Learn Archery with Jake Kaminski

Hi, I'm Jake Kaminski, Olympic silver medalist. And when I got started shooting archery, I was six years old. I was just shooting in my backyard, shooting at some hay bales, having a good old time, when I finally found a local joehead club just down the road, and it was at a pro shop as well. So they kind of took me under their wing and showed me how to shoot archery properly from the beginning. And when I'm traveling the world, you know, shooting archery professionally, the most common question I get asked is, how do I get started? Both from parents and from young kids. So we're here today with Blake to show you how to properly start from the beginning, from the proper equipment to the proper form and proper technique, as well as, you know, just how to go and enjoy archery and have a good time anywhere you are, no matter what age. So before we get too in-depth, let's go over the basic parts of any bow. This red part here is what's called the riser. It holds the limbs. This is the string, the stabilizer, the sight, and the arrow rest. Alright guys, so the first thing that you want to do is figure out which eye you naturally aim with. Now, there's a couple different ways to do it, but the best way that I've found to do it is a way that you can kind of mitigate any sort of influence of your hand dominance, as well as just picking your brain's natural response to which eye do I aim with. So how I do my eye dominance test is I take my arms fully extended and use my index finger. And as I'm looking at a person with both eyes open, I just take my right hand and extend it all the way to their nose. Then I use my left hand and put it on their nose, and my right, both hands together on their nose. And you should see that all three times as I lift up, my fingers go right to my right eye. So that means I use my right eye to aim. So the reason that we do an eye aiming test is to determine what hand you should shoot with, or what handedness you are. If you aim with your right eye, you should shoot a right-handed bow. If you aim with your left eye, you should shoot a left-handed bow. So next we're going to talk about selecting your bow size. And to do that, you should head down to your local pro shop and talk to them about getting your draw length checked. And to do that, they use the Easton Arrow Length Indicator, where they put it on the bow and have you pull it back. It's a graduated scale that will show you your proper draw length. So now that we've gone over the basic parts of the bow, we've got the Easton Measuring Arrow here inside of Blake's bow. And what he's going to do is he's going to come to full draw, and we're going to measure the draw length an inch in front of the riser. And you can see he has a 23-inch draw length. So to determine the proper bow length from tip to tip, we use your draw length. If you reference the following chart on the screen, you can see that if you have a 24-inch draw length or less, use a 62-inch bow. If you have a 24 to 26-inch draw length, use a 64-inch bow. If you have a 26 to 27-inch draw length, use a 66-inch bow. 27 to 29, use a 68-inch bow. And over a 29-inch draw length, use a 70-inch bow. So now that we've established Blake's draw length at 23 inches, that's allowed us to determine the proper bow size for his draw length, which is 62 inches, and that is measured from tip to tip. We've done that by using a 21-inch riser and short limbs. So now that we have proper bow length established, let's talk about proper arrow length. So what I do is, with a new shooter, I have them outstretch their arms, and then I take the arrow and place it against their chest and look for an arrow that is a couple inches longer than the ends of their fingers. Another thing to consider about arrow selection is vein indexing. This arrow has a properly indexed vein. The one that is a different color is pointing directly away from the bow. That way, there is no vein contact as the arrow goes by the bow. Outside of arrow length, there's other features to consider in an arrow. I suggest talking to your local pro shop to get set up with the proper arrow for you. Today, we're using the Easton Tribute, which is a great new youth arrow. Outside of arrows and bows, there's a couple more important pieces to consider in your equipment. We have on Blake here a proper arm guard that helps protect your arm from the buzz of the string and a finger tab that helps protect your fingers from wear on the string. Before we talk about proper shooting technique, I'd like to suggest using the lightest limbs that you can find. It doesn't matter how old you are or how strong you are. For example, we have Blake here set up with an 18-pound set of limbs. We're doing this so that way we can focus on the proper shooting technique from the beginning. The first thing in proper shooting form is proper stance. Our feet are roughly shoulder distance apart. Our hips and feet are pointed directly at the target. Our shoulders are straight over the center of our body, and we're not leaning back or forward. An important reference for talking about hand placement in the grip is what's called the lifeline. It's a crease that runs down the center of your hand. So what we want to do is we want to put the grip on this side of the hand and have the majority of the pressure right here. A lot of shooters, when they're first starting, want to death grip the bow. The proper way to hold the bow, we've already established where we should put the pressure, is to hold the bow right here and just put the pressure just gently down on your hand and have your fingers relax just gently holding onto the bow. We want to make sure our elbow is aligned correctly so we have proper clearance for the string so we don't hit our arm. If I was at full draw and I were to bend my elbow, my forearm is parallel with the shooting line. So go ahead and come to full draw, Blake, finger in the corner of your mouth. You can see how his elbow is perfectly parallel with the ground. So a quick tip for you new archers out there, there's a lot of tendency to have a high bow shoulder when you first start. So an easy way to fix that is just to reach as far as you can forward with your hand, not with your body, just with your hand. Now we're going to talk about finger placement on the string. I like to start new archers with three fingers underneath the arrow. Before we actually pull the bow back, I want to show you an analogy on how to properly pull the bow back. It's kind of like pull-starting a lawnmower. Most people, when they first start shooting, they use just their arm to pull back and that's not how you pull-start a lawnmower. You get really tired. You want to use your whole body, right? So it's the same way as I'm shooting. I use my whole body to pull back. Now that we know how to properly pull the bow back, we'll talk about proper anchor. Three fingers underneath the string and we take our index finger and put it in the corner of our mouth. So three fingers underneath the string, go ahead and pull it back, index finger in the corner of your mouth. We don't aim until after we are ready to shoot and until after we relax and feel comfortable at full draw. So that means that I pull back, I relax, then I put the sight pin in the middle of the target and then I let go. So I'll demonstrate real quick. So I pull back, I anchor and I relax. I put the sight pin in the center of the target and then I let go. So just like any other sport in the world, archery requires a proper follow through. So after the shot, we need to actually continue releasing the string and follow through until we finish. Same thing with baseball, same thing with soccer. If I go to kick a soccer ball, I don't stop when I kick. I kick and I follow through. Same thing with a baseball. I don't stop when I'm at the top when I release. I need to follow through and direct the ball. So when I do that, I put direction on it towards my target. It's the same thing as archery. I'm putting follow through on it so the arrow and the power of the bow has direction. So same thing when I throw a baseball. I properly follow through. So we have our hand set in the bow correctly, come to full draw, set our elbow, fingertip in the corner of the mouth, sight in the center of the target and then properly release and follow through. Good. So now that we had Blake shoot a couple of arrows, you can see that he has got a good group just low. With the beauty of a sight, it's movable. So I can move the sight to get his group in the center of the target. So when he is grouping low, you move the sight down. You always chase the arrow. So I'm going to loosen the sight up and I'm going to move it down. So now he should hit a little higher and hopefully his arrows will be in the middle. So as you can see, after we moved his sight, his group is still the same size. It's just now in the middle. Great job, Blake. Good shooting. So as you can see, archery is a relatively simple sport. We went through a complete setup of a Hoyt U3 curved bow all the way to arrow setup and selection, how to use proper form, and in a matter of time, we got Blake shooting arrows in the middle. Archery is one of those sports that it's a lifelong sport and you can enjoy it for many years to come. So go out there and have some fun.