Building a bulletproof release
Alexandr Kalinichenko delves into history
The release of the bowstring has always been considered as the most important element of an archer’s technique as it predetermines athlete’s performance. It is the cornerstone of archery technique as well as its most complicated element.
Biomechanical analysis shows that the release can be executed in a few fundamentally different ways:
• with strain in the extensor muscles to the fingers
• by relaxation of the finger flexors
• strain of the extensors with simultaneous relaxation of flexors
By the end of the 1960s, in the circle of coaches from different countries, there were a few fundamentally different views both on the best ways to release the bowstring and the movement of the hand with the bow after the shot. A lot of reputable coaches asserted that in the moment of release the hand should remain as still as possible.
The champion of the world, a Czechoslovakian archer and coach, Frantishek Hadash, and his colleague Jiri Viskochil recommended releasing a bowstring by quick opening of fingers and imagining as if you have burnt your fingers. His colleague, Polish coach and famous archery theorist Marian Twardowski suggested relaxing the fingers as fast as possible. These ideas had their followers, and the argument did not have a winner, since the techniques of quick opening and quick relaxing of fingers were both proved to be inefficient.
Moreover, setting up to perform both actions (quick strain and relaxation) provokes the emergence of unwanted violations of the shooters’ motor skill coordination to the same extent. The optimal style of the production of the string developed elsewhere, as coaches from the city of Lviv, Mykola Kalinichenko and Mikhail Khuskivadze, began to promote a new style of shooting in Europe. (For reference: Lviv is located in the western part of modern Ukraine and is known as a city where the first archery world championship was held. FITA was founded there in 1931.)
They concentrated on the development of techniques aimed at solving the problems of “target panic”. That technique of release was called the release of a string 'by a 'slip'. This new style totally contradicted the advice of the archery gatekeepers of the times. According to them, the release of the string was done by the gradual relaxation of deep finger extensors to the critical moment - 'slip' of the string. They also recommended that archer’s arms naturally retreat in the direction of "last effort" after the shot. The archer in this case
should not concentrate on holding arms after the release in the maximum still condition, and the fingers should be neither relaxed nor tense.
Another feature of this style developed performance of additional actions such as 'pulling-pressing' and a full follow-through. The style of shooting offered by Mykola Kalinichenko and Mykhailo Huskivaze (former USSR coaches) proved to be so revolutionary and efficient that it allowed the rapid rise in performance and further successes of archers of the former USSR who began to use it in the 70's and 80's. As a result, this shooting style had allowed archers of the former USSR to lead in Europe since the 1970s and become record-holders, champions and prize-winners of the Olympic Games and World Championships. There are many well-known archers of the former USSR whose technique of shooting was based on the principles of the mentioned shooting style: Valentina Kovpan, Zebiniso Rustamova, Natalia Butuzova, Boris Isachenko, Irina Soldatova, Genadiy Mitrofanov, Stanislav Zabrodskyi, Lyudmila Arzhannikova, Volodymyr Yesheiev, Olha Rohova, Natalia Valeeva.
Subsequently, a similar style of shooting began to be replicated in other countries of the world. Similar principles of shooting style spread through the influential coach Al Henderson, from the United States. Another proof of the advantages and efficiency of the 'slip of the string' style is that South Korean coaches and athletes, who are considered to be leaders in modern archery in recent years, use similar principles and methodology in the technical training of their archers.
The main difference between the proposed shooting style is not in its external features, but in fundamentally other psychophysiological mechanisms of muscle control, which the archer involves to perform the final part, the shot. Note that the archers who began to use the style of shooting 'slip of the string, involve specific mechanisms of muscle control to perform the final actions, similar to the 'motion without purpose'.
As we have already mentioned, archers can shoot two fundamentally different ways: one is in the style of slipping with the use of mechanisms of control of the type motion without purpose and another is by the mechanisms of control of the type "target movements". One is efficient, the other is inefficient.
Accordingly, both the quality of the motor skills of the archer and the performance to a large extent depend on the choice between the two mechanisms of motion control to perform the final actions. Possibilities of involving various mechanisms of control of skeletal muscle figuratively can be compared with the simultaneous presence in the human body of two networks of control. And, proceeding from the tasks of the ultimate goal of motor activity, the archer always has the opportunity, at his own discretion, to build behaviour and decide when and in what way to carry out the activity of their own skeletal muscles to perform the shot.
One network is very simple and has been preserved since the time of the emergence of living organisms. The second network is a prototype of modern "computers" and contains an infinite number of complex preventive and security systems. With this in mind, one can assume that if necessary, a person has the ability to disable automatic control and consciously use a simpler and, accordingly, more reliable mode of 'manual control' to perform certain elements of technique. The analysis shows that the methodical techniques that involve control mechanisms such as 'motion without purpose' remain the most effective ones to