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Hunting with a Mongolian composite bow.

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hermitking:
What I mean by it not being instinctive is that there is a definite matching up of two points with the line of the left eye sight, rather that letting her fly by an instinct or intution about where the arrow will go.  When I shoot the thumb draw (right hand draw) I line up my left eye sight with the left side of the handle just on top of the knuckle of the bow hand and then settle that point on the target.  This is for the 25 yard range that I am presently shooting.  It is similar to the Old English method of sightling down the arrow on the left hand side of the bow handle, with a definite anchor point.  In both methods one is sighting much like lining up the sights of a gun.

You asked about the thumb release method...

...better than three finger?  If you are using a short bow with long draw, Yes.  It is less painfull to have the extreem bend of the string angle wrap around a single thumb rather than three fingers.  You can get serious nerve damage on the third finger with three finger draw in extreem string angles.

...More comfortable? If you are using a low poundage it is an easy pull.  But when you get up there around 60 plus poundage the string starts pinching and cutting into the thumb digit if you have no protection.  All of my bows are heavy poundage so I have to use a thumb ring.  I have made a few out of moose antler and a couple out of a thick portion of moose toenail.  The trick is that it must be custom fit to the archer's thumb and it must fit perfect or serious injury to the thumb can occur.  After shooting with a proper thumb ring for about twenty minutes (heavy pull) the thumb will swell up and fill up the space in the ring more tightly.  My thumb actually started growing and getting thicker after shooting this way for about three weeks. the tendon in the thumb gets thicker and the joint gets stronger.  I suspect that the asians had built up the thumb for shooting form childhood days, and had very developed thumb strength.  The added benefit is that it strengthened their wrestling grip.  Even today Mongol wrestlers still do well in international matches.

... other advantages.  Since one loads the arrow from the drawing arm side, one can load arrows incredibly fast.  It reduces the ammount of motion to get the arrow from quiver to bow, and no canting of the bow is needed to flip the arrow over to the left side.  Turks were able to fire 60 arrows a minute this way.  You can also lay on your back and still load and draw your bow(which makes it possible to shoot while prostrate on the ground).

Also when grasping the arrow and string with the thumb lock the arrow is naturally turned towards the bow handle, reducing the problem of the arrow falling off of the handle.

My advise for shooting this way is that one force themselves to shoot this way only.  It is like starting all over again learning to shoot.  If you have shot three finger for years like me then it takes a lot of practice to reprogram muscle memory.

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