Arm Positioning

Bow Arm Position
Hold your bow arm out straight. Do not have a bend in your elbow. This is why: just as when two boys are pulling on a towel and one lets go the other falls down. If you have a bend in your elbow when you let go of the string the bow hand will move to the left as the elbow straightens. Stand up, hold out your arm with a slight bend in the elbow and then straighten your arm and you'll see what I mean. This pulls the line of force left at the bow hand , resulting in a miss. Keep your bow arm and hand relaxed but fully extended to get the same draw length with the least torquing of the upper body.

Controlling Your Breath

Breath will not make or break a shot but it can help. Just like when you lift weights, taking a small sucking breath helps make the bow draw feel lighter. Also a small breath braces the chest, and keeps the chest the same size. Once you've taken your breath, Hold it. In this way your chest is not moving and you have plenty of oxygen for those few seconds you're aiming.

Removing Torquing

This is how to remove torquing between the bow hand, and the string hand. Allow your bow to straighten you. This is how. There is tension between your bow and bow string. The string will stay on the center line of the bow if you don't interfere with it. If you can relax your hands enough in the draw, the tension in the bow and string will line up your hands one behind the other.

The truth is you can't hold your bow, you can't grip the string, you can't twist your wrist, or flex the forearm muscles to draw. Basically you need to eliminate yourself from the equation as much as possible, from interfering with the bow, which will shoot straight if you don't torque something someplace in the power train.

The Face Anchor
The face anchor must be touched as light as a feather. Let me explain.
We are shooting the line of force from the elbow to the target. We have to get all the parts of the power train: bow hand and bowstring, draw finger, hand, wrist, forearm and elbow, on the line of force without torquing for the arrow to go straight. If we twist any part of the power train, we distort the line of force and miss.

Take a string and loop it around your elbow and hold the string out in your bow hand. Now you can see the line of force stretched out. Here's the problem. Put the string between your index finger and middle finger like you were holding the nock of the arrow Mediterranean style. Press your fingers over until you touch your face anchor. Now look and you will see the string bent from your wrist to your mouth and from your mouth to your bow hand. In other words you have distorted the line of force and will miss.

You must be able to gently bring your eye over the arrow so the face anchor and finger just barely touch. Light as a feather without distorting the line of force with the face or finger.
Practice with the string a bit, until you can feel how to touch face to your finger without seeing the string bend.

Elbow Position

The elbow must find its own position behind the line of force. This position can only be found by relaxing the shoulder muscles so the right arm is just hanging from the string under the tension from the elbow. If you relax it will find its own spot.

If you raise the elbow you have to cock the wrist or twist the string downward. If you lower the elbow you have to cock the wrist or twist the string upward. Either way it bends the line of force and is a miss.

Do not raise or lower the elbow: it must find its own height by relaxing to arrive at the line of force.