Tag Archives: archers

Sep 12 2018

Good luck for NFAS nationals

So the National Field Archery Society, national championships are just round the corner. I always see this as the culmination of the NFAS calendar of events.

For those unfamiliar with the format of the championships, it is a two day event where competitors shoot 2 different courses over unmarked distances. A couple of difference to this year’s event sees the competition going back to being solely paper faces. For the last couple of years it’s been a near 50/50 split of paper and 3D targets. This year also sees an increase to 40 targets on both days from the normal 36. Another development is the early start to registration on Sunday, which registration starting at 7 am and ending at 8 am. More details can be found on an earlier post or on the nfas website.

Sadly yet again this year I approach it feeling unprepared and not at full health. Maybe one year I might not fall victim to a flu bug or make the time to practise more in the run up to it. Yes I know what many of you might think, he’s just making excuses, he’ll be fine, he always shoots well.

Well let me just share these words of wisdom I read recently.

Practise breeds confidence, confidence breeds’ success.

I haven’t felt well enough to practise, so I am lacking confidence therefore not expecting success.

Anyway, enough of my moans, I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish good luck to all attending the event. Fingers crossed it will stay dry.

Thanks for reading.

Close up of Sharon shooting
Sep 1 2018

How can Costa Coffee cups help your archery practice?

Sharon on the range

Sharon on the range

No, not a trick question, nor am I talking about cup shooting, and if you don’t know what Cup shooting is check out Grizzly Jim’s video here.

This is a tip from my better half Sharon came up with and was using this on our range the other day. It’s no secret that I like Costa coffee, in fact it has got to a stage where I can walk into the local Costa Coffee shop by my office and they have had my order ready for me by the time I reached the front of the queue. This means I tend to have a few spare cups floating round. Normally they get used for mixing paints or pant pots.

stack of Costa Coffee cups

stack of Costa Coffee cups

But how can they help with archery?

We have a 40 yard practice range marked out in five yard increments, behind our house. This means we can practice distances from five yards upwards, but we both like to mix up the distances we shoot from. So we might shoot a set of arrows at ten yards, then move to thirty five yards for the next set, then fifteen for the third set and so on. The key thing is not to shoot two sets at the same distance consecutively. Why? Well it improves your distance judgement.

The problem is when you are doing multiple sets it is quite easy to lose track of which distances you have shot at. Well Sharon, the ever intelligent one can up with a simple idea of how to track this using Costa cups.

First step is dropping a cup over each of the distance pegs at the beginning before you start. Then when you have shot from that distance you remove the cup to indicate you’ve shot the distance. When all cups are off the pegs, you know you’ve shot all the distances and can start again.

On the second round after you’ve shot you take the cup to the boss and stack them on top. This means when you’ve shot all the distance, all cups will be at the boss for you to collect. It is a simple and easy way of tracking the distances.

If you look at the picture below you will see some of the pegs covered and others with a coffee cup along side.

Close up of Sharon shooting

Close up of Sharon shooting

The only problem comes if it’s a windy day.

By mixing up the distances you shoot at you can develop great skills in judging distance. It is something that is mentioned in Beginner’s guide to traditional archery by Brian J Sorrells.

Thanks for reading and no this post was not sponsored by Costa coffee.

redoubtables
Aug 19 2018

Update on the recent theft from archery club

It is nice to be able to provide some positive news of the use of social media at least in the extended archery community. Following my recent article highlighting the vandalism and thefts at Redoubtables club, along with the countless people sharing the Facebook posts and images, there has been a positive outcome.

The club has reported that the majority of the equipment has been recovered and suitable compensation for damages agreed. They can’t currently go into details but things are definitely sounding positive. The Facebook post has now been taken down by the club.

Well done everyone and thanks for reading.