Speed Shooting

This was a written response by Andras the Truemark to a gentleman curious to learn how Andras scores so high in the speed ends of a Royal Round. Andras the Truemark is Grandmaster Bowman (Royal Round average of 100 or more) in An Tir in both the open class and longbow class. He is currently one of only a handful of Ludicrous Bowmen (Royal Round average of 120 or more) in the entire Society. — GdA

I started shooting in the SCA in 1991. I'd been moderately involved with archery since the mid-sixties, having started at age eight to play around with bows. I found the SCA because I was tired of shooting compound bows with sights and releases and wanted to get back to a form of shooting that put the burden of responsibility more on the shooter than the equipment (a fallacy, but that's another subject). I made Masterbowman my first year (an average of 80 in the Royal Round here in An Tir) but wanted to reach that magical 100 mark. I knew I would never be perfect in the static ends, so I realized I could make my greatest gains in the speed round.

That off season I spent a lot of time thinking about things like arrow length, depth of quiver, hip vs back quivers, serving size, type of nocks, full draw vs half draw, three fingers under vs split finger draws, wearing gloves or tabs during the round vs bare fingers, shooting "gap" (one eye closed) vs instinctive (both eyes open), cock feather in or out, just about anything and everything that is involved with speed rounds. Over the next two years I experimented with an amazing variety of combinations and finally came up with the following. Not only does this method work for me, but I have been able to pass it on to other shooters who have immediately improved their scores, both in accuracy and number of arrows.

1. Shooting position: Standard line position, sideways to the target, except that I open it up about five degrees by moving my lead foot back about 1-1/2"
   
   
2. Type of quiver: I use a hip quiver that is heavy on the bottom end and has a hanger that is wide and fairly stiff. This helps prevent the quiver from swinging to and fro as I pull the arrows. It is just deep enough that, when I extract an arrow, the tip of the arrow clears the opening in the quiver with my hand no more than shoulder high.

   I position the quiver so that it is just slightly (1-2") forward of the natural 90 degree axis of my hips and is at a height equal to the natural extension of my arm when I place my hand on the bundle of arrows. In other words, not too high or too low, as I want the downward motion of my arm when extracting an arrow to be completely natural and without thought. Down goes my arm and there are the arrows.
   
   

3. Arrows: I won't get into length or spine, as that is not germane to speed rounds, assuming you already have a properly matched arrow for your bow. Nor does it matter, from 20 yards, whether the cock feather is in or out, at least to the extent that losing time assuring the proper cock feather orientation is worth the very minor gain in accuracy. I use three fletch, have used four fletch and everything from 2-1/2" feathers to 5-1/2" high shoulder fletch, so this is a non-factor as well. I would point out that there needs to be enough room between the nock and the feather to avoid grabbing feathers.
   
   
4. Nocks: I use "speed" nocks, i.e. Nirks or Mercurys. These are straight sided nocks with a pronounced flair to the inside of the slot. They also have an index or bump built into the top of the nock that aligns with the cock fletch (three fletch), which helps tremendously from 40 and 30 yards as I don't have to look to turn the arrow to get the cock feather out.
   
   
5. Serving on the bowstring: All my bowstrings are custom made flemish twist strings with nylon servings. My goal is to have a string with the smallest number of strands necessary for the poundage of the bow, with a serving that allows the nock of the arrow to slide easily, yet remain on the serving naturally. By this I mean two things:

   Number one, for good tight groups, the nock cannot be too loose or too tight. If you hold your bow upside down, with an arrow on the string, the arrow should stay "snapped" onto the string. However, you should be able to lightly tap the string with your forefinger and have the arrow come off the string. Not too tight, nor too loose.

   Secondly, I want the nock to slide easily over the serving because, in the speed round, I just get the arrow on the string and then the draw motion includes sliding the nock up under the nock point, all in one easy motion. This eliminates my having to pay attention to where I place the arrow on the string.
   
   

6. Gloves and tabs: I use a tab during the static ends, when protection is more important than speed. I use bare fingers during the speed ends because I want the feel of the arrow and string, plus the complete control of the process. Yes I have ugly callouses on my string fingers, but my Lady only complains sometimes.
   
   
7. The loading motion: I grasp the arrow with thumb and forefinger, withdraw it from the quiver (it's almost like flipping it out, because of the relationship between the height of the hanging quiver and the depth of the quiver in relation to the length of the arrows). The bow is down at my side and the forward limb is 3-5 inches behind the natural axis of my body position in relation to the target. This puts the string at about hip height, which, coincidentally, is the tip height when it clears the quiver. My arrow hand is at shoulder height and the motion over the string with the tip is easy and natural. I slide the arrow down past the bow and grasp it with the forefinger of my bow hand. This helps guide the arrow onto the rest or shelf.
   
   
8. Loading the arrow onto the string: This is perhaps the single most important element of all of this. I've watched a kazillion otherwise fast archers lose it right here, because they fumble and fumble with getting the nock onto the string. STOP FRAME PICTURE: The arrow is on the rest or shelf, with a forefinger to help guide it.

   My string hand is over the string, with my thumb and forefinger grasping the nock. My other three fingers are in light contact with the string itself, somewhere about the top of the nock and above. This provides a stable anchor for simply drawing the arrow back toward the string and onto the serving. Ok, live action. Do not remove your thumb from the arrow nock. Simply pull the arrow onto the string and then rotate your hand clockwise back and under the string, with your thumb in constant contact with the nock. Try this a few times and you will find it is a completely natural motion, and extremely efficient. Get in the habit of doing this every single time you load an arrow, regardless of whether its a speed end or not. Do it until it becomes a habit.
   
   

9. Drawing and loosing the arrow: After the above motion has been completed, you will have an arrow on the string (maybe directly against the bottom of the nock set, maybe not). The combined motion of the hand turn and the drawing motion will automatically push the arrow up firmly against the bottom of the nock, without you even having to think about it. At this point, raise your bow hand straight up toward the target face, drawing as you raise your hand. Do not let your arm describe any type of circular motions when raising the bow. From your side, straight up to the desired height. When you reach the proper bow elevation, you should be at full draw and on target so you can instantly release the arrow and begin the procedure all over again. Try to keep the bow fairly straight up and down — with a few longbow exceptions, the less cant in the bow on release, the less high-left, low-right shots you will have.

SPECIFIC EXERCISES:

These are great because you can do them anytime, rain or shine, indoors or out, and they will all help you with putting this program together seamlessly.

1. Start with a quiver full of arrows, with the quiver adjusted as I mentioned above. Simply pull arrows, one at a time, completely out of the quiver and let them fall at your feet. The idea here is to practice the motion necessary to get them out of the quiver in the least amount of time and in the most controlled manner.
   
   
2. Now do the same thing with a bow in your hand, only once the arrow is loaded, simply push it off the bow onto the floor and go for the next arrow. Do one quiver full of arrows without the hand turn. Then do another quiver full with the hand turn. Start at a pace that allows you to perform the process perfectly. When you are comfortable with the entire loading process at a comfortable speed then speed up a bit. Since you are not shooting anything, go as fast as you can. Try to force the fumbles so you can analyze why you fumbled. Isolate the cause of the fumbles and eliminate it.
   
   
3. Find a blank wall and put a 2" dot on it (your choice of materials or methods) at about eye level or slightly higher. Stand about five feet from the wall and get into a good shooting position. Now, at a moderate pace, begin the speed round motions, bring the bow up so that you are at full draw when your bow hand stops moving. The tip of your arrow should be pointed right at the dot. Let down, push the arrow off, and repeat until you are comfortable with all the motions we have discussed thus far, including being at full draw when your bow hand has stopped moving and your arrow tip is pointing at the dot. After you are comfortable with all this, then speed up. Push your limits. Now get a tape recorder, record a timed thirty second speed round and do it to the tape. Concentrate on smoothness, efficiency, and ending at full draw, with the tip of your arrow pointing at the dot.
   
   
4. Now go outside and try it for real. Take your tape recorder with you (human or otherwise). Don't try to go real fast at first. Just get the motions down, and work on accuracy. Concentrate on red or better with each release. When everything feels comfortable, try adding one arrow to the round. Practice. Shoot lots and lots of speed ends. Keep your form. Concentrate. Be smooth and on pace. Be efficient. Breathe. Have fun.

What this program will do for you is eliminate as much unnecessary motion as possible. There are variations to this, especially for those who can load through their bowstring, rather than from on top. I'm comfortable with my method — it ain't broke, so I don't fix it, although I have gone to two arrows on the first shot from 20 yards and have gained an average of 3.5 points per speed end because of it. If you are shooting a back quiver, simply adjust for your style of loading, keeping in mind I have NEVER seen a more efficient method of transferring from loading the arrow to drawing the arrow as the one I describe above.