Archery: February 2014

How to Teach “The Transfer” Form Step

By Tom Dorigatti

Photos courtesy of, Pat Dorigatti, Pete Dorigatti, Tom Dorigatti, Dean Pridgen, Steve Ruis, Roger S. Wheaton, and Larry Wise. Videos by Robbie Stouffer.

Presleys Outdoors was host to the Larry Wise Core Archery Academy course on November 9-10, 2013. Larry Wise was on-site to teach the course and team-taught with local archer, author and Level 3 USA Archery/NFAA Certified coach, Tom Dorigatti.

15 archers attended this two-day Seminar which included review of the key form steps for the proper execution of back tension, form and draw length analysis and photographing the before and after. In addition there was a short course on the history of the release aid and compound bow followed by the newly unveiled “Recurved Bow with Release Aid Lab” specifically designed teach a specific step of the all important shot sequence, the “TRANSFER” of the holding weight of the bow from the release hand, wrist, and forearm to the proper muscle groups that allow for the “execution of the shot with proper back tension.”

History of the Release aid.

In 1970, the competitive archery world was “rocked” with a major change. The day of the release aid was upon us. After a membership vote, a bare majority decided to allow the use of a release aid in archery competitions.

I won’t go into the details with words, since pictures are worth a thousand words. Let it suffice to say that all of the release aids pictured are real. Many were home-made and others made by various archery gurus of the day as well as taken up by manufacturers over the years. The first releases were nothing but a “ledge” upon which you hooked the bow string, pulled with all first finger, hoped you got to full draw and manipulated with proper back tension to rotate the release off the bowstring.

Then Freddie Troncoso, among others also made rope releases whereby you wrapped one rope around the bow string and a shorter rope was secured on a brass button on a leather pad and held with thumb pressure. You came to full draw with the release aid, got into your full draw position, continued your “back tension” and gradually let up pressure on the thumb until the rope was released and the shot broke.

Of course, this release was a Concho style and very hard to master without either “creeping” or “shooting on the go-by.” There were several shooters that did very well with this style of release, and Eva Troncoso and Jack Lancaster were among the best masters of the rope release.

There was even a variant of a Concho release combined with a “hook” called a “Super Chicken” release aid that many people shot well with. The cost back then was only $14.98!

It is hard to determine, but Rick Fawley introduced a trip gate release right around the same time (or maybe after, who knows?) that Mel Stanislawski started making the original Stanislawski release aids. Both the Fawley and the Stanislawski had very similar trip gates and the rope around the string concept.

I believe that Fawley’s release however had a bearing in between the release body and the insert for the first finger that made it easier to get the release body to rotate. You will note that the Fawley release looks alarmingly similar to a release aid just put out on the market a few months ago by Scott Archery. It is also of importance to note that today, some 40 years later, a growing number of archers are back to the “hinge-style” BT release aids, and about the only difference is the pivot point which allows today’s hinge releases to be shot off of a d-loop instead of a rope around the string.

Once sears and triggers were legalized, then advancements came quickly. Some were rather crude with regard to trigger travel and adjustment, but they worked just fine. There were some weird contraptions out there, but they worked well.

In the early 1990’s, Dee Wilde met Jerry Carter (or so I’m told this is what happened?), and Dee wanted a thumb trigger release that was stiffer and that incorporated a double sear. Jerry Carter came up with this release aid. The photo is a release that belongs to Peter Dorigatti and it is Purple in color and appropriately named the “Wilde Thing.” So, that was the beginning of Carter Releases and Carter Enterprises that has launched so many new and different release aids and become a market leader in hand held release aids as well as wrist strap releases.

Bows were changing too. The first compound bows had wooden handles, and some were impregnated with resins in order to make the risers stronger. They had 4-wheels on them; two were “eccentrics” and the other two were pulley assists, similar to a block and tackle. The original Allen compounds were first, quickly followed by Olympus, Jennings, and once the patents were licensed, quickly followed on by Carroll, PSE, and Astro, then Bear Archery.

Hoyt didn’t come along with a compound bow until around 1975 or 1976, and by then, 2-wheeler compounds and even some six-wheeled compounds were coming onto the scene, along with other radical designs. The photo below are of the Jennings compound that Dean Pridgen used to win the NFAA National Outdoor Field Championship in Ludlow MA in 1972. The letoff on this compound bow may have been 30%!

Only a few years later, Jennings built a two-wheeled I model compound for Rosie Pridgen. Notice some similarities to some riser designs being used today? Those back then were not machined risers, however.

In 1973, I was living in Sacramento, California while going through USAF flight training to become a navigator. I was a member of the El Dorado Hills Bowmen and met a great group of people to shoot with. Among them was a gentleman by the name of Jim Sweeney. In the early summer, Jim had built himself a compound bow patterned after the SABO recurved bow, only with Jennings compound bow limbs and brackets on it.

I was still shooting my fingers at the time, but thought it would be great to build two more of these “Sweeney Bows”, only make them 3-4” longer so finger shooting with them would be easier. We set to work on a pair of longer “Sweeney Bows”, one for me, and one for my father. Pictured below are me shooting the “Sweeney Compound” me and Jim built I had also built the rope spike release pictured earlier to shoot specifically with the “Sweeney Compound” bow. Several years later, Jim Sweeney built another Sweeney bow that was on a two-wheeled platform but using the same SABO patterned riser.

Let’s take a look at the trending over the course of the past 40 years with regard to the compound bow; specifically the let-off component:-In the 1970’s, the letoff was 25-35%.

Then it was bumped to 40-50% in the 1980’s.
In the 1990’s it went to 55-65% let off.
In the 2000’s let-off went to 70-80%. There are even bows out there now that offer 90% or more letoff!

The most difficult form step to master with today’s compound bows is the starting, holding, and completing, without letup, the “Transfer” once Full Draw Position is reached.

With lower mass weights and lower holding weights, it is very easy to hold at full draw with the use of hands and arms instead of having a load on the appropriate Rhomboids and Levator Scapulae muscles.

Thus, you see lots of shooters with little to no “recoil” off the release and/or fake motions after the arrow is in the target. So, the shooters are loading up with mass weight, not on the bow, but out away from the bow to “stabilize things”, which isn’t all bad, but having that mass weight extended out from the body some 40” or more creates a balance problem of another nature; one that must be overcome, and one that makes “Transfer” even more difficult.

Videos

The links below show slow motion photography for 4 of the shooters executing their first shots off of a recurved bow with a release aid. Realize that the actual time elapsed was around 5-7 seconds, but the slow motion photography slows it down immensely. If you watch closely near the end, you can click on the start and stop button and watch this frame by frame to see the reactions of the shooters…down to their hair bouncing around and the totally surprised look on their faces as they feel a real explosion off the bow and a real surprise follow-through! Enjoy the videos.

Bill M