Archery Tips: Understanding String Alignment and How It Affects Your Shots

Hey archery friends, today what we're going to talk about is string alignment. A lot of archers have an issue, they're shooting off to the left, they're shooting off to the right, they're not quite sure why their arrows are going off to the side. It could be a variety of things, it could be you're using the wrong eye when you're aiming, it might be you have a soft shot and so your hand's coming out and your arrows are coming out so it could be more form based. A lot of times what I find though that cleans this up is the string alignment. A lot of times people do not reference when they pull back, where is the string lining up with the bow. So if you pull back and you're looking down the string a little differently each time, that's going to affect your left and right shots. So when you shoot, we're going to try today, we're going to try three different sides. So I'm going to line one up where see where the string lines up with the outside of the riser. Then we're going to shoot a shot where it lines up with the center of the riser. And then on the last shot, we're going to shoot one where it lines up with the inside of the riser. And we're going to see how that affects the arrows on the target downrange. On the first shot, I'm going to line the string up with the outside of the riser. Now when I say line it up, this is what I mean. I'm going to aim at the target. So I'm going to be focused on the target with the tip of my arrow pointing in the low white ring, because that's where I have to aim at 10 yards for me to hit the yellow. And I'm going to shoot that shot, but when I pull back, this string is going to be right up against my face. So it'll be blurry because I'm focused on the target, but I'm going to see where does this line up with on the riser. Okay, so let's shoot the first shot. I'm first going to line up on the outside of the riser. Okay, so when I shot that, I just shot a left blue in the sixth ring, probably about eight, nine o'clock. This shot, I'm going to line up the string with the center of the riser. All right, that got me in the yellow. So right now I am nine o'clock in the nine ring in the yellow. On this last shot here, I'm going to line up my string on the inside of the riser and let's see where that gets us on the target. So I'm pulling back, I'm putting the tip of the arrow low white ring. If you notice right now, I just shot one right in the 10. That was me lining the string up with the inside of the riser. So it's going to look just like this in your sight picture here. Okay, so when you go out to practice next time, if you're having issues with left and right arrows, this is a great thing to try to check out to see if this is the issue. On your first shot, line the string up on the outside of the riser, then go to the middle and then go to this side. It's going to be blurry because you're going to be focused on aiming on the target, but you will see it because it's right in front of your eyes. And try a few of those different ways out and see what lines you up the best. And I think you're going to find that you're going to like lining that string up with the inside of the riser.