Where I think so many people go wrong is believing they're supposed to shoot 'instinctive' because it's said that's the way the cavemen/indians/whoever shot. Well, I was taught to shoot indian fashion when I was a tyke, pinching the nock between my thumb and forefinger, drawing back almost to my face and eyeballing down the arrow at what I wanted to shoot. Nothing instinctive about it. I shot that way for a long time - and killed mucho game - before learning about anchor points and stuff.

The idea that the original archers - who survived by getting their meat and fighting off their enemies with the bow - shot instinctive doesn't make sense. When your life is on the line, I doubt you'd want to rely on The Force to make your arrow hit where you want it to. You're going to take careful aim before releasing. Besides that, good arrows were every expensive in terms of time and energy spent. They wouldn't have just jerked the string back and released that arrow willynilly into the ether and hoped for the best. They'd have aimed.

The arrow is right there in your field of vision. You might as well use it as an aiming reference. I'm positive our ancestors were smart enough to figure that out.

The aiming method I use is the split vision gap shooting style used by Howard Hill. Byron Ferguson explains it in his book "Become the Arrow" far better than Hill did. When you learn the gap system and use it enough to become confident, you eventually quit thinking about the gap. Your brain figures the distance and gap automatically. In other words, with time and experience the gap becomes more or less 'instinctive.'

For beginners, they can pick a gap at a given distance, see where the arrow strikes in relation to their aim point, then adjust their gap to put them on target. With instinctive, there is no way for them to make adjustment because they don't know where they were aiming to begin with. It takes a lot of trial and error - mostly error - to learn to shoot instinctive. A beginner using an aiming method will become a better shooter, faster, than another who's blundering about with instinctive shooting, stubbornly clinging to a false premise.

A beginner using an aiming method will become a better shooter, faster, than another who's blundering about with instinctive shooting, stubbornly clinging to a false premise.

ORIGINAL: Arthur P

Uh oh... I know how I aim, but I don't know how well I can explain it. Now I'm gonna have to think! and it hurts!

Let's see. First I look at what I want to hit, pick my spot, and determine where I will hold the tip of my arrow in relation to the target. I don't think about yardage so much as I think about the trajectory my arrow will take to go the distance I'm looking at. That's the hard part to explain. Ferguson says to judge the distance in steps instead of yards. Maybe his way is better for a beginner.

Anyway, I've got my aim point determined and have visualized the shot and trajectory before I ever draw the bow.

As I draw, I concentrate on the spot I've picked but am also keeping track of the arrow's tip in my peripheral vision. I never look directly at the arrow though. I'm focused on my spot but am aware of the arrow tip. I get to full draw: if my tip isn't on my aim point - my subconscious knows what I want and adjusts elevation during the draw, so it usually is on my aim point - I make adjustment and then release.

It doesn't take as long to do as it takes to explain. Everybody I've ever shot with comments on how quick I draw and shoot.