Archery Anchor Points

I have made other posts in the past about anchor points, but as demonstrated by the quote "Anchor point, anchor point, anchor point!" from my post "Archery Compliment / Tight Clusters" anchor points are extremely important when it comes to accuracy - and accuracy in archery means tight clusters.

Basically there are many factors that go into shooting an accurate cluster of arrows - but if you cannot pull back to a consistent anchor point, much of your efforts are going to be in vain.

There are other issues of course, things like draw distance / using full draw, making sure you are standing up straight and leaning to one side (no "teapotting" as per the "I'm a little teapot" song) and a host of other issues I teach during my archery lessons here in Toronto.

The image below is a culmination of 8 photos I took with my cellphone between October 2014 and March 2015. The people in the photo had different appearances, in some cases glasses, beards, hats on, different hair styles, etc. But they all had one thing in common - the approximate location of their anchor spot. Some of them were even left-handed shooters, so I just reversed the image before overlapping it.

"Eight Archers, One Anchor Spot" (Version II)

I feel the image demonstrates the importance of having a solid anchor spot (regardless of whether you are using "North Anchor" like a traditional archer or "South Anchor" like an Olympic archer. Maybe sometime in the future I will take more photos of Olympic archers and a photo similar to this one showing South Anchor.

Now you might think, what difference does it make where I pull back to?

Well it doesn't - just so long as you can remember to use the EXACT SAME SPOT each time you shoot. This is why traditional archers use the corner of their mouth as their anchor spot, because it is a handy landmark for remembering where to pull to exactly - in an effort to be as precise as possible.

So what difference would it make if you pulled to different spots on your face each time?

A lot actually. When shooting at a distance of 60 feet I estimate that moving your anchor spot 1 mm can make 1 to 2 inches difference in terms of accuracy, depending on the person and the type of bow they are using. So if your anchor spot is off by just 5 mm but you are doing everything else perfectly your arrow could miss its mark by 5 to 10 inches. At longer distances the degree of accuracy becomes ever more important so you need to have a very consistent anchor spot when aiming at long distance targets.

For archery lessons in Toronto email me to schedule lessons. I will teach you how to shoot accurately and consistently.