Tag Archives: recurve bow

Oct 8 2021

NFAS Championships heads north – shoot report

Rainbow over site
Rainbow over site

Last weekend we travelled to Nation Field Archery Society, National Championships outside Durham in the North East of England. This was the first national level tournament NFAS had been in a position to run for 2 years due to COVID restrictions. The big question on many people minds would be how would it go?

We decided to take motorhome rather than staying in a local hotel, as it was both a long drive and Sharon would need to be on site early both days, due to running the administration for the competition.

If anyone doubts the work involved in administration of such events I can tell you she had been spending the last few weeks sorting booking and shooting groups well into the night (Special thanks to Lynne for helping and offering her expert help). This work continued on the journey up with Sharon  working through a stack of shoot cards attaching the name labels, whilst I was driving the 230 plus miles to the site .

Just as we were leaving home, we received an email notification saying there were problems with camping for the event, due to the very bad weather the area had encountered in the preceding days, read very wet weather. This would mean anyone planning to camp would be accommodated on a separate field away from the central admin marquee and have to travel in each day. I did wonder how this would effect the social aspects and logistics of the event. As it was it would prove to be a bit of a baptism of fire for the NFAS new Field Officer and coordinator of the even Richard Wright.

King of the North

It would actually see the hashtag #KingoftheNorth appearing on several social media sites in respect to his hard work, though I feel it should be said, the newly crowned King of the North has some outstanding knights in support of him, based on what I saw over the weekend. (Complete with amazing horses or should I say horse power, more on that later).

Many readers will be familiar what is involved with the NFAS championships, but for those that don’t know I’ll try and summarise what goes on at the event.

What are the champs?

The National Field Archery Society normally hosts 2 championships each year, one in May the 3D championships, where all the targets are 3D targets. The second is the National championships run over a weekend in mid-September, where all targets are paper faces.

Both of the championships NFAS run are 2-day events with archers competing, in their chosen style (there are eleven different shooting styles from longbow to sighted compound in the NFAS) on 2 courses. Each course consists of 36 targets, set at varying distances. This year there would be a little over 240 archers, less than previous years possibly due to a combination of the change in the normal date, COVID pandemic and location being less central.

All the targets are unmarked distances with only 1 class allowed to use binoculars, that of compound unlimited, though crossbows do have fixed magnification scope. On this point I’d just mention that rangefinders of any form are banned.

This year, due to a combination of COVID pandemic, availability of suitable locations the championships were postponed to early October. There had been no 3D championships for 2 years and no nationals since 2019, so this was the first large scale event NFAS had hosted for nearly 2 years.

If you are interested you can read a write up of that event here.

It was also the first time to my knowledge the event had been run in the North East of England. I think the distance and potential travelling time might actually have put off some archers off, which was a real shame. The woodland and surrounds were very pretty, with them being mainly confer with patches of deciduous trees.

view of stream
View of stream on site in full flow.

Paper faces verse 3D targets

Over the years many archers I have spoken to have voiced their dislike of shooting paper faces and state a preference for 3D targets. Often this is because the occasions they have shot such faces they have been set further than needed, in the belief it gives a “greater challenge”, when in reality it simply means more arrows are shot as archers struggle to hit the target or see if they are in the scoring zones.

A new development this year were the target faces being used. NFAS have invested considerable time and money in developing a bespoke range of custom new target faces. There are 80 currently of varying sizes and animals, with a long term plan of adding more in the future. This meant each course target was individual, with no duplicates appearing over the 2 days. From my understanding the target faces will be available for NFAS clubs to buy but I’m not sure of the pricing policy at this point in time.

Feedback has been really positive on the selection and scoring areas. The scoring lines follow the outline of the animal making them more forgiving than other target faces on the market. This means that scoring a wound (16pts for first arrow, 10pts for 2nd arrows or 4pts for 3rd arrow) was a little easier but the higher scoring zones were more of challenge. Partly due to the size / locations of the zones and archers not being familiar with the faces. This was after all the first time competitors had seen them, other than some samples that had been uploaded on the NFAS website.

The event

Considering the sheer amount of issues that the field officer, his teams and members of admin / organising team I think it is amazing the event not only went ahead but has had such positive feedback. At times it was beyond belief, from cars being stuck in mud, catering van being stuck, back up camping field, being swapped twice due to level of flooding.  Yet or maybe because of this the event worked. People really pulled together with some of us doing a lot of pushing too.

So, Saturday morning dawned with archers arriving on site and being allocated to their respective courses. There would be over 200 archers spending the day shooting one the different courses. Sadly, this would be the first day of problems with cars becoming stuck, but the weather was kind and after some pushing we got all off site safely, with considerable help from the 4×4 pickups.

Rainbow over site

On Sunday morning and due to yet more rain overnight we saw the entrance and sections of the admin field practically impassable to vehicles. The field was closed to traffic and competitors cars were diverted to alternative site with a minibus organised to transport the archers to the shooting venue and registration.

I don’t think I have pushed so many cars out of mud in my life, but I wasn’t the only one. I know i have said this earlier but there were so many people who came together to help that it was quite simply amazing. At times there was a 4×4 pickup attached to another 4×4 pickup, both trying to get a grip in the muddy earth to pull a third vehicle up the slope. Not always successfully. It took us over an hour to move the catering van on Sunday to a firm bit of ground where a 3rd 4×4 this time with off road tyres managed to get it off site and to the course so the archers could get some lunch. Despite this we managed to get people moving. I’m glad we had taken our grip tracks as these proved necessary at times for even the 4x4s. these go under the tyres and offer a bit more traction.

There are some excellent photographs from the weekend on the NFAS website thanks to Alex Tyler’s keen eye.( https://www.nfas.net/ )

Stroll in the woods with Harry
Stroll in the woods with Harry NFAS president – credit to Alex Tyler

I did manage to get out round and have a brief walk round part of the courses over the 2 days A on Saturday with Sharon, Lynne and Julie and part of B course on Sunday with Harry.

Sharon, Julie and Lynne

From the little I saw of the courses they seemed to be well laid and offered a challenge without being stretched shots. The course layers having worked hard to try and use the terrain and dead ground to the best possible outcome. I really liked the tall standing bear shot which was situated down an avenue of trees.

Chatting to competitors as they hand cards in – credit to Alex Tyler

After each stroll it was back to the Admin tent in readiness for the archers as they return off the course and hand in their score cards to be logged. Each day archers would have to hand in their score cards to be checked and recorded. Double scoring is used by all competitors, where 2 members of the shooting group score independently, with regular checks. The restriction being that you can’t score your own score card. This helps to reduce the chance of accidental or intentional errors.

Me checking cards as they arrive credit to Alex Tyler

Thankfully the rain was mainly in the evening with only light showers during the day, though those showers did make the field and some of the paths very muddy. One image I shared on social media was that of a rainbow over the admin Marquee and field on Sunday morning, along with one on Monday morning when piece had descended on the field as shown below. The dog by the way is Spencer and was a familiar site over the weekend, belonging to the landowners and spent a lot of time in our admin marque or playing outside.

Monday - exit from the field
Monday – exit route from the field

It was great to catch up with so many people, many of who I had not seen for nearly 2 years in person. I also had opportunity to catch up some followers of this site and discuss how they were doing, what they thought of the new target faces, along with aspects of target panic which some were encountering.

The general feedback from competitors on the weekend and on social media afterwards has been very positive, with many encouraging comments on the use of the new range of paper faces. This is something that the NFAS will need to capitalise on if they are wanting to continue to promote the nationals as a paper faces only event.

It was also nice to chat with John Stanley, editor of Bow International who I had only talked to via email in the past.

Chatting with John Stanley
Chatting with John Stanley – credit to Alex Tyler

I’d like to offer my congratulations to all who attended and survived the mud, especially those who were placed. A full breakdown of scores can be found on the NFAS website (https://www.nfas.net/)

Thanks for reading

Sharon on the range
Feb 25 2020

Before we start a quick reminder

So we have looked at two sides of the archers triangle, that of the arrow and bow. Now let’s look at what many see as the hardest element to gain control of, the archer.

archers triangle graphic

The archers triangle

Before we dive into this I want you to think for a moment about your mindset and how you approach these ideas.
It’s good to be optimistic when it comes to combating target panic but you have to temper this with a level of realism. So please be realistic in what you can achieve with the time you have available. Try and plan your activities so your time is used effectively and efficiently. Just like you need to allocate time for tuning your bow or making arrows you need to give yourself time to practice these techniques.
You will need to consider planning your time effectively. Don’t just go out and shoot lots of arrows believing it will cure your anxiety. It might build your muscle strength but I doubt it will solve the anxiety you feel.  Consider the fact that shooting 100 poor shots does not work as well as 30 well executed shots.

So think about practice regime and exercises you can do to help build confidence and resolve. Working on your chosen techniques whether these be focusing on your own form, shot sequence steps or exercises like drawing down off a shot have to be factored into your training regime.

view of the range

view of the range

Consider carefully how much time you can allocate to the techniques I will suggest. It may well require you to allocate 20 to 30 minutes a session in the early stages to get used to the drills. This is the sort of commitment required in the early stages.
Once you have regained control its still worth practicing the techniques every few sessions partly so they remain fresh in your mind and partly because they can help you remain in control.
Your objective is not to hit the target but to gain control over your target panic / shot anxiety – remember this. Don’t let your focus move to hitting the gold, it has to be on control.
Too often we focus and perceive success as making the shot score highly. That is an outcome from solving the anxiety, your true goal is to take back control of the shot.

Physical Practise is one way but remember we are training your brain too. I mentioned in the previous article about mindset and changing the way you think about things. This includes how we consider things such as how we recall what we consider to be good or bad shots, productive or unproductive practice. Often when we start experiencing target panic we tend to recall the poor shots, what we consider bad ones. These prey on your mind, possibly because you missed a shot or scored less than you wanted. In reality the shot has gone, its in the past. remember to learn from it and move on.
You may have heard of the phrase “Making mistakes is not failure unless you let it be.” or something similar.
I firmly believe that making mistakes should not be viewed as a failure as it can provide a great learning experience. The reality is if we don’t learn from our mistakes we are likely to repeat them. Think of this for a moment. Shooting the wrong spine of arrow and identifying this only comes about from the mistake of shooting the wrong arrows in the first place.
Where archery is concerned this is very important to remember as you might try a technique and it doesn’t gell with you for whatever reason. The crucial thing to remember is you’ve tried something and made a step in gaining back control.
One way you can think of it is as if you are going to a new restaurant. You decide to try something new on the menu that sounds interesting. You might like it or you might hate it, without trying you’ll never know.

Getting good at something takes practice.
Getting better at doing the same thing takes more good practice.
Getting to a level where you are a master, can take a lifetime.

This is true if you are field archer, target shooter, fisherman, golfer or even a surgeon.
It is equally true of physical and mental practices. They take time to learn and for you to develop.

Natural Aptitude and learnt skill

Basic talent or natural aptitude only goes so far, after that its perseverance and good practice. Someone with natural talent will often start off well or ahead of another who has to work on shooting a bow. The thing is the person who is a “natural” may struggle later in their progression as they may have relied on their talent rather than developing skill. I’ve seen it time and time before affect the archers confidence as they start to struggle, wondering why it’s become so hard all of a sudden.

Modern fix, quick fix

In a modern world where people are always looking for short cuts or quick answers to fix complex issues the concept of spending time ensuring we learn the skill properly is sometimes overlooked.
Increasingly society looks for the easy fast solution. Here is a fact, target panic requires time to overcome. There maybe some quick tips that can help you find your right road, which is why I started writing these articles but there are no shortcuts or magic arrow.
The important thing to remember is effort can work and will work if the effort is focused.
Knowledge and effort makes a difference or at least it can if effort is directed and focused correctly. These posts are here to help you gain some insight and ideas on how to focus on the correct way for you.
Be kind to yourself and give yourself time. You might have been struggling with anxiety for years so don’t expect to learn to control it in hours. Remember in the second post I said there were 3 things

Put some work in – there are no magic arrows that solve everything or a secret draw technique that quells the nerves.
Remember one size doesn’t fit all – what works for one person may or may not work for you.
Be patient – it takes time to work out what helps you and this means time spent working at it too.

In the next couple of posts I’m going to cover a few techniques that can help.

  • Blank boss work
  • Target fear (where specific target faces trigger anxiety)
  • Drawing down
  • Drawing up but not shooting immediately

I might throw a few other ideas in the mix too. I hope these ideas will help.
Thanks for reading