Training Notes: crawling the string

One of the things I most appreciate about being able to practice in a group setting with some of the State's strongest archers is I never know when I'll be surprised and learn something completely new. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to learn string walking from Tom Dorigatti (Author of Proactive Archery and avid archer with over 50 years of shooting experience, but more on him later).

string walking. 2nd end

As a brief explanation, string walking is a barebow technique which uses the tip of the arrow as a forward aiming reference and varies the draw point (down from the nocking point) to adjust for elevation. I didn't have someone take a picture so this slightly confusing sentence will have to suffice.

Whatever shooting technique you use, it is important to remember that at its very core, archery is archery. A good solid set of fundamentals will see you through any transition. String walking made this very clear. The anchor may have been different but skeletal alignment, draw length, release, etc are all the same and for all intents and purposes, always will be the same. Case in point observe my group during my second end ever of string walking. The group is offset from the center but reasonably well grouped and I was only able to make this transition so quickly because I've so emphasized alignment and expansion in my compound and olympic recurve practice.

Ultimately, lesson of the day: go out and try something new. Yes, you. If you're a compound guy/gal; get your hands on a long bow or trade your release in for a finger tab for a day (FS limited setup). If you shoot a sight, pull it off for a few ends and try out some instinctive shooting. You get the picture.