RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

Both Matt and Art nailed it... I"m not a good-enough Photoshopper to take your pic and draw a line on it, but if I did you'd see that you're leaning back and your upper torso is not centered over your hips; sometimes that's a dl problem, sometimes it's bad habit of just unkowingly leaning back. The front shoulder riding up on you was actually the first thing I noticed, followed by the grip.

RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

Thank you all for the help. I think I usually feel like my shoulder is a bit more dipped but I had been shooting a lot that evening and was pretty tired. I will work on everything that you all have told me. In my mind it is quite important to nip bad habits early insetead of re-learning things later.

RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

What Art said is perfect. Now, keeping all that in mind. Your form is pretty good, some small tweaks that he suggests and I would also suggest you make them BEFORE you shorten the bow.

Some suggestions to break the habits (use to do these with students when I taught )

- When you draw your bow, put ALL your weight on your left foot. Just keep the toe of your right foot on the ground for balance. When you do this you are checking two things: 1) To much draw weight, if you can't do this you have to much. 2) Keeps you from leaning back.

- Bow shoulder. Make sure its down in teh proper position before drawing. Start with your arm lowered and then raise it making sure NOT to roll the shoulder up and it. Now draw. When combined with the above one, its pretty hard to roll the shoulder into the position you have without noticing it.

- check your elbow at full draw. I like the arm not locked out, but the inside of the elbow should more face the bow than the sky.

Once you align these things (and the grip, though that's not bad), Post another picture to check draw length at that point.

Oh, and use an arrow! You may not ruin your bow on one dry fire, but then again , you might. and its really loud when you do it (from experience!)

RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

Somebody give Arthur one of those deer head awards for that post, that was awesome! I always hear about bone on bone contact, locking your shoulder down, this is what a proper grip should look like....

But I've never seen it explained HOW to get that right. Thanks Art, I appreciate that.

RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

I will post some new and improved pics by the evening or tomorrow morning. Thanks again everyone.

RE: Critique my photos Form and or Draw length.
 

It is hard to tell from a picture how much an arm is bent. But looking at everything else, I'd say your draw is probably fine. If you were to shorten it it wouldn't be much. Your anchor looks solid, your head is ALMOST erect(that tells me your draw lenght is probably ok but maybe a tad long) Other than no arrow on the string I'd say you're doing just fine. Another thing hard to tell from the picture and the loose shirt... but it looks suspect. Your bow arm shoulder appears to be jacked up. Again, maybe a draw length issue. After reading all I've written, your draw length probably is too long.:D Your head is a tad tilted back and your shoulder jacked up. PLUS, jacking of the shoulder can lead to some serious shoulder problems.