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.

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.

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.

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). 

Oh boy!

Oh boy it has been a while, I have only managed to shoot about 6 times this year and it shows. I finally got back to the club last Wednesday and I took along an old pair of winstar wood/carbon limbs that I have not used since I got my revolution, the idea was to use them just to get my form back as they are only 26lbs I can pretty much hold at full draw while I work out where everything is and really take my time over the draw, settle down and then release. Well it was a good job I took them as when after about six dozen I put my Tomcats back on and even though they are not madly heavy at 34lbs I could only shoot about a dozen and then had to stop (boy how quickly you lose condition), and I used to shoot an Albion and hardly feel it.
So it is back to the light limbs and  I must say I have enjoyed the last couple of times that I have got to the club. Even in just two sessions I can feel the rust falling away as the old habits come back, the only thing that I have really had to work on is keeping my elbow down.
So the plan now is to shoot these limbs over the autumn and winter and do a bit of training at home (yes I had stopped that as well ....bad Tony bad Tony!) and then early next year get the Tomcats back on and up to speed for the outdoor season.

So we'll see how that goes best laid plans and all that.   

I'm back.......

Hello all.

First sorry there has been so little going on here for the last couple of months but hey, life sometimes gets in the way.

Soooo... whats on for today, well I managed to get up to the club for a spot of shooting on Wednesday and wow what a day, after so much gloomy weather a nice sunny day with a gentle breeze was fab!
My shooting has deteriorated since I last shot and I was not back up to scratch on last year then, so I now have a lot of work to do if I am going to keep my new years resolution and improve my shooting with a view to getting my first class.  

First sorry that I have not updated for a while but as I have said things at home have been a bit up in the air.

Finally got back up to the club on Wednesday to say hi to some people, but did not shoot just wanted to see if I could make the round trip on my bike. I haven't missed much as the weather has been so awful since I was last up there. I am going to try to get up there again on Sunday if the weather holds and see how much my form has suffered.