Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

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Kendaric
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Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#1 Post by Kendaric » Sat Feb 28, 2015 5:00 pm

I am curious as to how many trad archers try to align their eye directly over the top of the arrow. This question is more for instinctive/intuitive archers, not so much for point of aim or gap shooters.

When I first started barebow shooting, I would use a little bit of cant, and anchor middle finger in the corner of my mouth. Typically the arrow would be low and to the right a bit, in my indirect vision. Shooting intuitive, I compensated for these potentially left shots.

However Byron Ferguson and Brian Sorrells tend to advocate getting the eye over the top of the arrow, in part by tilting ones head over and changing cant. Just tilting my head over, bring the string line more in-line with the arrow caused my nose to get hit, so I increased the cant of the bow and found a happy medium. Looking at some of the later pictures of Howard Hill tended to indicate that he was well bent over the bow, and the bow canted at near 45 degrees. Certainly it took a lot of the 'windage' compensation out of the equation.

However, I came across another article that suggested that "When aiming, the arrow is located below and to the side of your direct line of vision, which is already fixed on the target (see photo below). This makes it necessary for you to use indirect vision to see and aim the arrow."

http://www.ilongbow.com/Articles/Visual ... chery.html

Certainly this is much like how I started. Also I remember Byron saying that Howard Hill was a type a gap shooter and his aiming point was down and to the right of his vision. When you look at some of Howard Hills earlier pictures, his bow has less cant and it appear obvious that his eye is not directly over the top of his arrow in the 'earlier days'.

So out of curiosity, who does what?

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perry
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#2 Post by perry » Sat Feb 28, 2015 7:19 pm

There is more to this than Tilting your Head or holding it more upright. People are differnt Anatomically and what works for one will not for another because their Skeletons won't allow it. Good Form is about a series of educated compromises that fit you.

I have a round Boof Head and widely Spaced high Cheek Bones broad Shoulders and am Thick through the Chest [ and Belly :lol: ] the only way I could get decent String Alignment is with a FITA Type Anchor side on Stance and standing very Tall in my Stance, not practical for Barebow Trad. Someone with a more dainty Skull and less robust/ rotund Build will have no drama's with a side of the Face Anchor and String Alignment. Film your self Shooting, employ different Stances, Anchor Points , Tilt your Head, Hold it Straight and see if it's even possible first. I would not fixate on it, just work out what Fits you and practice as perfectly as possible until good Form is ingrained

regards Jacko
"To my deep morticication my father once said to me, 'You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.' "

- Charles Darwin

little arrows
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#3 Post by little arrows » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:58 pm

Hi Kendaric

All things being correct (read as brain cell not still in neutral) the head is canted at the same angle as the bow. I shall not go into anchoring as I am afraid in my case it is somewhat overrated :biggrin: my style works for me and that is really all that matters.
The only thing I see is the centre of the target, and that is just before I send an arrow in it's general direction. :smile:
As Perry mentioned what works for one may not work for another.

cheers
sue

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Mick Smith
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#4 Post by Mick Smith » Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:06 am

The human brain is a wondrous thing. In a very short time span, it can make subconscious adjustments to its inward data, making it suitable to achieving desired results. While it might be advantageous to have perfect eye alignment over the arrow, it's certainly not totally necessary, as the brain will adjust to most circumstances presented to it.

It's almost exactly the same scenario as having perfectly spined arrows. It is certainly advantageous to have perfectly spined arrows because they will shoot to exactly where they're pointed, whereas arrows that are not perfectly spined will shoot some place else. Lots and lots of people shoot arrows that aren't perfectly spined and they shoot them as well as anyone else. The reason for this comes back to the human brain and its ability to make subconscious adjustments to compensate for minor irregularities between the information it receives compared to the task that is required to be done.

I can't remember the number of times that I've discovered that my new arrows didn't shoot exactly where I wanted them to. Generally, they would hit within 30cm of the point I'm focussing on. Miraculously, after just a dozen or so shots, the arrows would start to hit where I was looking. My brain was making the necessary minor calculations automatically to ensure the desired results were being achieved. I'm not alone in experiencing this phenomena. It happens to all 'instinctive' archers.

When I go back to using different arrows, that might be spined slightly differently, the arrows will group somewhere differently on the target face. So long as the impact point isn't too far from where I'm looking, my brain will quickly learn and within a short period of time my arrows will be impacting where I'm looking again.

In case you don't get my point at this stage. What I'm saying is that if your eye isn't aligned directly over the arrow, it probably doesn't matter a great deal, as your brain will eventually make the necessary minor calculations and adjustments without you even being aware of it.
There is no use focusing on aiming if you don't execute the shot well enough to hit what your are aiming at.

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scuzz
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#5 Post by scuzz » Sun Mar 01, 2015 1:29 pm

I find eye alignment to be highly important for keeping your shot inline with your target from any distance. After the alignment is achieved its just a matter of judging the distance (instinctively or otherwise).

When I was highly practiced I shot from different cant angles, from standing, kneeling and sitting down. From front on, side on and behind. While I believe shoulder alignment is paramount for consistant shooting, I thought it wasn't always possible in a hunting situation so I practiced different stances. But my main focus was eye alignment as I found it was paramount to keeping the shot inline (as mentioned above) to my target.

Sometimes it was a slightly different anchor point, moving across my face. From the usual stance I found I had to turn my head to the left (I am right handed) and I anchored around an inch past the corner of my lips (my avatar pic may show this to some extent) to achieve this alignment.

I consider myself an instinctive shooter and I would put the arrow alignment into the category of 'standard form'.

:twocents-mytwocents:

Cheers,
Scuzz

matt61
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#6 Post by matt61 » Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:51 pm

I teach learner trad shooters to anchor at the corner of the mouth and to roll their head over the top of the arrow using the index finger in the corner of their mouth as the pivot point, so their eye is looking directly down the arrow . And the reasoning behind that is I am firm believer that a correctly tuned arrow will go is exactly where it is pointed. :?:
Its just like using a rifle with steel sights except you are shooting the barrel at the target not a bullet with archery
Matt

Dennis La Varenne
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#7 Post by Dennis La Varenne » Sun Mar 01, 2015 5:26 pm

Kendaric,

That link you used as a reference has some very good points in it, especially that part where he advised to take your normal shooting stance with your non-dominant eye lightly closed, then bring your dominant eye vision around so that instead of looking past the bridge of one's nose, the mark is in the centre of vision of the dominant eye, THEN open the non-dominant eye. That is Scott Toll's firm recommendation for correct head position.

Presuming him to be correct, there is nobody on this planet who is incapable of that short of having cervical spine damage or (as in my case) damage to the non-dominant eye function.

I tried it out as soon as I read it and found to my surprise that it worked even with my left (non-dominant) eye problem which is that it cannot turn to the left because of absent musculature. That is the very same technique that I posted about in another topic where I decided to try the English anchor to the ear instead of the recommended arrow beneath the eye. Doing so caused me to actually turn my head more directly on to the mark and made a significant improvement to my shooting, where for many, many years, I had persisted with the more conventional anchor to the corner of the mouth with eye over the arrow and looking past the bridge of my nose. More latterly, with multi-focus lenses and nose pieces in my glasses, this has proven a problem.

Just the same, relearning to position one's head in a completely different position to that in which one has trained himself is difficult at first - no question about that.

But, getting the eye over the arrow point which you are discussing, that technique is first recorded in Horace Ford's book from back in the first half of the 19th century which allowed him to shoot records which were untouched until well into the 20th century. Hitherto, English recreational archers had drawn to the ear as Ascham and others had recommended. However that technique is not conducive to the requirement of great and repeatable precision that the 'eye-over' technique offers.

Even though I am training myself to the English draw to the ear, does not mean that there is no merit in what Toll is saying. for the vast majority of trad archers, it is my opinion that what he is saying will hold true if it is applied honestly and deliberately. But here, I am referring only to his body position at anchor, and not his drawing style about which I know nothing as yet having not tried it.

With respect to the technique used by Howard Hill, it is on the written record that he considered his 'aiming' technique to be a form of gap shooting which he referred to as Toll does as 'split vision' differing only in that Hill focussed on the mark with his peripheral vision being used to position his arrow point whereas pure gap shooting by my understanding is to have the actual gap in focus rather than either the mark or the arrow tip.

One other interesting aside that I noticed with Hill's technique was that in most of his pictures in books, he seems to have a very 'head up' anchor rather than as Toll noticed, that he had his dominant eye over the arrow. There is a possible reason for this though which I received from Craig Ekin (I still have his email to me on this) who knew him personally from his own boyhood and later, was that Hill was left eye dominant but shot right handed. Thus, Hill really needed to have his head in a more upright position.

I was non-plussed of course and asked how he could have managed. Ekin's reply to me was that he very much relied on exact arrow spine to allow for his rather 'off-the-line' line of vision because his arrow point was actually in line with his left and dominant eye even though he drew right handed. Apparently those pictures where he did have his right eye tilted directly over the arrow were mainly his publicity shots where he needed to look the part.

Of course, the above is reported information to me and not necessarily my own, but if true, makes Hill all the more remarkable for that.

But, in general, yes, I do think that the 'eye-over' technique is the best of the alternatives from the standpoint of pure repeatable accuracy for the majority of archers. We can thank Horace Ford for that innovation into Western archery.
Dennis La Varénne

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Mick Smith
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Re: Eye alignment directly over the top of the arrow?

#8 Post by Mick Smith » Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:01 pm

I thought I'd try a bit of an experiment today. To me, it would seem reasonable that if you held your bow vertically and if you had your eye directly above the arrow, you would have to have the string right in front of your master eye.

I usually cant the bow slightly, but today I held it as vertical as possible. Sure enough, the string was visible as a blur, running vertically as well. As a part of the experiment I overlaid the blur of the string directly onto the arrow at full draw. This would ensure the arrow had to be directly under my eye.

I didn't just do this once, I did it for about 50 shots at various targets and at various ranges. How did I go, you might ask? Well, I've never managed to shoot as accurately in the horizontal plane before. There were almost zero left, right errors. However I can't say the same for the vertical plane. Shooting in this manner completely upset my normal allowances for distance. Most of my arrows hit the target at 12 o'clock and higher and when I tried to adjust the height of the arrow impacts, I didn't have a lot of success. I would end up with a string of arrows running vertically up and down the target face.

My conclusion is, this would be a very accurate technique if you were using sights on your bow, but without the sights, I just couldn't manage the distances anywhere as well as I would normally do.

Can I see any benefits with using this system for your average instinctive archer? Not really, but it's a good way of ensuring your eye is actually directly above the arrow and once you have determined that, you could then cant the bow and then shoot normally. If you had any doubts about your eye positioning, this simple technique will quickly tell you.

All in all, I found it an interesting day.
There is no use focusing on aiming if you don't execute the shot well enough to hit what your are aiming at.

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