A bow throws nothing. It stores the strength of your arms for two seconds, then gives it back in a hundredth of a second. Everything else follows from that.
What happens when you shoot
Drawing the string bends the limbs: they store your effort like a spring. When your fingers open, they spring back, the string pushes the arrow, and the energy turns into motion.
Not all of it goes into the arrow. Part stays in the limbs and string, which keep moving and vibrating: that is the noise and the jolt in your hand. A wooden longbow returns about 70% of the energy stored, a modern bow a bit more.
In numbers, for a simple hunting bow: a 25 g arrow leaving at 55 m/s (180 ft/s) carries about 38 joules. That's a thousand times less than a rifle bullet, see La balistique, but plenty to pass through game at short range when the point cuts.
Arrow weight matters. A light arrow leaves faster; a heavy one takes a larger share of the energy, and hits harder. Dry firing, shooting without an arrow, is the mistake that breaks bows: all the energy stays in the wood.
The three families of bows
The longbow: one piece, the limbs bend evenly. Simple, quiet, makeable, see Building a bow.
The recurve: the tips curve forward. They unroll as you draw, which stores more energy for the same length and gives a faster arrow. It's the Olympic bow.
The compound: cams at the ends change the leverage during the draw. The hardest part is mid-draw, then the force drops by 65 to 85% at full draw. You can aim for a long time without shaking. In return, it is heavy, mechanical and hard to repair far from a workshop.
The archer's paradox
On a simple bow, the arrow rests beside the wood, not in the centre. Yet it flies straight. The reason: at release, the arrow flexes into an S under the push of the string, bends around the handle, then straightens in flight.
That is why the arrow's stiffness (its spine) must match the bow's power. Too flexible, it flies left (for a right-hander); too stiff, it flies right. Half of all bad shots come from mismatched arrows, not from the archer.
Shooting: the movement
A shot is always built in the same order. Consistency matters more than strength.
- Stance: side-on, feet shoulder-width apart, square to the target.
- Nock: arrow on the rest, nock on the string, the coloured feather facing out.
- Fingers: three fingers on the string, index above the arrow, the other two below, the string in the crease of the first joint.
- Raise and draw: bow arm straight but not locked, elbow turned slightly out. Draw with your back, bringing the shoulder blades together, not with the biceps.
- Anchor: the string hand always comes to the same spot on the face, under the jaw or at the corner of the mouth. That's what makes every shot identical.
- Aim: dominant eye above the arrow. To find your dominant eye, frame a distant point in a circle made with both hands, then close one eye: the one that still sees the point is the right one.
- Release: relax the fingers, don't open the hand. The string hand slides back along the neck by itself.
- Hold: stay in position until the arrow lands. Moving at release throws the shot off.
Getting better
Start at 5 metres (5 yd), on a big target, with a light bow. The aim is not to hit the centre but to group: to land the arrows together. A tight group in the wrong place is fixed by aiming elsewhere; a scattered one is not.
Step back once your arrows group. A trained archer puts arrows inside a hand at 20 m (22 yd) with a simple bow. Beyond 30 m, the trajectory curves steeply and judging distance becomes the real problem.
Safety
- Nobody in front of the shooting line, ever.
- Behind the target: a bank, a mound or a net. A missed arrow can fly more than 100 m (110 yd).
- Check every arrow: a cracked arrow can shatter at release and go through your hand.
- Never dry fire.
- A leather finger tab and an arm guard prevent blisters and bruised wrists.