Steve Ruis is the archery coach of the University of Chicago archery team and the editor of Archery Focus.
My ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Competitive Archery, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create an extraordinarily accurate archery technique.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
INTRODUCTION BY STEVE RUIS
I was browsing the web recently and ran across this ebook: An Alexander Technique Approach to Competitive Archery by Ethan Kind, M.M., Certified A.C.A.T., Am.S.A.T. I had heard of the Alexander Technique associated with dance, singing, and playing musical instruments, but the originator, Frederick Matthias Alexander, was a stage actor who tended to lose his voice during performances. Finding no physical cause, Alexander reasoned that he was the cause of his problem somehow.
Through observing himself in mirrors, he noticed that he was contracting his whole body in preparation to speak. By experimenting as to how to stop the unnecessary muscle contraction, especially in his neck, he cured himself. He further refined his technique of self-observation and re-training and taught his discoveries to others.
I had never connected the Alexander Technique with archery but obviously somebody had! This is why I jumped on his ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Competitive Archery, and after just starting to read it I contacted the author Ethan Kind. We worked on an introduction and excerpt of his book to share with you in Archery Focus Magazine. You can buy Ethan’s ebook on this website in a pdf format.
If you really want to get a more full understanding of the approach, get a copy of his ebook as there is a great deal more to this. All we talk about below is stance and general physical approach to making a shot. At the end of the conversation I solicit those of you who might want to explore this technique to work with Ethan and share what you learn.
CONVERSATION
Steve: I am struggling to get a picture of the Oblique Stance you say the Alexander Technique favors. I quote the descriptions here:
“The oblique stance is what the Alexander Technique would call a narrow stance vertical lunge position, and of the four archery stances, it is the one the Alexander Technique recommends.
“The oblique stance, is really an extraordinary stance, because it places the archer on approximately a 45 degree diagonal to the target . . .
“To see the target, you need to spiral the head, but because of your whole body being on a diagonal to the target, you have to turn the head only about 22 degrees. If you were to stand in any of the other three stances: Even Stance, Closed Stance, or Open Stance, then you have to spiral the head 45 degrees–twice as much and on poor leg placement.”
In an Even Stance the torso is at right angles to the shooting line, feet spread but parallel and head turned, as you say, approx. 45 degrees toward the target. To get the head to turn but half of that angle, the torso would need to be 45 degrees open to the target (rotated toward the target). This is not a closed stance as your label implies but an open stance.
At full draw position (for a right handed recurve archer) the shoulders are on a line pointing to the right of the target (as the arrow is necessarily pointed at the target) and the head position angle is determined by that requirement, not at stance taking. Can you help with this?
Ethan: I thought about it after I sent the email, looking at the overhead illustration you sent me. One of the things that the Alexander Technique does is not force an alignment. What I mean is that the arm holding the bow should not be fully be locked, holding the bow rigidly straight from the side. A lot of times what people call alignment is going too far. The perfect example is when most people stand up straight, they usually over-arch backwards.
Steve: Absolutely agreed. The bow arm needs to be naturally straight. A perfect orientation for the bow arm can be found when it is hanging at one’s side. Merely raise the arm out to the side and everything is in place. It is not necessarily to try to lock out the elbow, stiffen the wrist or many of the other things people do.
Steve: The shoes on the carpet on that same page are a little closer to what most call an oblique stance (albeit it shows a narrow oblique stance rather than an wide one). So, is it a narrow oblique stance as you indicate in your text or an wide one. I think that the narrow oblique stance has a great deal to offer, except that fact that it is out of favor.
Ethan: From the Alexander perspective it is a matter a degree, so it is up to the individual to determine a foot placement with unlocked knees and hips that feels solid and grounded under the archer. In other words, since we all have different proportions, the archer should start with what is considered “right” and keep changing foot placement until you feel incredibly powerful and grounded. You will probably end up with a compromise somewhere between open and closed.
Steve: My position (and this is the long standing position that has been seemingly forgotten) is that the closed stance allows for better upper body form at full draw. It stems from the fact that the shoulders at full draw are 10-13 degrees closed relative to the arrow line, so the most comfortable position would be for the feet to be on a line 10-13 degrees closed as that would result in hips, ankles and knees being lined up and with the shoulders as well. (I call this the natural body position, which we almost never find on our own because we are either taught a different way or are copying an archer who uses a different way.
The goal is to achieve as relaxed a state as possible with only the muscles needed to execute the shot being activated. Elite archers go on and then change that form so they can more effectively counter the effects of wind on their bodies, etc.
Ethan: I completely agree with your sense of ease in the stance, and you are probably correct for most archers. The only thing I’m saying is that no matter how logical a technique choice is, until the individual tests it out, you won’t truly know.
When I went to an Alexander teacher with carpal tunnel syndrome from playing the guitar six hours a day, I learned to look at every aspect of my guitar playing from head to toe, conscious and unconscious postural and technique choices, and test out if they worked for me as I played. The Alexander teacher made suggestions, which taught me how to create my own personal guitar technique.
I experimented with and modified everything I was doing, at times returning to the original technique, until I had the most mechanically advantageous, whole body way for me to play. This meant I could play the most difficult pieces with ease and accuracy. It also meant I was coordinated from head to toe. This is similar to what I see in a lot of archers, not being athletically and elegantly organized from head to toe.
Steve: Bingo! This is why I want to highlight your book for those open to a different approach. What you describe regarding your guitar playing I refer to as “owning your shot” in archery which to a large extent involves owning your body, basically allowing it to function without conscious interference.
Ethan: In terms of my experience in archery, it is only with clients. I address this in the new intro I wrote. I haven’t done archery myself, but Alexander Technique teachers can’t possibly do everything their clients do. You’ll see what I mean when you read the intro.
Steve: Sounds good! But do try archery when you have the chance, it is amazing our clear one’s mind becomes when you give it a meaningless but fulfilling task one can totally focus on.
Ethan: I know. Zen and the Art of Archery has been one of the most important books that put me on a spiritual path.
Steve: Interesting, I am currently reading a scholarly article which claims that Eugen Herrigel’s teacher was a total iconoclast and that archery has never been a Zen discipline in Japan. Not that it matters, fiction or fact, it still has the same impact. I remember the first time I read that book.
Ethan: When I started playing the guitar with the same trust and faith in my accuracy, it was an amazing experience to know I couldn’t miss.
Steve: I can make a diagram showing foot positions. That is not a problem. I can make the appropriate diagrams as long as the description given in the diagram is what you want: back foot parallel to the shooting line, front foot on a 45 degree angle? This is close to the foot positions currently being recommended by USA Archery’s National Coach. His recommendation involves a great deal of twisting from the hips up (the hips staying close to being aligned with the feet).
Ethan: Perfect. I don’t see it as twisting from the hips. I see it as the balls of the femurs spiraling in the sockets, so it doesn’t feel like a twist, and the torso moving up out of the legs. The word twist by definition almost always means tension and pulling down.
Steve: That is indeed what they are recommending. The hips stay approximately 20-30 degrees open to the target and the shoulders end up 10-13 degrees closed to the target. This cannot happen without considerable tension and pulling down. The stated purpose is to make the torso more rigid to provide a more stable platform from which to shoot. They are even teaching this to youths who have so little muscle development that no such tension is created. Possibly it is for later? I don’t know. I plucked a couple of images off of the Internet to show you. They are attached.
Ethan: In the first picture (from the back), you can see how the archer is locking his hips and twisting his torso. If you let the torso spiral on the hips, you minimize the need to twist the torso. In the second picture, notice how the archer is pulling his head forward collapsing his neck, instead of bringing the bow to him. But the most obvious thing is how he is hunkering down and collapsing his torso. You can see the downward curve in the torso, and he is forcing his shoulder to the chest side, trying to get more stability, but only making his shoulder musculature work even more.
Ethan: So, what I just did is the kind of thing that usually only an Alexander teacher can pick up on.
Steve: For what we are doing now, this will have to do, but we need to be able to show how it could be different, possibly with an archer modeling both forms. This is exciting and confusing at the same time. That usually tells me you are on to something. I am just not informed enough to really tell. If you are willing to keep working on this, we should be able to find a way to do this.
Ethan: What I think it is you may be missing, is that you want the archer to only focus on the means and forget the target. So, you find the most effortless, upright, unlocked, wide open posture and bring the bow to you, and then trust the release of the arrow.
Steve: I am not sure I follow this last statement.
Ethan: What I’m trying to say is that the posture of hunkering down is driven by the fear of missing the mark (bull’s eye). Once an archer gets the basics of the stance, his main focus is only on hitting the mark, not on how he hits the mark. Classical musicians do this for hours every day, mainly focusing on what’s coming out of the instrument, rather than on how they get what they want out of the instrument with ease.
Steve: Here is the basic difference: archers focus on the activity as they are doing it to be able to repeat it, without thought of hitting the mark. Exactly the opposite of what musicians do.
Ethan: But what happens to the archer in a competition? Does he stay with the means or focus only on the ends (hitting the bull’s eye)?
Steve: Current teaching is that one must focus on the process entirely. Only after the shot does one contemplate the outcome and whether the process of the next shot need be amended. For example, an archer executes a perfect shot (or what feels like one). Upon checking the target, the arrow is just to the right of center. A check of the wind flag shows a left-to-right wind, so the archer shifts his point of aim to slightly to the left of center so that the wind will blow the arrow into the center. While shooting the archer is focused on the “now” in the shot with the inertia of his/her training carrying him/her to the next phase and the next, etc. Score is not contemplated only the flow.
Ethan: This is absolutely exactly what the Alexander Technique teaches. So, if the archer does this and is not getting the results he wants, then there must be something wrong with his archery technique, which prevents the archer from effortlessly hitting the mark. I’ve written about this with performing musicians. If the pianist’s technique is seriously flawed, creating limits on the pianist’s ability to play the most difficult music with ease, then no matter how much in the moment the performer is, he won’t be able to count on his body to give him the performance he wants. It is absolutely the same with the archer.