Its a commonly heard phrase at the University of Warwick AC. Archery, they say, is a simple sport. All you need to do is "pull it back and let it go"
While I love the simplicity, and the focus on process inherent in that phrase (which is about 50% coaching advice and 50% running joke), something about it has been starting to bug me recently. It turns out that its completely wrong.
What do I actually do to make the clicker go? Recently I've adopted two points of focus, pushing into the bow from the front shoulder, and squeezing the rear shoulder in tight to drag the drawing elbow back around behind me. If you look at this in slow mo you see that on a good shot both these things happen simultaneously, so that the movement all comes at the two shoulders and the torso and head stay still. When the clicker drops, the fingers relax and the push pull continues to create the follow through.
[caption width="800" id="attachment_254" align="aligncenter"]
Pushing through the left hand, pulling around and through the right. Balance is key![/caption]
Its fairly well known that consciously opening the fingers to let go of the string is a bad idea, as the fingers cannot open fast enough to get out the way of the string and a "plucked" shot results. But perhaps less commonly understood is that focusing too much on pulling the bow back with the draw arm can cause the front side to collapse under pressure and throw the shot away.
I'm up for suggestions for a better phrase but "open the bow" is a reasonably good description of what we're looking for; an even expansion of the draw length on both sides of the arrow. So as novice season gets under way, just remember they'll learn far better if they _don't _try to pull it back and let it go!