a session I sometimes get shorter. Usually when I notice and make sure the next one is long, that shot is more accurate than the previous ones. - lbg