Author Archives: 2020

What does over bowed mean in archery?

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We often forget how much terminology we use in archery and how daunting it can be as a beginner so we thought we’d tackle a few of the big questions here on the blog starting with:

What does it mean when my archery instructor says that someone is ‘over bowed’?

Obviously, it doesn’t mean that they have too many bows because we all know that you can never have too many bows. This is what garages were invented for (or in London spare bedrooms, large cupboards, or any available wall or floor space). It actually means that the weight of the bow that the person is trying to pull is too much for them.

So, firstly ‘how can you tell?’ and secondly, ‘why is that a problem?’ Well, the second most important rule of archery (the first is about where you’re pointing the pointy end) is that in order to be successful an archer must be completely in control of the shot at all times. You want a smooth, repeatable shot cycle – which is exactly the same for every single shot that you take.

So, how do we know you’re over bowed? A good sign is if you see the archer wobbling around, raising their shoulders (no they shouldn’t be up around your ears and yes, it is possible for them to come down) or doing any one of a million other small, painful things (huge tension in the neck is another giveaway or grim locked-jaw with throbbing forehead veins) to try and brace yourself for the huge HOICK back… then you’re not fully in control.

Why is it a problem? Because it throws your shot off and because it’s not repeatable. If you are over bowed it will get progressively worse through the session as you tire – meaning ever more random things start to become part of your shot. We practice regularly to try to build muscle memory in a positive way – we REALLY don’t want for an archer to build in any of those painful things. So, if you feel that you’re tiring or perhaps you’re on the very edge of being over-bowed – once you start to feel that your shots are off, or you are not fully in control – then stop!

Give yourself the break and come back fresh another time.

How to increase bow poundage

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It’s incredibly common in archery to struggle with the weight of your bow. It’s common for novices trying to get into the sport, it’s common for novices transitioning from beginners course to buying their own equipment and it’s common for more experienced archers who have bought their own equipment and find that – after the event – they have been a little too ambitious. It’s also a common scenario for people returning to the sport after a pause and for people returning post-injury.

First of all lets get the terminology out of the way – if you’re struggling with the poundage of your bow coaches usually call this ‘over-bowed’. There are some characteristic features of a person’s draw which will tell us if they’re over-bowed but, more often than not, it is something that the archer is aware of (although maybe in denial about)!

I’ll answer a few basic questions and then we’ll move on to how to fix it.

How heavy should your bow be?

The quick answer is: as heavy as you can manage whilst still being completely in control of it at all times. This means completely under control during all parts of the draw, aim and follow-through.

Why would you want your bow to be as heavy as possible?

The easiest way to explain this is to imagine a child shooting a very light bow over a long distance. You can imagine the trajectory as the arrow has to be aimed UP and then it leisurely floats down to land on the target.. with no weight behind it. While it IS possible to shoot somewhat accurately like that (especially indoors where there’s no wind) it intuitively makes sense that if you send the arrow out of the bow more forcefully, it will travel faster and make it to the centre of the target more accurately.

You’ll also find that you’re limited if you try to increase the distance that you’re shooting when you’re shooting a lighter bow. There are all sorts of hacks and tricks (like turning your sight inside the bow to get a sighting point at distance) that can help you.. but an 18lb bow just literally can’t propel an arrow to 70m.

So, we have two scenarios – you already HAVE a bow that’s too heavy for you or you’re shooting a lighter poundage and you want to increase the distances / accuracy of your shooting.

Firstly, the stronger you are – within reason – the better your archery will be. End of. Competitive archery requires physical strength (over the course of a competition archers will deal with more weight than weightlifters – we just do it cumulatively not in one go!) and stamina. The more you can increase both of these things the better your shooting will be.

It also figures that if you are comfortable on the shooting line handling the weight of the bow then you’ve got one less factor to possibly throw you off.

So, it makes sense that the first thing to look at is how can I get physically stronger? Now, I truly believe that there are fundamentally two types of people in this world. Those who love to go to the gym (you can replace ‘the gym’ with whatever word you choose – yoga works well in this case) and those who like to shoot stuff. So, I get that me telling you to go to the gym is probably going to be as welcome as a dose of scabies.. but.. go to the gym. If you possibly can. I promise that if you do the right things at the gym it will make your archery better. So, what is the right thing at the gym? Well what you want is a strength training programme – preferably with a trainer who knows that you’re doing this because you want to get better at archery. And, again if possible, using resistance weights as that’s the best way to mimic the push and pull action of drawing a bow.

For this one you don’t need to do anything crazily specific (like those resistance bands – we’ll get to them later) but a general strength training programme which covers biceps, upper back and core will help you immensely. You might even discover that the gym isn’t that awful. (OK it probably is – I’m an archer, what else can I tell you?).

The next thing is to pull your bow! It sounds obvious but again, as a coach, I can tell you that one of the surest things that you can do to get better at archery is to pull your bow more. And the sweetest thing.. is that you don’t even need to get to a club. And, you don’t even need to shoot arrows. I’m not talking about buying some crazy technical device that allows you to practice your release without actually shooting (although such things exist – see here and here) but just pulling your bow more will help a LOT. This is a particularly good tip for people who have over-bowed themselves. The absolute worst thing you can do is see it sitting in the corner in its bag… feeling slightly resentful toward it and slightly dreading / hoping for a miracle on Saturday – the one day of the week that you shoot… but you missed last week because Great Aunt Mary came to visit.

So, get your bow out! Yes, you can keep your bow strung at home without any harm coming to it. So, get it out! Keeping your bow strung in the spare room (or the lounge if you’re keen and you have an understanding partner) means you can get logarithmically more pulls in each week.

So, what should you actually be doing? Well, you should be mimicking everything that you do on the shooting line – except for nocking the arrow or releasing (you don’t want to dry fire). Keep the bow on its usual stand, lift the bow from its stand placing your hand correctly into the grip, take up your position with normal foot placement, raise as normal, draw as normal, smoothly connect into your reference point as normal, ‘aim’, count to 3 or 5, then relax the tension on the bowstring and come down. I would do 3 or 5 repetitions before replacing the bow on its stand.

If you’re really keen you can get a shot counter (row counters for knitting are fab for this – here are my top three: the cheapest, the cutest, and the one that I use) which in this case would be ‘draw counter’, and use it to count how many ‘shots’ you’ve practiced that day. Try and set a realistic goal – for a realistic amount of times each week.

Those are the two top tips – do these and I promise that you will get stronger and struggle less with the physical side of the sport.

Other things which I’ll just mention – yes you can get resistance training bands and some coaches (and archers) swear by them. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about here it’s this kind of thing (we’re not necessarily recommending these ones). They are convenient because you don’t have to get your kit out – if you genuinely ARE shooting four times a week I can see that getting home and putting your bow up AGAIN might be a bit of a barrier – but there are a few drawbacks too (and really? Are you shooting four times a week already?!) I don’t like the feel of them in my hand and I find it hard to mimic the pushing aspect of the draw (certainly at the end of your drawing sequence you will be releasing with 50:50 split on pushing the bow away and pulling back on the bowstring) and I therefore find it really hard to make it feel anything like a real draw. But they do have their place, they’re reasonably cheap and you can get them stronger or lighter to help you build up.

If you are overbowed the best fix is – obviously – not to stay overbowed! So, bite the bullet and buy some lighter limbs (or buy a lighter bow if you’re shooting traditional, or get the poundage lowered if you have a compound). Nothing will put you off archery faster than being overbowed – it’s painful physically AND psychologically because if you can’t fully control the bow, all the way through every shot, you just aren’t going to be shooting consistently. If you can have a second bow or second set of limbs do the drawing at home thing… or go to the gym for a bit and then try the drawing at home thing.

Take the heavy bow to the club occasionally – in conjunction with gym / drawing at home.

Only shoot it:-

1) if you are completely control of it when you are shooting and,

2) until you feel that your strength is going.

I can’t stress enough that you should not persist once bad form comes in / tired archery starts to happen. If you do this you’ll be teaching your body that raised shoulders and gritted teeth (and frustration from pinging it into the black) is how archery happens for you. But do try to do a little more each time.

Shoot more!

If I could write this in 88 point font I would! No-one ever got to the Olympics shooting once a week (and skipping a week when Great Aunt Mary is in town). If you can shoot twice a week you’ll improve twice as fast. If you shoot three times a week you’ll improve three times as fast. OK we can’t guarantee that your scores will double or triple… but you will do better than how you’d shoot if you only did it once a week. If you can shoot three or four times a week (especially if combined with extra drawing at home and caring for your equipment) you will almost certainly get to a (basic) competitive level in a few months.

Finally, work up gradually – transitioning from an 18lb beginner bow is the hardest step to gauge and will depend on your general strength and condition, and how often you practice. But, generally speaking, increasing poundage by 2 to 4lb whilst shooting regularly (twice a week) is the way to go. Once you feel fully in control of the bow you can increase by a couple or a few pounds. You can also wind your limb weight up or down by around 10% but, be aware, that this is intended for you to perfectly tune your arrows – it isn’t intended as a way to increase the poundage. If you aren’t hugely precious (at this stage anyway) about your tuning though, it can help a little to transition you up (or down in the case of post-injury recovery). Limb exchange schemes can also help with this for beginners just starting out, or those aiming for outdoor shooting – or competitions – who e.g. have a plan to get to 40lb.

So, that’s my coaching perspective on how to increase the poundage of your bow. We’re considering offering some online coaching / goal setting covering more of these ways to improve in a step by step way.

Let us know by email or in the comments if you’d be interested to know more!

Scythian Exhibition at The British Museum

The Art of Scythian Warfare – at The British Museum

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The British Museum has its latest blockbuster Winter show on… and it’s archery related! (and also Game of Thrones related as apparently the Scythians were the inspiration for the Dothraki – more about that via this link).

We’re lucky enough to have a club member who managed to get us a few tickets to one of the launch events which was a talk by Military historian Mike Loades. We couldn’t resist asking her for a short review.

“Mike Loades entertained the audience with his amazing skills and his reproduction Scythian bow and saddle. His enthusiasm for the history and the archaeology of the Scythians infected everyone. Who are the Scythians? Well to cut a long story short, they are an ancient nomad tribe who roamed the steppes of Russia (you can learn more here). Before the Mongolians, you had the Scythians!

Mike was fascinating. He was especially enjoyable when demonstrating the loading of the bow. His first hand experience with horse archery meant that he added some interesting points about how the Scythians would have shot from a saddle without stirrups.

Overall Mike Loades is such a great presenter, the lecture was fun and informative.”

Thanks tons to Holly both for the tickets which she made available to the club and for writing the review for us.

The exhibition runs from 14th September until the 14th January and if nothing else you should definitely click through and look at the fabulous 35 sec promo video on the British Museum page here.

It’s too late (sadly) to see Mike Loades but if this has whetted your appetite here’s a couple more Scythian related things happening that you can still catch!

  • There a gallery talk on Sat 2nd December called ‘Scythian Archers: law and order in ancient Athens‘ (more details here and it’s free!).
  • There is a film called ‘Scythians – Amazons of the Steppe‘, part of the Epic Warrior Women series, on Sat 16th December at 2pm (booking here – only £3)
  • And there’s the final Curator’s Introduction to the Exhibition happening on Sat 13th January at 1.30pm. It’s a 45 minute illustrated lecture and it’s free but you must book (other dates have all sold out so grab it now if you want to go!)

What is a WA 1440 competition?

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We were just about to hit send on a club newsletter telling people about the latest WA1440 competition and we suddenly thought, ‘What if I was a novice archer? Would I have any clue what a ‘WA’ (World Archery) or WRS (World Record Status) competition and what does 1440 even mean?’ So we wrote this just for you…….

A WA1440 is a metric round (as opposed to Imperial) where you shoot 3x dozen arrows (36) at 90m, followed by 3x dozen arrows at each of the following distances: 70m, 50m and 30m.

36x arrows at each distance gives a total of 144 arrows shot… each arrow is worth a maximum ten points and – therefore – a maximum score of 1440 points can be achieved.

The ladies 1440 (also known as a Metric 1) is 3x dozen (36 arrows) shot at 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m.

The longer distances (90m and 70m for men and 70m and 60m for women) are shot at a 122cm target face, the shorter distances (50m and 30m for both) are shot at an 80cm target face.

 

This round uses the world archery rules of shooting and uses 10 zone scoring (generally speaking, probably the one you’re used to!).

There is a really comprehensive guide to Scoring and Tournaments on the Archery GB website here : http://www.archerygb.org/tools/documents/12ScoringTournaments3-[14276].pdf

 

What do I need to know to go to a 1440 competition?

  • You need to be a member of Archery GB (previously called GNAS or Grand National Archery Society) this can be organised through your club and costs approximately £40. This will get you your own insurance for shooting at any other Archery GB / GNAS club, and it will get you on the mailing list for the regular Archery UK magazine which has details of other competitions.
  • You need to wear green or white and it has to be the specific green prescribed by Archery GB (covered in the Rules of Shooting Point 307 ‘a’ – you can read more here) or club colours (2020 Archery club colours are navy blue shirt and black trousers). Footwear must be completely enclosed (Rules of Shooting 307 ‘b’ in case you were wondering).

You must have practiced in advance at these distances and, as a rough indication, you’ll need to be shooting a bow which has at least 30+ lb limbs to reach 70m accurately.

How to Navigate the Blog and a Bit of a Contents List!

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Here are a few tips for navigating the blog. The tag cloud on the right side of the page is our broad ‘contents’ section. If there’s something particular you’re interested in e.g. “Beginners Archery”, or “How to Improve your Shooting”, or… I don’t know, “What to Do in the Event of a Zombie Apocalypse” (tip.. learn to shoot)… then click on the tag and it will bring up every article in that category. We’ve tried to keep it relatively clean on the tag front so that you can choose between the main themes of the blog.

 

You can get back to the ‘home’ page of the blog by clicking on the title ‘2020 Archery Blog’. If you want to go back to the main 2020 Archery website click on the logo on the top left of the page.

 

There is some ‘old gold’ hidden in the archives. Here are a few suggestions of blog posts you might have missed :

 

 

I hope you enjoy having a poke around! Remember flinging pointy sticks around is good for the soul. And a life saving skill in the event of zombie apocalypse. We mean it. Start practicing.

 

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Give Archery A Go!

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Whilst opportunities to join your local football or rugby club might be more obvious, team sports – or ball sports – are not for everyone. Luckily, there are many more pastimes available to you in your local area than you might think. Archery is just one of them – and we think it’s high time that you picked up a bow & a quiver full of arrows and gave target practice (or the fantastic Archery Tag in London) a little bit of a try if you haven’t done so already! There’s more to hitting the odd bullseye with a few arrows than you may think – and there are many reasons as to why you should be thinking about getting your aiming arms limbered up and ready to hit a few targets.

 

Archery, unlike other sports, is a pastime that can be enjoyed in all weathers – unlike football or golf which can be largely dependent on whether or not you’re going to have a wet or dry day – archery can also be done very successfully indoors which means that you can practice rain or shine – without needing wellies and waterproofs! Check out indoor archery clubs – like 2020 Archery which has a great location near to London Bridge – and you’ll be welcomed by experienced, friendly archers with open arms.

 

It’s also incredibly easy to get started in archery, too.

 

Practise at your local club

Local clubs welcome professional and recreational archers alike, regardless of skill level – and also offer coaching and mentoring to get your game up to scratch should you wish to excel. However, it should be noted that archery isn’t a sport that is necessarily easy to master right away – as with many sports and skills, you’d be considered little short of a miracle worker if you have instant form and bullseye-bashing talents from the off. If you have the patience, the will and the interest, it’s likely that you will find archery an extremely rewarding hobby long-term – even more so if you become good enough to perform in local or national competitions.

 

Archery is great for the whole family

Archery is a great sport for all ages – meaning that kids, parents and grandparents require little other than some safety training and a couple of initial lessons to get started. At 2020 Archery Juniors we have a thriving junior archery club which welcomes archers from the age of 8 upwards. As long as you book a place in advance we have a rolling start programme so no need to wait weeks or months for a beginners course to be scheduled. We provide all the equipment and tuition you need – plus parents can shoot alongside their budding Robin Hoods! All you need is enthusiasm and enough arm strength to wield a bow and arrows – with little more than a genuine interest in the sport required, you’ll soon be on target!

 

Make new friends!

Archery clubs are a great way to meet new people and make new friends – and it’s also a fantastic opportunity to sample the local competition, maybe building up a friendly rivalry or two while doing so. Here at 2020 Archery we’re also very sociable with a regular pub ‘debrief’ after Saturday shooting.. and a few more ad hoc trips here and there post session depending on the day.

 

Getting started with gear

At 2020 Archery we provide everything that you need to get started shooting.. and you can use our gear to practice for as long as you want. We do know that you’ll soon want to start building up gear of your own though. If you are looking for professional, high quality archery wear, accessories and equipment with a leaning towards traditional leather based gear, have a peek at Shire Archery’s online store. These guys have a great range of archery essentials and are experienced at supplying gear to individuals, clubs and various sports festivals. They pride themselves on their fantastic collection of hand tooled archery arm bracers, lovely leather gloves and tabs, and a whole range of other gear to help archers reach the top of their game (whilst looking pretty stylish) as soon as they can.

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Traditional leather ‘Greenman’ archery arm guard available from Shire Archery

Meet the Instructors – Louise!

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Hey Louise! Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hiya, I’m 26 from South London, I studied film and photography at university. When I’m not working at 2020 you probably find me in the gym, teaching pole fitness, taking part in some sort of outdoor adventurous activity or in my kitchen pretending to be on the Great British Bake Off.

 

How long have you been shooting for?

I originally started shooting during my Summers at university so about 6 years ago, however only started shooting more frequently over the last couple of years.

 

How did you get started with 2020 Archery?

I volunteer with the Scouts and qualified with them as an Archery GB Archery instructor in May 2014, I saw the role advertised over the Summer with 2020 and thought I’d apply as it was something I enjoyed!

 

What’s the best part of the job?

I really enjoy instructing the Have a Go sessions, its great to be part of the transition of someone, at the start of the session, who’s very nervous and saying ‘I’ll never hit the target’ to the end session when they’ve not only hit the target but have a strong grouping and have scored well in the competition. Proud instructor moment!

 

What’s the worst part of the job?

This is a tough one, not getting to eat any of the chocolate coins we give out at the end of the competition? Only joking, I’d say either that the sessions seem to fly by too fast, time flies when your having fun and all that. Or when you get caught in the line of fire during a heated Archery Tag session, it can give quite a sting depending where it hits!

 

What’s the one bit of advice you’d give to someone thinking of taking up archery?

Do it! We are all guilty of putting things off or saying one day, make that day today.

 

What’s your best archery story?

I had one lady one a Have a Go session a couple of weeks ago who turned up and told me ‘not to expect too much, last time she had done an archery session (with another organisation) she hadn’t even been able to hit the target.’ Instantly I thought to myself challenge excepted… safe to say she only missed the target a hand full of times, and was scoring a good number of 8’s and and a couple 9’s during the competition. I spoke to her at the end and she was very happy with the session and was pleasantly surprised with how far she had come, hopefully she carries on but if not its great to see such an achievement.

 

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Louise demonstrating some of her other sporting expertise!

How to Play Archery Tag!

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The battlefield where you get to shoot your friends!

We all know about paintball, dodgeball and laser tag; but do you know about Archery Tag? Archery Tag is an awesome combat game where two or more teams fight each other using bows and arrows. But don’t be scared, there’s no blood involved and we don’t even leave bruises (not like paintball – ouch)!

 

The arrows used in Archery Tag games have great big marshmallow-style tips making it much less painful than paintball! You get to shoot your friends (or your boss!), there’s no pain involved and you feel like Robin Hood. I bet we caught your attention, so let’s get into the equipment and rules of this fantastic game!

 

 

Equipment

archery tag equipment

1. Bow – a basic lightweight recurve bow.

 

2. Arrows – patented ‘safe’ tips, carefully weighted and spined to match the bows.

 

3. Mask – even though ‘head shots’ are illegal in the game, a bit of extra protection never went amiss.

 

Rules

To play this game, we need teams. The minimum number of people needed to play is 8 in order that we can split the group into two teams of 4 people each. This is the absolute minimum needed to play – the standard number of people per team is 5. Once teams are sorted out, they need a team name. This is when Archery Tag gets creative (no, we’re not divulging our best team names for you… you have to come up with them yourselves although do feel free to give us your best effort in the comments!)

 

Can and can’t do’s

Can: – Shoot everyone who wears a mask. – Move around your side of the battlefield. – Stay behind the barricades or not. – Collect as many arrows as you can. – Deflect arrows using your bow (be careful the marshmallow tip doesn’t hit it).

 

Can’t: – Shoot someone who doesn’t wear a mask. – Cross to the enemy’s side of the battle field. – Move barricades. – Load or shoot in ‘No Man’s Land’ central zone. – Dry fire a bow (shooting without an arrow loaded). – Head shots.

 

Game play

Games last for 5 minutes or until one team completely knocks out (tags!) the other. At the beginning of the game, each person has 2 arrows to shoot. Sometimes, there will be extra arrows placed in ‘No Man’s Land’. These arrows can be picked up by any team (you can’t be hit whilst in No Man’s Land but you might need to arrange for covering fire to get safely in and our from behind your barricade).

 

Once the game starts, each team tries to tag as many enemies as they can. If an arrow hits you or your bow, you’re out. This means you have to move to the side (keep your helmet on!) and wait until your team mates save you.

 

How can my team mates save me I hear you ask? Well, there are two foam 5 spots targets – one for each team. If your team mate shoots out a spot you’re back on side. Once this happens, the first person to die is the first to go back into the game. Good.

 

But, what if you have dead team mates but you don’t have any dots left to shoot at? Well, our crack-team of only slightly-bribeable referees will be replacing them as fast as you can shoot them but, there’s also another way to save team mates!

 

You or your team mates just need to catch an arrow in mid air (piece of cake)! You need to take care not to be hit by the tip when you’re attempting this otherwise you’ll tag yourself. If an arrow bounces (hits a wall, the floor or a barricade) and then hits you, it doesn’t count as a hit and you carry on playing. However, if it hits a team mate and then it hits another, it’s a double kill! If an arrow bounces (hits a wall, the floor or a barricade) and then you catch it in mid air without touching the marshmallow tip, it is valid, so you’ve just saved a team mate! Well done!

 

Games move fast so we recommend loose clothing and staying on the ball as we rotate teams on and off the courts. Our maximum group size is 25 people and we have it all pre-organised tournament style to guarantee an even number of games in the style AvB, CvD, BvC etc. We play at a great indoor spot in Whitechapel with a bar and a Thai food concession. Yes, we could play in the rain.. but why would you want to when you can guarantee the weather and have a quick half-pint while the other teams are out there ‘killing’ each other?

 

Do you have a group of friends? Are you organising a stag party or having a birthday in the near future? Archery Tag is a fantastic option to have a great time while having fun and getting yourself moving – which is always good! And, there’s always the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse to consider – getting in a bit of practice at a moving target beforehand won’t do you any harm at all.

 

What are you waiting for? Book a session today! Fully online booking system – get on that date checker now!

 

http://www.2020archery.co.uk/archery-tag

 

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Learning the Basics of Archery Through Digital Aids

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Getting to grips with the basics of virtually any sport has changed in the last decade. Luckily, technological advancements have meant that we now have a means to find information via a myriad of sources online that weren’t previously available to us.

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While our blog section here at 2020 Archery will provide you with guides for anything from overcoming a Zombie Apocalypse to introducing some of our multi-talented instructors, there are also many other great options for beginners and advanced archers to source information.

 

Currently there are approximately 1,100 archery clubs in the UK which provide superb resources in terms of coaching and mentoring for all levels. Archery GB reported that there were over 150,000 active archers in 2013, a figure that has grown hugely recently, which is great for the sport. Seemingly trivial things like popular TV programmes (e.g. Game of Thrones – we LOVE GoT) and their constant inclusion of archery seems to keep the sport relevant in the eyes of Millennials, too, strange as it may seem. (Although, there have been a LOT of archery mistakes in the TV series that have annoyed the archery community.)

 

That kind of exposure to a global market has also seen newfangled suburban archery battles spring up over the world. As well as that online slot games like ‘Nordic Heroes’ and ‘Merry Money’ have jumped on the bandwagon offering archery-based and Game of Thrones-related bingo games to the UK market, which have become hugely popular.

 

Popularity aside, the best archery resources for beginners to download and read directly via their smartphones, are generally those supported by official apps. So, with that in mind, here is a definitive list of some of the best archery apps to keep abreast of the latest news, training tips and overall insights on archery.

 

Ubersense

This app is perfect for coaches and archers alike who want to import videos for [slow-motion video analysis]. For instance, if a beginner uploads a video of their technique, the advanced tech allows the coach to zoom into the archer and critique their form, while providing a voice-over for analysis purposes. According to the iTunes app page, uploading videos can be done via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and DropBox among other platforms.

 

APPtitune

Designed by world champion compound archer Jesse Broadwater, stabilization expert, Greg Poole and Olympic silver medalist, Jake Kaminski, APPtitune provides users with useful insights on how to setup and tune their archery equipment. What’s extra special is that it also features information on “limb and cam alignment, stabiliser and broadhead setup, group and torque tuning, bare-shaft tuning, walk-back tuning, paper tuning, yoke tuning, creep tuning, arrow setup, and third-axis levelling,” according to Archery 360.

 

Scoring Helper

Scoring Helper pretty much does what it says on the tin. It provides archers with a simple aid to track scoring. The digital tool is, “primarily meant for compound and recurve target archery.”

 

World Archery Live
World Archery Live gives users a single platform to keep up to date with all the latest results on the professional circuit including the World Archery Championships and the Archery World Cup. The app also catalogues more than 10,000 professional archers, features historical results, photo galleries of WA competitions, breaking news, live streaming of major events, and tutorials for beginners.

Contract between club and club members

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I recently went and shot at another club. I paid for my shoot (not cheap) and then had the slowest session in the world while a group of beginners were coached. It wasn’t really the coaching that I minded (we’re all familiar with that and I can hear a lot of you thinking ‘oh my goodness, please say you’re providing member only sessions’) what bothered me was that the instructors weren’t giving the beginners any encouragement to speed up or get back over the shooting line. On their last end the beginners stood around on the range snapping photos of each other with the targets and their arrows which took at least 5+ minutes.

 

Be the Change

 

So, why am I writing a blog post about this? Well, it made me think that as we have a lot of beginners through the club we could do with laying out our position on how this ought to happen. A kind of contract between the club and the members if you like. So, here goes.

 

  • The usual / main indoor round shot is the Portsmouth (60 arrows at 20 yards on a 60cm target face). Club members should ALWAYS be able to shoot a Portsmouth with 6 sighters (72 arrows). We hugely encourage scoring and we keep a leader board of member shooting on the website here. We’d love to restart leagues or club competitions – if you’re interested in co-ordinating this please shout!
  • If possible a club member should be nominated to either score during a session or count their arrows (I have a knitting row counter that I use to count my practice arrows). It’s helpful to have an accurate idea of how many arrows are getting shot.. not just for an idea of what you get for your money for a shooting session but for your own practice records.
  • Club members should feedback to the office if less arrows are being shot than this – if numbers drop really low for whatever reason (saving act of God / Downside / Schools Plus!) we’ll refund the cost of the session.
  • Instructors should do as much as they possibly can on the safe side of the shooting line. We won’t tolerate instructors standing on the range pontificating at beginners while club members stand around.
  • The only really unavoidably slow bit will probably be teaching beginners how to pull arrows. Club members are always welcome to go and assist the instructor, help to supervise the arrow pulling and help beginners to collect their arrows.
  • If the instructor is encouraged to always think – how can I be faster and allow more shooting time? Then club members are encouraged to think – how could I help the instructor to make this faster?
  • If you are interested in learning about coaching please tell us! Pretty much every club except ours has volunteer coaches who assist beginner club members. I’m not sure why we don’t have this. We’d love for more of our members to go through Level 1 / 2 training and help other club members to develop their shooting. It wouldn’t be a paid position but learning how to coach can be enormously helpful for your own shooting. Everyone coaches each other when learning to coach so you’ll get a lot of free feedback (including from the senior coaches leading the course).
  • We all need to remember that we need beginners – they are the life blood of the club and the fact that we run lots of beginners courses is how many many of our club members got started in the first place. BUT, we need to be respectful to our club members and appreciate how much they are paying to shoot.

OK so that’s it. Please do remember to tell the office if things go awry at the club as we may not know. Multiple reporting is better than everyone thinking that someone else will do it.

 

We’ve got a whole load of wonderful members and our constant flow of beginners lands more on our doorstep every month. It’s up to us to lay out what we expect but I don’t think we tell you what we’ll deliver in return often enough. And really – do think about coaching! Here’s a link to the Archery GB Level 1 course page.