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Old 07-18-2006, 07:59 PM
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Rick James
Nontypical Buck
 
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Albany, NY
Posts: 4,679
Default RE: Does my DL look too long?

I don't know what is going on with your draw length right now, because other things have to be changed first in my opinion that are going to possibly make what you have around the right length. Your front shoulder is collapsed and VERY high. The draw length looks long the way it is, but once you bottom out that shoulder the draw length may be spot on, you will gain draw length by changing this. Bottoming that shoulder will be much more consistent than allowing it to bunch up in a high position like that.

Here is a picture of my friend Cory with that shoulder much lower and in the bottomed out position as an example for you.



My coach taught me to do this on the blank bale, and to set that shoulder position as part of the draw seqence. Before drawing, I hold the bow up to aquire the target, lean forward and reach with the bow hand to the target, set the front shoulder position low and bottomed out, then draw back and settle into the full draw position. What I see in your pic is VERY similar to what I was doing before I started working with him and I experienced a lot of muscle fatigue in that front shoulder after a day of several hundred shots...........because I was using muscle to stabilize that shoulder in that position instead of bone. Bottoming that shoulder in combination with proper bow hand position (yours looks good enough) will allow you to get a much straighter bow arm than most can get without hitting your arm with the string. Change this, then take pics from the side like that and from the rear that show where your elbow is in relation to the arrow shaft and that will allow me to tell if your draw length is correct according to what I have been taught. I can tell you with these changes, you are within probably 3/4 of an inch of where you should be, probably much closer. As you sit now though without these changes you are overdrawn a bit when I look at that rear elbow.
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