What do 2016 Olympic bronze-medal-winning archer Brady Ellison and traditional archer Tom Clum Sr. have in common?
They both shoot their bows according to the techniques taught by Kisik Lee - head coach of the U.S. National Archery Team. Ellison, of course, shoots a fully-rigged Olympic recurve bow, while Clum shoots a traditional, barebow recurve.
A certified, USA Archery Level 3 coach, Clum takes the shooting process taught at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and delivers it to traditional archers across the country. Frequently, he teams up with fellow traditional archer Joel Turner, who specializes in teaching mental control of the shot process. Specifically, Turner focuses on how to beat target panic.
Together, they coach the body and the mind - the primary drivers of the archery shot process. That's pretty standard for coaching target archery, regardless of whether it's with a compound or a recurve bow.
But it's basically unheard of in traditional archery, which is what makes the instructional programs these two put on so unique.
We caught up with Turner and Clum in July 2017 at the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous in northcentral Pennsylvania, where they spent several days teaching groups and coaching individuals.
In this podcast, you will learn:
- How the shooting form taught to Olympic recurve archers applies to traditional archery and bowhunting.
- Why archers get target panic.
- How to beat target panic.
- Why proper body alignment is important no matter what kind of bow you shoot.
- What it was like for a shy, small-town guy like Clum to find himself among 6,000 traditional archers.
- How Turner shoots a bow with a right-handed grip, but a left-handed shelf.
“What I found was, holy mackerel, we can put our shot into biomechanics that we can take under a bush with us. We can use (a recurve bow) the exact same way as an Olympic archer does, but under a bush."
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