Zelus et Radix asked:
My younger brother he made a handcrafted “bow” toy out of a hanger; the string is a strip of some stretch fabric and the arrows are wooden skewers. He’s obviously not practicing it as a sport but it seems he likes doing it. I’d appreciate some very general tips or principles on archery that can be applied even with his rudimentary bow. I’ve googled it but all the info I found was related to sport archers and professional bows we can’t afford to buy.
Thanks in advance. God bless you.
Archery doesn’t need to be expensive. As a matter of fact, to most of the people in Los Angeles, it’s free. So the first thing I would do is, if he really enjoys it, find a range near you. I don’t know what country you’re in, but if you’re in the US, try and see if there’s a range near you. Other countries also have archery organizations that will often time lists local ranges/clubs. Then there’s the SCA, a medieval reenactor group,.
The principles of form still applies whether you use a $2000 bow or a stick and a string. Archery is about repetition, doing the same thing over and over again. The trick is to find one thing that is easy to repeat.
The first part to get right is called the anchor. When you shoot a bow, you draw that arrow back, then you have to fix the back end of that arrow to the same spot each and every time. Now using a wooden skewer, I don’t know how long those skewers are and how long your brother’s arms are. Usually the archer’s anchor is somewhere on his face, so he need to draw that arrow back far enough such that the back end of the arrow is on his face. Olympic archers use the most repeatable anchor out there by touching the string to the chin bone, and the bone of your index finger to the jaw bone. This bone on bone contact makes it solid and repeatable, but the location is not conducive to instinctive shooting. So instinctive shooters use different anchor points, usually closer to their eyes. Some touch the tip of their index finger to their teeth, or their cheek bone.
Other parts of the form is not as crucial to the beginner as the anchor.
About the bow, you can make a crude bow for play rather easily. A bow always have a no stretch material for a string however. The spring in a bow comes from the limbs, not the string. When I was a kid, I lived in an area where bamboo is abundant, so I used those to make a bow. It’s easy to do, no need to dry it and all. I took 3 lengths of bamboo, one about 5 feet, the other two were around 2 and 1 feet long. Lash them all together, centering the shorter pieces to the long one. Take a non stretchy string, and tie them to each ends of the bow. If the bow is 5 feet long, make the string around 4 feet 9 inches long.