By Chris Elliott…
Now I have been going to archery for a few months now and I find it a fascinating but frustrating hobby as the quest to shoot a good group of arrows into the centre of the target is firstly based upon the correct set of your bow with sight and in my case, it’s a recurve bow.
Then the most difficult task is in the process of shooting arrows at the target as you have to aim through the sight ensuring your bow hand and arm are set correctly and then when drawing the string with a nocked arrow you have to bring your arrow hand to the anchor point (face position depending on bow type) and also observing the string alignment to the target and even on release if there is any bad movement in the arrow hand the arrows can fly off to the left of right.
Now I have been shooting with the Lambousa Archers with sometimes great grouping on a 19m range and then total frustration when the arrows go where you don’t want them to go and despite great advice from many members and knowing what you are doing wrong and doing it right consistently is hard to do.
Now I have watched many YouTube videos giving coaching to cover all the above issues and then watched Olympic matches on 70m ranges where world-class archers plant 3 arrows close to each other but sometimes drift off centre only to refocus and put the next arrow closer to where they want it.
Now I recently went to an informal competition run by the Girne Hunting Shooting and Archery Sports Club where I soon had frustration and made the mistake of adjusting my bow sight before dealing with my shooting inconsistency.
Now like when you go to a doctor for a second opinion, I went to a shooting session with the Girne Archery Club at the Girne Hunting Shooting and Archery Sports Club and met with Osman and Aysen Tez and she took me to a range and after watching me shoot a few arrows she adjusted my bow sight and then after I fired a few more arrows she adjusted the sight again.
Great and was I making progress yes but it was difficult getting all the arrows close together and Osman said you must keep your anchor hand tight to your face with string on your lips and nose and pull back more and on the release of the arrow, ensure you just release your fingers on the string as any movement of your hand away from your face can cause the arrow to go to the left or right of where you want it to go and in my case I am often shooting to the left which needs correcting before I can develop further.
Now I had wanted to take part in a new competition this weekend but I would have had to shoot on a 30m range and to achieve this meant shooting a few arrows close to the target and then walking back repeatedly shooting a few arrows until I had reset the sight to suit the 30m range.
So back to basics, I have got to sort my anchor and form errors and then find time on a range when I can reset my bow sight for 30m without being in the way of other archers, and for the time being, I won’t worry about a 70m range as the Olympics is a very distant option LOL.
Now I am enclosing here a few photos published by members of the club after their competition today and I can see some of the children I was shooting close to on Saturday and other archers who helped me, especially finding a few arrows I had fired beyond the target and resetting points into my arrows I had fired into the hard wooden target frames so thank you all for that and I look forward to coming back soon and show you I am trying to master the fascinating art of archery.
To see more pictures please go to their Facebook page
