3 under anchor and alignment

[Matt Parker]

I gap shoot and I anchor middle finger in the corner of my mouth. The only problem I have is that the back of my hand hits my jaw and forces my arrow to be at an angle to the target. so at full draw I have to hold my arrow point to the right of the target to allow for the angle of the arrow. Has anyone else had this problem? I can anchor index finger in corner of my mouth and my arrow line is perfectly straight but that lowers my anchor point which drastically increases my gaps.

[mahantango]

I can't even begin to picture how the back of your hand hits your jaw when your middle finger is at the corner of your mouth. Maybe a photo would help?

[olddogrib]

I think he's probably talking about the base of his hand, as I have the identical problem.  I was never even aware of it until I started tinkering with a fixed crawl and realized my natural cant drastically misaligned the arrow to the eye when it's now sitting 3/4" above your fingers!  The "light bulb" didn't go off until I came to full draw while looking in a mirror and realized I'd have to anchor under my chin (Oly style) in order to look truly down the shaft center.  My sight picture is sort of a "triangulation" with my non-dominant eye also open , but I realized I've always done it this way. I just never realized it until I started paying attention to the arrow point instead of just allowing it to happily exist out there in my periphery. Maybe I'm eligble for honorary instinctive status, lol!  With a fixed crawl I can basically "gun barrel", my PO just has to be at 3 o'clock in relation to the spot. Facial width and the alignment of its features are something I suspect vary widely among individuals.  I vote that anybody lucky enough to have their dominant eye directly over the corner of their mouth get an automatic DQ from 3D tourneys, lol!

[Matt Parker]

Yes I mean the base of my hand. And I think it probably does change from person to person based on facial features.

[McDave]

Just looked in the mirror, and found that the corner of my mouth is closer to the center line of my face than my eye, which is no doubt why I've never had any problem getting my eye over the arrow.  Just lucky, I guess. I've always been told not to tilt my head, and never felt any need to, and now I know why.  But I suppose if, because of a person's facial structure, he couldn't get the arrow under his eye any other way, maybe tilting the head would be the lesser of two evils?  I know a lot of very good shooters do tilt their heads.

[Matt Parker]

I like the way my anchor feels with my index finger in the corner of my mouth but the only bad part is that my point on is 40 yards. And that is hard for me because I have been shooting with a 25 yard point on. I tried titling my head and I just couldn't get that down. But I have seen people shoot that way.

[olddogrib]

You think my face is atypical, you ought to see my hands. My ring finger is nearly as long as my middle, the index finger  barely comes to the middle's first joint.  I expect your index is also shorter and probably causing you to tuck the string tighter against your face if you anchor with the tip.  There as several ways to adjust your point on regardless of release.  3/4-1" high nock sets, fletched shafts will still group fine including braodheads if you're lucky.  The fixed crawl I mentioned.  excellent videos on how to do both over on TradTalk.

[Ryan Sanpei]

Here's how and why I prefer three under. (Video)
 http://rysanpei.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-three-under.html

[newhouse114]

Cant the bow, brings everything into alignment.

[Giovanni]

The only time I Cant my bow is when I am shooting in heavily wooded areas, and probably don't realize it. I like to hold my bow vertical for target shooting.

[Diamond Paul]

Anyone else find it much wierder to cant shooting three under than with split?  I just mess around with three under right now, but it just doesn't feel right trying to cant that way for some reason.

[olddogrib]

DP,
I think the noticeable effects of canting, good or bad, may feel "magnified" for folks used to split.  Back when I shot split, it felt like the arrow was "centered" on the string as the pivot point and I could shoot an exaggerated cant as long as I kept my eye over my anchor finger.  With a 3U it felt as though my pull is well below the centerline of the string/limbs and if I went beyond a "1 o'clock" cant my accuracy suffered because the arrow became further misaligned from my eye. With a fixed crawl I found any cant at all to be counter productive.

[Sirius Black]

I'm with DP. After shooting 3U for a few years, I went back to split this year. I can't get the arrow nock under my eye with 3U and a vertical bow, so I shoot with a cant. Getting used to 3U + cant just never happened.

[Diamond Paul]

Glad to hear that others feel the same way about canting with three under; I thought I was just a weirdo!!!!  Canting seems perfectly natural using split for me, although I don't do it much anymore, but playing with three under I just can't get the feel for canting the bow.