Teaching kids Archery in 4 QUICK and EASY steps.

Have you ever tried to teach young people or even adults who've never shot before the joyful sport of traditional archery? Well, today I'm going to share with you the basics, the technique that I use to teach kids or even adults who've never shot before traditional archery or archery in general. Let's get started. Joe McLean here from CoyoteHack.com, where I live my life and work on. Today I've got my son here, John-Paul. Say hi. Hi. John-Paul's 10 years old. He's been shooting a while now, actually. We probably started three years ago with some PVC bows that we made, or probably four actually longer than that. And he shoots pretty good, but we're going to use him as a test guinea pig today to sort of share with you the technique that I use to teach kids or even adults how to shoot a bow when they've never done it before. Before we do that, if you are new here, I would really love for you to be a part of our community. I put out a traditional archery video every single Thursday around eight o'clock or so. And if you like traditional archery shooting tips, techniques, conversation, talk about traditional archery hunting, trick shots, any of that stuff, click that subscribe button and maybe even consider hitting that bell notification icon so that you get notified on the next video. All right. So I'm going to share with you the tips and the techniques that I use to get young ones started and adults flinging arrows down range in just a few minutes, actually. When I do it, I try to focus on the bare bones basics because I want them to experience the flight of the arrow. I want them to experience that. They learn a lot just by flinging the arrows. And if they love it, they're going to work hard and improve and grow. So I don't want to bog them down too much in a lot of detail or a lot of finite work. I just want them flinging arrows, but I want them to do it safe. So step number one in teaching anybody is range safety, right? They've got to understand that they can hurt people themselves or someone else if they're not safe. So we, we, we always go over that first. But now I'm going to show you the technique that I use to get them flinging arrows in just a few minutes. First thing I do is I orient their body to the target so that their bow arm shoulder is pointed right at the impact point. Super critical, super important that it just orients their whole body towards shooting. Again, they could change this technique as they grow as archers, but this is a good place to start. At least I think so. The next thing I like to do is get them to place their feet at a shoulder width apart and slightly bend their knees so they get a good sort of shock absorbing. Very critical. Creates a good foundation. So I'm going to ask him to point with his index finger for his bow arm, right? And I'm going to point out that he wants this arm slightly rotated, the elbow slightly bent, but it's time to open up that palm like Darth Vader. We're going to force choke the target. We're going to go after that target with the open palm just like that. And that's when we place the bow in the hand. So he feels it right in that meat of the palm. And then we're going to gently wrap the fingers. Not too hard, but not too soft, somewhere in the middle. But that palm is still a critical pointer device, right? As we begin to shoot arrows, we need to point with that open palm. So super important. Now we'll talk about that gripping of the string technique and how to get back to anchor, what is an anchor and how to do it. We do this well before we ever get to knocking an arrow. So we're going to work on a Mediterranean style split finger grip. This particular bow, which is quite nice because it's super light, super easy to shoot, great for kids, has these rubber pieces on the string itself, making it very easy to knock and grip the string. So we're going to go ahead and grip that string, and we're going to practice getting our elbow up and pulling the elbow back, getting to anchor. When they're first getting started, it can be really hard to get to anchor. Not even adults sometimes can get to anchor. And I mean, it's amazing. You'll get guys or gals that are in great physical condition, very strong, and still they're going to struggle to get to anchor. It's new to them. They're using it never used before. So I try to get them to anchor, however, I want them to, at the very least, get a straight back pull. Okay? So if they're just getting started, coming straight back is sort of the angle that I take. Now let's talk about knocking an arrow and let's get an arrow downrange. So what I always instruct my new shooters to do is to turn the bow completely horizontal, like a tabletop. The reason why I ask them to do this is because this movement is easy to remember. It's repeatable. I'm trying to create a shot cycle for them, and a tabletop is not only easier to knock the arrow without it falling off, but it's also easy to repeat. So go ahead and try to knock an arrow, son. We'll tell them we want to hear a click when they knock the arrow. Now we'll also talk about this index finger, right? It's important to not curl that finger over the arrow because it will de-knock the arrow and you don't want that. So if we're going to use that finger at all, we're going to keep it nice and straight, allowing the arrow to butt up against it without gripping it. So just like we went through, point your shoulder, bring your bow up, pull back to anchor, clean release. And just like that, they're flinging arrows downrange. Now, I've oversimplified it, I know, but the point is I want to get them to the point where they're flinging arrows downrange. So my hope is to get them flinging arrows, get them enjoying that, and then work out the kinks and start focusing on things like proper anchor and release and alignment or even shooting techniques for aiming. We're focusing on instinctive, but we could work on string walking or gapping or anything else, but that all comes later. So that's my quick and dirty how to teach a kid or even an adult who's never shot before how to fling an arrow downrange very quickly in just a few minutes and do it safely. How do you do it? Leave a comment below with your best tips and techniques. I would love to hear them, I would love to learn from them, and I'm grateful that you are here. If you've never been here before, again, please consider subscribing to this channel, hit that bell notification icon, and come back. We're putting out videos every single Thursday. Sharing is always caring, but give this video a thumbs up and share it with your friends. I pray for you that you shoot straight, I hope you pray for me that I shoot straight, and until the next video, may God richly bless you.