This topic is interesting to me. When I was shopping for my first trad bow last year, the owner of my local shop told me that trying to shoot both trad and compound would keep me from ever being really good with either of them. I honestly can't remember his exact reasons, but it had something to do with the total difference in shooting styles. I do remember him saying that if I shot both, I'd feel the need to snap shoot my compound and I'd also feel the need to hold the trad bow at full draw longer than I should.

Now, almost a year later, I can honestly say that is a load of crap. Well, at least for me it is. While I haven't gotten to the point where I'd say that I'm "good" with the longbow yet, it's done nothing to hurt my compound shooting. In fact, shooting the longbow has helped my compound shooting in one obvious area. While I've seen some trad shooters release almost as soon as they get to full draw, I don't. Holding the 55# longbow at full draw for a second or two on each shot has increased my strength and made it much easier to hold the compound steady at full draw for longer periods of time.

Bigcountry is right when he says that they feel very different, though. When I've been shooting my 55# longbow for a while and then grab the compound, that 70# hump almost feels like a brick wall.If I've been shooting the compound for a while and then grab the longbow, my muscles don't want to even reach full draw, let alone hold 55# at full draw. It didn't take me long to figure out that for me, the best option was to practice with one or the other on any given day and not both on the same day.

My personal opinion is that if you want to do both, make sure you keep doing both, and practice with both on a regular basis.