The Influence of Grasping Technique and Arm Posture on Shooting Performance in Traditional Archery

Traditional archery is becoming popular and has attracted many people at different age level to acquire skills and finally participate in competitive games. It differs from modern recurve archery where it could not rely on equipment for accuracy and stability. It depends on the skilled developed by the archer and adaptability to the environment for competition. Technique of archery shooting was written in many books and may require investigation to confirm their effect on performance of an archer. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of arm posture and bow’s grasping techniques on the traditional archer’s shooting performance (higher score and minimal distance from bulls eye to the location where the arrow hits the target). Four experienced archers performed 5 m indoor shooting and their movement was recorded using motion capture system. The Square grasping technique resulted in more higher scores and minimal distance as compared to the other technique. Overall, the arm posture angle, Φ, did not influenced the shooting performance, except for the Oblique grasping technique.