When I picked up a bow to start archery for the first time I found that aiming was a very difficult thing to do. I had been used to rifle shooting and I was trying to aim my arrow by sighting down the shaft. It’s not very practical to do that with a bow and arrow. My coach was an elderly relative who was a veteran target archer and he gave me a few tips when I asked him how do I aim my bow?
Practice, practice, practice
My archer relative told me that I should draw the bowstring so that it touched the side of my face. Look at the target while pointing the arrow in the right direction then release the arrow smoothly. Sounds easy enough doesn’t it?
I still didn’t understand how to aim the arrow at the center of the target though and my coach kept telling me to always pull the bowstring so that it came to rest at the same place on my face. He also told me that the secret to accurate shooting was practice.
Consistency is the key to accurate archery
Then it slowly came to me that there was no definitive way to sight an arrow or aim a bow at a target. Well there might be but I still don’t know what it is. The secret truly was in the practice, which enabled me to get consistent in the way I drew and released the arrow. Where the arrow hit the target was initially just trial and error but if you’re consistent with the draw and release then you should be able to hit the same point of the target with every arrow.
How do I aim a bow at the center of the target?
Of course it then follows that if you can consistently hit the same place on the target every time all you need to do is make that place be the little circle in the center.
I’m still very much a beginner and there are a lot of very neat secrets to archery and how to aim a bow that I still have to learn. Most things require lots of practice but you need to read as much as you can about techniques too to make sure that you practice the right things.