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In some archers the arrow tends to land on the opposite side to where the aim drifts

1 study · 12 archers measured

ForContextAgainst200520102015202020252005, for, n = 122005, context, n = 12
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

There is a single study, from 2005, and the signal is weak. Twelve archers from the men's team of a Taiwanese sports university shoot twelve arrows at seventy metres with a laser on the grip recording where the bow points over the last second and a half before the release, while a second camera marks where each arrow lands. Archer by archer, the authors relate the offset of the aim to the offset of the arrow, tenth of a second by tenth of a second. Horizontally the link is not the same for everyone: in three archers, four according to the paper's abstract, the arrow follows the aim throughout the second and a half, in another three it always goes the opposite way, so that when the aim drifts to the right the arrow tends to land on the left. Vertically the picture is less clear, because the abstract and the text do not give the same counts. The limits matter: each correlation rests on twelve arrows, the paper reports neither the values nor a test, and with so few arrows a negative sign can turn up by chance. Nor does the study record what the bow does at the release, which, between aim and impact, could account for the reversal. What can be said is that in this sample the relation between where the bow points and where the arrow lands is not the same for every archer.

Also phrased as: "arrow landing opposite to the aim"; "aim right, arrow left"; "the arrow not following the sight pin"; "correlation between aim and impact"

In practice

On the range it is taken for granted that the arrow goes where the sight pin points at the moment of release: if the aim drifts right, the arrow goes right, and whoever reads the shot corrects accordingly.

Evidence

  • 2005
    For Archers Published later

    12 archers from the men's team of a Taiwanese sports university, 12 arrows at 70 metres in four ends of three, with a laser on the grip tracked over the last second and a half before the release, split into 15 windows of a tenth of a second. Horizontally the correlation between the offset of the aim and the offset of the arrow is negative in every window for archers 5, 9 and 11, most strongly for archer 9: the aim goes one way, the arrow the other. It is positive in every window for archers 2, 3 and 8 according to the text and figures, for four archers according to the abstract. Correlations on 12 arrows per archer, shown only in charts, with no values or tests (fig. 4, pp. 257-258).

    Analysis of correlation between aiming adjustment trajectory and target · Kuo-Bin Lin, Chi-Kuang Hwang

  • 2005
    Context Archers Published later

    In the same study, vertically: at the last instant before the release the correlation is positive for archers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11 and 12 and slightly negative for archers 3, 7, 8 and 10, while the abstract and conclusions count six archers always positive and two always negative across the whole second and a half. The two counts do not match, and the paper leaves the difference unexplained (fig. 5, pp. 258-259).

    Analysis of correlation between aiming adjustment trajectory and target · Kuo-Bin Lin, Chi-Kuang Hwang

Status history

  1. 1990 Not studied Nobody in the registry's bibliography has yet related the path of the aim to where the arrow lands, archer by archer. That the arrow goes where the bow points at the release is an assumption behind reading the shot, not something anyone has measured: not studied.
  2. 2005 Reported Twelve archers from the men's team of a Taiwanese sports university shoot at seventy metres with a laser on the grip recording the aim over the last second and a half. The link between where the aim sits and where the arrow lands changes from archer to archer: on the horizontal axis the arrow always follows the aim in three of them (four according to the abstract) and always goes the opposite way in another three, a count on which text and abstract agree. On the vertical axis the abstract and the text do not give the same counts. These are correlations on twelve arrows per archer, shown only in charts and with no test: reported, only just.
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). In some archers the arrow tends to land on the opposite side to where the aim drifts (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/aim-and-arrow-in-opposite-directions

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_mirafrecciadirezioneopposta,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {In some archers the arrow tends to land on the opposite side to where the aim drifts},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/aim-and-arrow-in-opposite-directions},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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