Beginner's Guide to Traditional Archery

If you have a dislike for the compound bow and would like a book covering all aspects of the traditional long bow this book was written for you! The author introduces you to the right equipment and how to make adjustments. This is followed by correct shooting form and accuracy exercises. The text is supported by high quality black and white pictures. The last topic, instinctive bow hunting, clearly shows the author in numerous body positions to use in hunting. One favorite picture shows a 3D target deer caught in some tangled brush. The hunting exercise leads one to develop instinctive shooting technique. The author discusses numerous opinions and offers his own after evaluating that of others. At the end there is an appendix on archery suppliers, bow makers, and other resources. I disliked the section of the book (a concentration exercise) dealing with shooting an arrow with one eyes closed. Overall the book exceeded my expectations; for that reason I am giving it a perfect score of five stars!

I've collected a growing shelf of books on traditional archery by G. Fred Asbell, Byron Ferguson and several others. I'm still looking for a real encyclopedic guide to traditional archery, but Sorrel's book is a good addition to the literature. This is a slim volume, but just about everything in it is useful. There's no padding with an author's biography, long winded onions, or cutting down the theories of other that you find in some traditional archery books. Sorrells tells you how to set up a bow, and how to learn to shoot bare bow, and does a darn good job of it.This is not, however, a book for the absolute beginner. The section on buying a bow tells you to buy a good bow, but doesn't really tell you what makes a good bow. With the shortage of local archery shops that understand traditional archery, this is something that's really needed. A section explaining the differences between recurves and longbows, and how to judge a bow, would be a good addition to the next edition of this book. There's also some confusion in Sorrell's description of FOC (front of center) as it relates to arrow balance. An arrow that balances 15% of the arrow's length ahead of the midpoint of the arrow is said to be 15% FOC. Sorrells mistakenly describes 15% FOC as the arrow having 15% of its weight ahead of the midpoint. If that were the case, the balance point would be back towards the nock. I don't think this is what he meant to say, as I'm sure Sorrells understands FOC, but this is something else that should be fixed in future editions.Ignoring that, those, this is a good book for understanding how to set up a bare bow, and how to shoot without sights, and for that, I recommend it to all bare bow archers.

Over the years I have amassed a healthy archery library. I have books that are much larger, MUCH more expensive, some clinical, some anecdotal, more than a few that were redundant and a couple that were woo-woo crazy. This single, unassuming little paperbook has proven more valuable than ANY of them and I have purchased at least fifteen copies as gift for friends who wanted to practice archery. I will be buying more for the same reason. His training program is HIGHLY effective for the instinctive archer and while there are other methods, if you use this as your foundation you will have no trouble transitioning to other styles and methods of archery.For a basic, well-rounded education in traditional archery as well as a marvelous training regimen, you simply cannot beat this book.

Very good book. I have been shooting with recurves and compounds (for pretty much all my life) and just bought a longbow. This book is full of good tips and cover a lot. It does not fall like many books on archery that explain all the kinds of bows on the markets, or all the kinds of arrows and blades, and strings.... It goes through many many (I want to say all) sides of shooting (mindset, stands, experience, exercises, ...) with a traditional bow. It's exactly what I was looking for. A simple (but thorough) approach to traditional archery, Thanks!

I have shot a compound for a good many years but finally at age 60 decided I wanted to do something different and learn to shoot a traditional bow. Knowing that instinctive shooting would be like learning another language I wanted to read something about the subject before I ever took my first shot. Although I see this has received some negative feed back, I for one thought this was a great primer. Yes, I may never make and fletch my own arrows but I found the information very interesting. I'm a member of a Sportsman's Club and some of our member archers actually do their own.What I really found instructive were the chapters on bow tuning, stance work and the beginning and advanced shooting drills. Having run commercial martial arts schools for many years and having taught exercise physiology at the graduate school level I can appreciate the author's simple, graduated drills for developing good neuromuscular memory and eye/brain/hand coordination and I will start doing these to the letter. I am very happy to have read this cover to cover before drawing back my re-curve.

I saw that this book was recommended by several sites. I bought it as I am just beginning to be interested in traditional archery. The first half is really thin on information. The second half is full of exercises which seem good. I have tried some and they seem to help as I get started.It will not provide you with information that I was looking for such as definitions. There is, as in any profession or hobby, a lot of jargon, language specific to the hobby. Not explained as well as I wanted.I thought Shooting The Stick Bow to be much more helpful.