Tag: Archery

Watching Paris paralympics

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I am glued to my TV. The Paris paralympics started on Wednesday and since my Internet was down I got into it. Team GB is doing really well and I have limited my Internet use now it’s been restored to the gaps between TV programmes showing the athletes in action.

So far I’ve watched Boccia (like bowls but using cloth covered softer balls), archery, athletics (field and track, with various disabilities), rowing, badminton, table tennis, tennis, cycling, and blind football. There’s also been wheelchair rugby and basketball.

It’s all fascinating and the skills the athletes show is amazing. If you can watch have a look!

Robin Hood

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If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.

I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.

I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.

So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…

Archery ?

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I’ve been going to Archery now for about 6 months off and on. I thought I would be getting better but struggle with the whole thing somehow.

While my partner shoots bare bow (without sights) and has gradually improved, I feel I’m actually becoming less accurate. He got eight golds last week where I just got 2, and this week I kept missing the boss  (the support the paper target is pinned to).

It looks easy, lift up your bow, pull back on the bowstring, look through the  sight and let your arrow fly. Watch it wobble in its flight towards, then over, under, to the side of the target…missed again! I try and place myself in the same position each time, holding the bow not too tightly, trying not to pinch my fingers around the knock end of the arrow so it releases from the string smoothly. Place my hand holding the string under my chin with my nose and mouth touching the string. Sight along the arrow using a sight that has a hole with a little dot in it so that it is sighted over the gold. But a tiny deviation where you are is large when you have a target 20 yards away and worse as you get futher away from it.

I’m going to keep trying, I hope I can do it, I will persevere.

 

Sticks and string

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We went to Archery today and I had a go with a longbow for the first time.

I didn’t take any photos  (I wasn’t that good ) but it felt completely different to the bows we have been using .

Let me explain. We have been using recurve bows. They have a central riser with a cut out in one side so that the arrow flies straight. Then you have two limbs that attach top and bottom which curve back away from the riser. You have to use a stringer to pull the limbs back so you can attach the string. The bows are made of metal and carbon fiber, the arrows are metal or carbon fibre.

I have been using junior bows with either 14 or 16 pounds of pressure on them, that means it only takes a light pressure to pull the sting back sufficiently to shoot the arrows. I’ve hit a few golds but its hard to work out your aim and I have been using sites to try and aim.

So today one if the other archery members had brought along his longbow “a couple I sticks and a string” and that’s basically what it is. No sights, a rubber band round the shaft of the bow if you want to help you aim. The bow is one long peice of wood, usually English Yew which is naturally laminated and springy. No “window” or bend in the wood, so your arrows have to go round the bow,  you have to aim off to get them on target. You also have to make sure that the arrow is the right way round, with the cock feather towards you so the other two don’t catch on the bow. The arrows are wooden with metal tips, and feathers cut down to shape for flights. You have to wear a glove so the arrow which rests on the top of your hand does not leave splinters in you as the arrow is shot. The other change was that the bow was 35 pounds of pressure, more than twice what I have been pulling! It was hard work, my shots were all around the target and I didn’t hit a gold no matter how I tried. I couldn’t hit the middle of the boss  (target). But I really took to it and want to have another try.

 

Archery today

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We started going to archery a few months ago, but had to stop because I got busy doing art, or visiting relatives, and Richards back has been playing up.

So we decided to go back today. It was overcast and a bit blustery but we were only shooting arrows over about 20 yards, which isn’t far, even with the junior 16 pound bows we were using. I managed to get a gold and so did my partner, but we were watching the other archers, who are more experienced, shoot 50 and 80 yards.

I decided to have a try at 50 yards, you have to elivate the bow more,  I ended up aiming at the roof of a house. I actually managed to hit the target after trying several shots that either went short or left of the target. As the morning passed we were both getting closer to the gold  (center of the target ).

It’s surprising how tiring it us pulling even a low poundage bow, some if the people there were pulling 40 pound bows. But looking back in history archers could pull far heavier bows than that. They started around age 4 and were given 4 arrows. They then has to practice every day. Archers ended up with massive muscles and deformed backs because of the strain they were putting on them.

At the end of the session we were shooting at the 80 yard target, I was getting tired and my bow arm kept dropping, but despite not hitting the target I was making he distance. My arrows wavered and wiggled as they flew through the air, but they got there. I was shooting with sites but they didn’t help much. I just had to vaguely aim at a clump of trees.

I think we will go back next week….