Dronacharya asked Eklavya for his thumb as he knew what the thumb meant to an archer. The legend of Mahabharata would have been rather different if the latter had been able to use his thumb. Anyway, back to the present; what if an archer today didn’t have the thumb, or worse, both arms? That would be a quite tragic situation; but then again, is it possible for an armless person to be an archer shooting arrows from a bow? Well, it’s NOT a what-if scenario but a real-life incident. Believe it or not, there is a young armless archer in India, a world champion as a matter of fact, who shoots arrows straight from the bow as if she never needed arms to do so.
“My parents instilled the belief in me that I am no less than anybody,” says Sheetal, the world’s first female archer without arms. Born with Phocomelia, a rare congenital disorder resulting in under-developed limbs, Sheetal, a girl of humble origins, hails from Loidhar, a pretty mountain village in Kishtwar district of Jammu & Kashmir. She has inherited perseverance from her parents who toil night and day to make a living—Maan Singh works hard in the field while Shakti Devi looks after the goats. Fate wasn’t kind to their daughter, but they never gave up on her and kept hope alive inside her. Sheetal never knew she was destined for greatness. She would dream of becoming a teacher. Years of using lower limbs for most activities including writing and climbing trees built her leg strength. She doesn’t have arms, but she does have powerful legs, feet, and toes that give her greater mobility and excellent balance.
“Even if I lift the bow with my legs, how will I let the arrow fly,” Sheetal asked her archery coach Kuldeep Vedwan, when the latter started to train her. There was no mechanism available in India that would enable her to shoot. The coach had seen how the armless archer, USA’s Matt Stutzman, released the arrows with the help of a release aid. Stutzman improvised this technique—He first wrapped a strap around his chest. The strap had a release aid positioned over his right shoulder, and he used it to hook onto the bow string. He then used his jaw to push the release aid’s trigger, letting the arrow fly. Vedwan studied the equipment and made a similar one for Sheetal.
It’s incredible to see Sheetal using legs, mouth, and shoulder to shoot arrows from the bow—seated on a chair, she uses her toes to pick up an arrow and place it on the bow, raises the 24-kg bow with her right leg, firmly holds it with her big toe and the second toe, fits the arrow onto the bowstring with her mouth using the shoulder device, pulls back the string with her right shoulder, and releases the arrow using the strength of her jaw.
Sheetal made history by winning gold in the women’s compound individual category at the Para World Archery Championship in Sep 2025, defeating world no. 1 Oznur Cure Girdi of Turkiye. She has recently achieved another milestone. She is the first Indian para-athlete selected for the able-bodied junior archery team for the upcoming Asia Cup Stage 3 in Jeddah. The armless archer will now compete with the ones with arms.
It’s not about the physical ability or the technique; it’s all about the will.
Where there is a will, there is a way. She has proved it to the world.
She is an archer with no arms, or rather, an archer who needs no arms!
Shubhra Atreya
Content Writer
IT Department
