Anyone have any ideas why suddenly I am getting more views from Germany than anywhere else when it has always been about the third highest.
Tuesday 12 November 2013
Monday 11 November 2013
Now I just can't wait till Christmas.
A few months ago I was talking to my wife about stuff and she said that we would have to start thinking about what we would like for Christmas. I said "well the only thing that I would really like would be a new pair of limbs" and told her that as I was pretty much at the edge of my range at 80 yards with my current ones that a new pair with a bit more weight would be a good move. I had been looking at the Uuhka EX1s, my current limbs (which I have been more than happy with) are a pair of 34lb medium Kaya Tomcat Carbons (labeled as K3 since 2012). As I have said I am right at the bottom of my sight with it pulled all the way in at 80 yards and in a strong head wind I have to aim a little bit high on the gold. I am holding about 38lbs with the limbs all the way in and a 29" draw, so I thought I would go for the 40lb EX1s and wind the limbs all the way out so I think I will start off at about 40lbs on my fingers. Then I saw that Uuhka would be a Telford for the European Archery Festival in January so decided to wait until then and go have a look at them there.......and then ordered a pair without even trying them out (like I always do).
The on Thursday last week they arrived and guess what? My darling wife has taken them away and said I will get them back on Christmas day! grrrrrrrrrrr........
The on Thursday last week they arrived and guess what? My darling wife has taken them away and said I will get them back on Christmas day! grrrrrrrrrrr........
Saturday 9 November 2013
Training off the range....
Well I did say a long time ago that I was going to do a little post about training off the range (at home indoors) but never got round to doing it so here we go.
With the British weather and just life in general I often find that I cannot spend as much time shooting as I would like and know from last year how badly that can affect my form, stamina and shooting in general. So I try to be good and do a little bit of training at home each evening when I get in from work, even if it is just ten or twenty reversals, using your bow or a stretchy band go through you shot cycle without an arrow knocked but DO NOT release, instead hold as if you are on the gold for 5-20 sec, roll your shoulder back and then come down slowly (I will talk about this in a little bit). It is very handy if you have a mirror that you can see your whole body in when doing reversals as you can check that you are keeping a good form and that you have a nice line from the bow hand all the way back to your string arm elbow. How long you hold for depends on what your are trying to achieve and how heavy the band/bow is, when I have time I will do maybe 10 sets of six with a medium band and hold for about 10 seconds each time with a 10 second rest in between each reversal and 20 seconds in between each set. I am not going for a cardio workout with this I am just reinforcing my draw cycle and each time I come up I am going through the same mental checklist as when I shoot.
If I want to look at my form I will use a light band so that it takes very little effort to hold full draw and I can take time to look and feel where my hands, shoulders and elbows are. Knowing exactly where your hands and shoulders etc are is a big part of having a good form but many archers struggle with it, I have seen people being coached and being told to anchor their string hand under their chin and they are insisting that it is when everybody watching can see it is along side their jaw. They are not lying, it really feels like their hand is under the jaw, this is because they have not learned how it feels when the hand is under the jaw, the same goes for the draw arm elbow, lots of archers have a high elbow but when told about it say no I can feel it is down (they mean it feels 'like' it is down). Standing in front of a mirror allows you to see exactly what you are doing and to 'feel' what you are doing.
To build strength and stamina I use a 'custom' training aid, I have a spare grip from an old bow with which I use a medium and a heavy stretch band so that it is like holding my bow I have then put a 2 kg dumbbell into the grip and used some tape to hold it in place. Now i have a training aid that I can use to build strength into the muscles that draw the bow and also the ones that hold the bow up. I don't do much other training as I am quite a keen cyclist and rely on that to maintain my core strength, but if I did not do that then I would need to be working on that.
One other thing that I think helps with my form and shot cycle is to mentally go through it during the corse of a normal day, just take twenty seconds a few times a day and go through your shot cycle in your head 'feeling' the shot as you do it. I think it is all to do with the fact that when you just think about moving your arm for example, your brain starts to send small signals to the muscles that you will use even before you have made a conscious effort to move it.
With the British weather and just life in general I often find that I cannot spend as much time shooting as I would like and know from last year how badly that can affect my form, stamina and shooting in general. So I try to be good and do a little bit of training at home each evening when I get in from work, even if it is just ten or twenty reversals, using your bow or a stretchy band go through you shot cycle without an arrow knocked but DO NOT release, instead hold as if you are on the gold for 5-20 sec, roll your shoulder back and then come down slowly (I will talk about this in a little bit). It is very handy if you have a mirror that you can see your whole body in when doing reversals as you can check that you are keeping a good form and that you have a nice line from the bow hand all the way back to your string arm elbow. How long you hold for depends on what your are trying to achieve and how heavy the band/bow is, when I have time I will do maybe 10 sets of six with a medium band and hold for about 10 seconds each time with a 10 second rest in between each reversal and 20 seconds in between each set. I am not going for a cardio workout with this I am just reinforcing my draw cycle and each time I come up I am going through the same mental checklist as when I shoot.
If I want to look at my form I will use a light band so that it takes very little effort to hold full draw and I can take time to look and feel where my hands, shoulders and elbows are. Knowing exactly where your hands and shoulders etc are is a big part of having a good form but many archers struggle with it, I have seen people being coached and being told to anchor their string hand under their chin and they are insisting that it is when everybody watching can see it is along side their jaw. They are not lying, it really feels like their hand is under the jaw, this is because they have not learned how it feels when the hand is under the jaw, the same goes for the draw arm elbow, lots of archers have a high elbow but when told about it say no I can feel it is down (they mean it feels 'like' it is down). Standing in front of a mirror allows you to see exactly what you are doing and to 'feel' what you are doing.
To build strength and stamina I use a 'custom' training aid, I have a spare grip from an old bow with which I use a medium and a heavy stretch band so that it is like holding my bow I have then put a 2 kg dumbbell into the grip and used some tape to hold it in place. Now i have a training aid that I can use to build strength into the muscles that draw the bow and also the ones that hold the bow up. I don't do much other training as I am quite a keen cyclist and rely on that to maintain my core strength, but if I did not do that then I would need to be working on that.
One other thing that I think helps with my form and shot cycle is to mentally go through it during the corse of a normal day, just take twenty seconds a few times a day and go through your shot cycle in your head 'feeling' the shot as you do it. I think it is all to do with the fact that when you just think about moving your arm for example, your brain starts to send small signals to the muscles that you will use even before you have made a conscious effort to move it.
Thursday 25 July 2013
European Archery Festival.
I have been thinking of getting a new pair of limbs, as I currently can't go much beyond 80 yards with my Kaya Tomcat Carbons, I don't want to got much higher weight wise so I was looking at something a fit faster maybe and the Uuhka EX-1s caught my eye. My current limbs are 34lb so I was thinking of maybe going up to a pair of 38lb EX-1s at the end of the current season (could be a christmas present) so I don't mess up my progress. Then I noticed that the European Archery Festival is coming to the UK in January (http://www.europeanarcheryfestival.com/) and Uuhka will be one of the exibitors along with many other top manufactures. So guess what I am going to do that weekend, I think I will travel up to Telford by train from London after work on the friday stay somewhere overnight ( maybe a hedge as it would seem most hotels are already getting quite busy) and then go to the show on the Saturday.
Friday 12 July 2013
A strange week
Ok I have been very remiss keeping the blog going and am going to try and do better.
Last week was a bit of a strange one for me, on the thursday I shot a personal best on an Albion of 715 and then on the Sunday I shot just about my worst score this year at a LEAGUE MATCH! I just could not settle and just did not feel comfortable (if that is the right word) in my form). The on wednesday this week I was shooting a my club and happened to look at my bow and noticed that I had negative tiller set on the bow (the bottom limb was wound in further than the top one), now most bow are recommended by the makers to be set with positive tiller and with the Revo' they recommend starting with a neutral tiller. The difference is normally just a millimeter or two between the top and bottom limbs, my bottom limb was all the way in and the top one was about 5 mm out (could be why it felt weird). But the last time I had the bow apart was back at the beginning of the year. So I put it back to neutral and wow back to a sweet quiet bow, I had not realised how unbalanced it felt until I put it right.
The other thing I wanted to mention was long rods and side bars, do any other target shooters ever shoot without them, because if you don't you should try it. Start at a short distance and work you way out, I average about 80 pts/dozen arrows at 80 yards with a long rod and 75 pts without. Not a big difference when when not in a competition but boy does the Revo' feel nice without the long rod, remember it was designed to be shot with no extra stabilization and if tuned should not need any damping. So go on give it a try and then please give some feed back on how you thought it felt....oh and check your tiller and even if you are set to positive try it with neutral and again let us know how you found it.
Last week was a bit of a strange one for me, on the thursday I shot a personal best on an Albion of 715 and then on the Sunday I shot just about my worst score this year at a LEAGUE MATCH! I just could not settle and just did not feel comfortable (if that is the right word) in my form). The on wednesday this week I was shooting a my club and happened to look at my bow and noticed that I had negative tiller set on the bow (the bottom limb was wound in further than the top one), now most bow are recommended by the makers to be set with positive tiller and with the Revo' they recommend starting with a neutral tiller. The difference is normally just a millimeter or two between the top and bottom limbs, my bottom limb was all the way in and the top one was about 5 mm out (could be why it felt weird). But the last time I had the bow apart was back at the beginning of the year. So I put it back to neutral and wow back to a sweet quiet bow, I had not realised how unbalanced it felt until I put it right.
The other thing I wanted to mention was long rods and side bars, do any other target shooters ever shoot without them, because if you don't you should try it. Start at a short distance and work you way out, I average about 80 pts/dozen arrows at 80 yards with a long rod and 75 pts without. Not a big difference when when not in a competition but boy does the Revo' feel nice without the long rod, remember it was designed to be shot with no extra stabilization and if tuned should not need any damping. So go on give it a try and then please give some feed back on how you thought it felt....oh and check your tiller and even if you are set to positive try it with neutral and again let us know how you found it.
Thursday 16 May 2013
Never enough time....
Gosh never enough time as soon as the weather started to improve it's time for the summer league (and guess who said yes to being the team captain) bit of a last minute scramble to put a team together but we managed it and won our first match of the season. We did not take part last year and so were a little out of practice and having only ever shot in 2 league matches myself it was a bit scary being the field captain as well.
Friday 18 January 2013
Back on the line
Managed to get up the the club on Wednesday and shot nine dozen arrows, and while it was pretty cold I really enjoyed myself. I am using my old 26lb Winstorm Carbons to get back some kind of form and then in a few weeks I will put my 34lb Kaya Tomcats back on (I hope). I was only shooting at 30 meters but to start with my groups....well there were none, but by the end of the session I was starting to get four or five out of the six in a reasonable group. I think next time I get up there I will try a short western and see how I do, I really must start working towards getting some kind of classification this year and get back out to 80 yards before the summer league starts.
That's about it for now I am going to get a few snaps of my training aid and maybe talk about what can be done off the range to improve form next time (within the next seven days).
That's about it for now I am going to get a few snaps of my training aid and maybe talk about what can be done off the range to improve form next time (within the next seven days).
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