How to shoot a recurve bow for beginners

To get started, I want to talk about arrows. If you're going to buy or use a traditional style bow, there's something to be aware of. This right here, this arrow has plastic fletches or veins or fletches, depending on who you're talking to, they'll refer to them differently. This has feather veins or fletches, both of these. So these have an actual feather, there's more give to these, whereas the plastic doesn't have that same level of give. That becomes important for you to know, depending on what type of way you're going to shoot off of the bow. This right here is called the shelf, it's just at the top of the handle here. As you can see there's just padding here, there's no arrow rest sticking off the side of the bow. I'm shooting this bow right off of the shelf. When doing that, you will always want to use an arrow that has a feathered fletch because it has the give you need for shooting off of the shelf. It's also preferred when shooting with your fingers to use a feathered fletch either way. However, if you're shooting off an arrow rest, such as the bows you see them using in the Olympics and things like that, there's actually a little arrow rest that sticks off the side of the bow, just a little tiny arm there, and it usually has some give. It will give away a little bit as the arrow is going past it. In those situations, you can sometimes get away with shooting an arrow with a fletch, with a vein, a plastic vein. Two other things I'll mention before I shoot some arrows here is one, you'll want an arm guard of some type. This one, you can see the size of it, it covers most of my wrist area. They make smaller ones and they make larger ones. I recommend if you're new, get the larger style because you want to cover as much of your arm as possible because if you are not familiar with shooting a bow and arrow, it's easy to hit your arm with the string and it can hurt very much. The other thing to decide is if you want to shoot with a glove or a shooting tab. I personally like a shooting tab because it gives more sensitivity for my fingers. However, a glove provides more protection for your fingers so it doesn't hurt your fingers as much. That's just something you'll need to consider as far as what you would prefer for shooting a bow and arrow. In this situation, as I said, I'm shooting off of the shelf. Typically, when you're shooting off the shelf, you will hold the bow on a slight cant, on an angle, just a little bit and that helps hold the arrow on the bow. If you're shooting off of an arrow rest and especially if you're shooting with sights, you'll want to hold the bow vertically. The next thing is important to note that there are two fletches that are the same color and one odd color. The odd color fletch always faces away from the bow. If you have the odd color fletch facing toward the bow, it can actually rip the fletch off and you'll have terrible arrow flight and so you definitely want to make sure you do not do that. When you begin to shoot, you're going to hold your arm out and you're going to draw the bow to an anchor point. It's really advisable to establish an anchor point. When shooting this style bow, I typically anchor my finger in the corner of my mouth like this. I'll take a shot and show you. So you hold this arm out straight, draw into your anchor point and take your shot. I have a target right over there. Very often, if you're watching the Olympics, they shoot a little bit different style than that. They will anchor under their chin and rest the string against the tip of their nose like this. Also, I'll mention that those bows are typically longer. This is a standard bow which is 62 inches from one end to the other. This is a good universal bow for someone who just wants to try shooting. However, if you are interested in tournament style archery, you'll want to get a longer bow depending on, well, it depends on your height. In the description section of this video, I'll put a link to my book that I wrote on archery called Sin and the Spirituality of Archery which explains all the different lengths of bows for this style bow that you would want in tournament style archery. Okay, I'm going to take another shot and just point out one other thing. Always knock the arrow underneath of the knock point on the string. There's a lot of people who are new at archery. They're just not sure and they'll, you know, they'll clip the arrow on above it. You don't want to do that because when you draw the bow back, it can slide up the string too easily. So all bows, when they're set up, they're set up to have the knock point be above the arrow. So simply clip the arrow on underneath, odd color fletch facing away from the bow. I typically would put my arm out fairly straight. Some people bend their arm when they're shooting. However, when you're shooting this style bow, this will shorten your draw length, which means the arrow won't come off as fast or strong and it'll drop sooner. It changes everything. So whatever you do, try to keep consistent with how you have this arm. Draw to your anchor point, same one every time, and release the shot. I'm going to put a link to some of my other archery videos, archery instruction videos, more advanced tips, shooting a compound bow, all those types of things. So make sure you check the description section and click on the video that you're interested in at this point in time. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time, take care and God bless.