Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, feet pointed in the same direction, shoulders completely in line with your target, keep you bow arm perfectly straight, draw, breath out, and release.

That's bascially the tradional target archery shooting process. However, anyone whos ever gone stump shooting or hunting knows that kind of stance and shot is near inexucutable.

I think that learning some different postions and practicing them will make me a more well rounded archer. Do you guys know anything about these postions? I can shoot pretty well from my knees but how do you shoot laying down?

Any advice is appreaciated.

Thanks!

I think that shot is perfectly executable, and I go roving all the time.  It's funny you should mention this, as I was just practicing today taking instinctive shots at a deer target from 20-50 yards, utilizing cover, forcing me to bend around trees and the like.  Kneeling shots were unobtainable with a 6'2" longbow, even with substantial cant, as the lower limb would strike the ground.  I'm a pretty tall girl, but the bow is just too long for that.  If I intend to do any kneeling I'll take my horsebow next time.  However, shooting from cover rapidly was easily achievable with a minimally modified standard target archery posture.  I say minimally modified, as I wasn't standing perfectly straight, I was leaning forward to move out of cover and so on and so forth, but really, it was pretty much the same as my typical stance.

Sometimes on field archery courses or in roving, I'm in a position where my feet can't be where I normally put them, or one has to be higher than the other or something, but this generally isn't an issue for me.  Again, leaning up or down or side to side, moving your feet slightly, I consider these minimally modified postures.  I've never run into a problem using an upright archery stance in a wooded environment, and that's the bulk of my shooting experience.

Incidentally, the target archery stance these days isn't what you describe, at least not for FITA shooters.  They utilize a rear-foot forward stance with the feet rotated slightly towards the target.  I've never liked it much, so I use a stance similar to what you describe, which is the old target archery stance of yesteryear.

I was more replying to Dan, Mauro, but I agree that you don't have time to set a careful stance when shooting moving targets, or even necessarily doing what I was doing today.  However, I've drilled my stance so much by shooting so many times, that my body naturally adopts that posture (or a slight variation thereof) reflexively.  Just like anything else, if you train the right posture over and over again, it will be available to you when you need it.  You may not be able to stand with your feet exactly as you do on an indoor shooting line, or with your body as rigidly upright as you would when you're not in a hurry, but the overall form should remain consistent.

One thing I'm working on is taking very rapid shots (time from sighting the target to loosing the arrow in less than 2 seconds) without changing my anchor point.  I have a very solid anchor point, with three physical points of reference, so it's easy for me to know when my anchor is on or off.  There is a tendency though to creep off the anchor when shooting very fast, so today I was focusing on maintaining those three points of contact even with my most rapid shots.

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Dec 10^th, 2012 at 9:26pm:


Eventually I may move in that direction.  I'd like to do pop-up silhouette targets, as I'm interested in exploring the bow as a weapon of warfare.  Archery tag also sounds like a blast, though the bow poundage is very light:  http://archerytag.com/

2 seconds doesn't include nocking the arrow to the string, or reloading.  My point is just that I'm acquiring the target, drawing and loosing without any pausing for conventional aiming, or even to really focus on my target.

On that field battle: we had arrows similar to those shown in your link, but the enemies were wearing metal helmets (of various types).
Well... those I was shooting at. Others were wearing leather caps or nothing at all, and I didn't shoot at them, not even with our modified arrows.
Greetings,
Mauro.

You're right Dan, I meant the archer laying on his back 
When shooting at people, we used our usual bows, varying from 45 to 65 lbs, but our arrows where shortened so we couldn't draw them at full power. And they had sugar plugs instead of the usual arrowheads 
Greetings,
Mauro.

Quote:


For kneeling, if you hold your bow with your left, try putting your left knee on the ground, your right leg will be bent with the foot securely on the ground. One knee stance. Your body will align just like your used to when standing. It may make it less awkward. Vice-versa if you hold  your bow with the right hand.

Yeah, see what I mean. 

I consider kneeling different than standing although there are many similarities (as there should be), and I consider prone different than sitting.

The biggest thing with changing your feet is ensuring there is little change in the upper part of your body. If you can't get a consistent full draw, your trajectory won't be consistent, and in turn, you won't be as accurate.

And again, I also find it really fun to practice shots like these. Not just for practical hunting reasons, but for entertainment as well. I find Olympic archery quite mundane compared to watching roving or trick shooting. It keeps it interesting if you mix things up sometimes.