The "Do-zukuri" is one of the most important positions. Stand upright; especially take care not to bend the back ; the weight of the body should be equally thrown on both legs. The left shoulder is to be in a slight degree lower than the right. The cause of "cutting the mark"—the arrow falling under the
mark—is mainly due to the unsteadiness of the "Do-zukuri," that is to say, it is due to bending the body too much forwards, Therefore, if an archer gets in the habit of " falling arrow," he will find it remedied by bending his body a little further backwards than he is usually accustomed to do.
For the same reason that the arrow flies higher than it is intended, is chiefly caused by bending the body too far back.
Besides this, a great many of the deficiencies in connection with shooting are to be attributed to the lack of thorough training in the "Do-zukuri."
It sometimes happens that a man lacking the knowledge of the rules and theory of archery can hit the mark as well as a trained man. But we do not regard the shooting of these untrained men as proper, because it is not done in accordance with the theory. This management of the implements is merely done in their own way, which they devise by the natural instinct. Although it is not quite a matter of impossibility that a person can attain skill in shooting without studying the rules, yet in most oases he is not able to understand by his own intuition its true art. For instance, a man who could hit a target with eight out of the first ten arrows can never keep the same proportion in the further operation, and it very often goes down to a proportion, as he proceeds, of fifty to one hundred, and further of 200 to 1000. This is because his position is not well calculated or suited to bear the strain upon his physical strength.
Fig. 1 shows the position from the "Ashi-bumi" to the "Do-zukuri."