Archery FAQ: How to start with Thumb Release?

As many asked me and many struggle at the beginning. Don't give up, follow some easy steps and you will soon shoot like Ghengis Khan himself :D

Armin Hirmer
Malta Archery
100 Triq Annibale Preca
Lija LJA 1915
Malta

[judddobson]

I’m an American from Texas, and no one around here has even heard of thumb draw. If it’s not a big fancy compound bow, with the trigger and all the bells and whistles, they don’t care. So I’m proud to be the only historical archer in my community. Learning everything from Armin Hirmer’s videos and YouTube. lol

[mailais]

I went to my local club with my horsebow and they have like 80% olympic​ archer and when i used the thumbdraw and khatra the​y looked at me like i'm some sort of alien lol

[NUSensei]

Already onto it! Great timing, and great video.

[dannyharris]

M8 my name is Danny. I'm a new Artcher. I'm practicing at home in my apartment in Manchester I'm waiting for an opperasion and then I'll be able to get outside. So I watch all your stuff and I think your a grate Teacher. As soon as I get money I'll become a patrent so I can send you the money because you deserve it. You have answered all the questions and I'm sure wen I'm able to shoot over a distance it will all come together. So thanks M8 you are a star. Danny from Manchester

[tanmay]

You are a fantastic teacher! Thank you for the fine points

[mrtaffspoon]

Only £40 for a snake bow here in the UK. That's how I started my journey into thumb release, after watching your videos. Lots of practice later & I am much improved. Thanks Armin & keep up the good work :)

[rayzerot]

Educational while being oddly soothing and relaxing

[WRMonger]

I wish that you were somewhere in the US so that I could send my daughter to learn from you. She's training for mounted archery and she needs what you know, what you can teach.

[gblan]

If your eyes are open you're aiming, if they are closed you are not aiming. -Instinctive Archery Simplified

[rachaelcain]

Thank you so much for this video Armin, I can't tell you how helpful it's been! I started archery 6 years ago with thumb release then a year in had an instinctive or intuitive as you say, archery lesson where I tried three finger Mediterranean release. I left the club and started shooting in the garden at home. I've now got an opportunity to try horseback archery and so needed to go back to thumb release....I think I was almost dreading the challenge then I watched this and I was so inspired! I am absolutely loving everything about thumb release and shooting from the right. So thank you for your generous and empowering videos, for sharing your profound knowledge and the fun with trampolines, motorbikes, feet and moving around, so inspiring!

[martink]

Two years of shooting, never would I have known I "shouldn't" knock 90° because I can still shoot accurately, just without the bloody marks after each training :D

[visamedic]

I know you’re like 3-5 yards away, but your grouping is awesome for just messing around. I use to shoot tournaments with my compounds back in the 90’s. I got two “Robin Hood’s”, one accidentally at 60-70 yards, the other, after probably 50 shots, at 20. Even small game hunting, my best shots were taken on the fly at 15-30 yards, not even thinking about the yardage. Always shot worse when I was fixed on bullseye only.

[Vistresian]

Thank you for the tips.
There's so much packed into one video that it would be a shame for newer archers to miss out on content like this. I'm surprised the channel doesn't have more subscribers.

[alexanderson]

I’m a huge fan of archery and I love the thumb draw technique on eastern style bows. The hunter/ swat team leader Joel Turner demonstrated this method of shooting on his YouTube channel ShotIQ with modern bows and it looks like a cool challenge for me. Keep up the videos on different bow reviews, shooting techniques and other stuff.

[rooroo]

I’ve just gotten into archery since about late 2019 with the Samick Sage and Christmas 2020 I got a new horsebow, my first traditional bow. I’ve started doing the thumb draw recently but I also got a thumb ring because 60lbs of pressure is a lot to put on just my thumb alone! I will definitely try that half draw method though, usually when I get tired I just go back to the western way of doing it. The thing I also struggle with is the actual sight picture. Like with the western method I tend to aim off my knuckle and I’m still doing fairly close targets, with the anchor point just literally under my eye. It’s three fingers under, not Mediterranean so I can anchor it as close to my eye as I can, but with the thumb draw it’s like somewhere at the 10 o’ clock position. So I can kind of see the elevation of the shot but I’m still struggling with the sight picture, I think I have the release down though, I have to kind of bob the bow to the side like you did there on the release.^^

[martynbealing]

I started with a 50lb bow and it's been a little hard but I got used to it. I would not have started with it out of choice but I knew nothing about archery when I bought it. I also bought a thumb ring and it works great. Thanks for your great instructional videos. Very helpful 😁

[gaha]

Du machst unglaublich wertvolle Videos, das hilft mir sehr in meiner Entwicklung dieser für mich neuen Technik.

[SUHSeungJi]

So the Turk Alps used the thumb ring as a guide. This makes sense, a useful tool for shooting from horseback. Thank you for the video, and giving us a whole tutorial instead of one minute like so many do.

[dreadsta]

9:44 Aiii La Madona :D just kidding. Great teacher!

[humblebug]

Wish this video existed when I learnt how to shoot lol. Would have helped me a bunch. Lucky newbies. ;)