I Blame Twitter

I love Twitter, but it can lead you up alleys you didn't really know existed.  This week this tweet from Steve Nichols appeared in my timeline :

A Six Gold End is one of those things that we all aspire to but may never achieve; much like a hole-in-one in golf, a sub-4-minute mile or a 147 break in snooker.  Some may achieve it by pure luck but, usually, it is the confleunce of ability and conditions that make it more attainable.  I am really pleased for Steve, as I was for Mrs EA and EA jnr, who both had six-gold-ends two years ago and have the badges to prove it.  (EA jnr did it twice in the same round but you only get one badge!).

That said,  I did reply a little tongue-in-cheek:

Whilst it was a little cheeky, it was a semi-serious reply.  Six Gold End awards have a fixed set of criteria, which depends on the gender of the archer and their age (if under 18).  This table from the award claim form shows the minimum distances required for each category:

Note that, unlike the Archery GB classification awards, no account is taken of the bowstyle used when shooting. Compound, recurve and barebow archers are lumped together (longbow archers have their own award for a Three Gold End).  Thus my cheeky tweet: barebow archers will find it more difficult to achieve a six gold end than recurve archers.  Similarly, recurve archers will find it more difficult than compound archers.  If there are categories for bowstyle for classifications, then why not for six gold ends?  

One problem with this is that a six gold end is a six gold end, no matter what type of bow you used to put your arrows in the boss.  There are only two ways in which I could see this being made 'fairer':  (1) reduce the minimum distance for barebow and increase it for compound; (2) introduce a different award for each bowstyle (e.g. a 4 gold end for barebow and a seven gold end for compound).  OK this last one was a bit facecious but you get my drift.  Of the two changes I reckon the distance criteria would be more workable.

I also mentioned the Portsmouth 500+ awards in my tweet.  These are badges for achieving scores of 500, 525, 550, 575 and so on.  This is even less flexible than the six gold end award, as no account is taken of either bowstyle or gender.  Looking at our club indoor records from last season, every compound archer has a 500+ award, the vast majority of recurve archers have a 500+ award, and a small minority of barebow archers have a 500+ award.  

Unlike many clubs, we have quite a strong contingent of barebow archers, and at about half of them shoot at 1st class level and above outdoors, so why would achieving a score of 500+ in a Portsmouth round be so difficult?  I decided to look at some figures.  I took the outdoor handicaps required for each classification for both barebow and recurve, and looked-up the Portsmouth score required to achieve that handicap (I know I am comparing outdoor and indoor figures here, but there is no distinction in bowstyles for indoor handicaps).  I then drew the graph below and dropped a line from each of the bowstyle curves where it crosses a score of 500.  What this shows is that a recurve archer (blue curve) would be expected to achieve a 500 score when their outdoor classification is mid-way between second class and first class.  A barebow archer, on the other hand, would be expected to be shooting at an outdoor classification between Bowman and Master Bowman - two categories higher.

I don't pretend that this is totally scientific, as the higher outdoor classifications must be achieved at longer distances, where environmental factors come into play, but it does demonstrate quite clearly why I shouldn't expect to score 500 points or more in a Portsmouth round anytime soon.  I think that is a good thing rather than a bad one.  Is this situation likely to change?  Well, I hope so.  This was the response to my cheeky tweet:

Why is this important?  David Harrison is not only a fellow archer, but also the Chairman of Archery GB.  I know that AGB are keen to support the emergence of barebow archery and have made a start by allocating a section of the magazine for barebow features.  I have emailed David with some of my thoughts and am confident that he will follow-through with his promised support. 

It's been a while....

I think I should stop putting time expectations on the frequency of my posts, given that this is the first of 2015.  Happy New Year!

In my previous post, I had just bought a second-hand riser but had not yet used it, intending to put it away as an extra Christmas present to open.  That plan went out of the window when Mrs EA saw a wanted post on the Archery Equipment for Sale UK Facebook group asking for a riser that would be suitable for repainting.  As the post was from the owner of ArrowSocks, a deal was done involving an amount of cash and a set of custom wraps for Mrs EA!

The 'new' riser is an SF Forged+, which is a great intermediate riser.  With my existing 28lb SF Premium Carbon limbs fitted, I felt an improvement over the old Premium+.  However, it soon became clear that there is a difference in the limb mounting geometry between the two risers, as the cast of my arrows at maximum limb bolt adjsutment was leaving me unable to reach 60yds reliably, when I could manage to do so with my old riser.  Time for some 'heavier' limbs!

I had been shooting with the 28lb limbs for about a year, so I was about ovedue for a step-up.  This time I went for a new set of limbs, the SF Premium+ Carbon limbs at 32lb.  These appear to be essentially the same as my existing limbs, but with a revised paint-job, and they certainly improved my range.  As you will know if you have read my previous posts, I am a string-walking barebow archer: I can now shoot at 60yds with point-on-gold and three-fingers under with room on the string to spare. 80yds is achievable by using my arrow rest as a reference so 70m should be fine, but I have yet to try 90m/100yds.

There have been some other minor equipment changes in the past few months.  I did buy a smaller (large as opposed to X-large) Black Widow tab, and that felt more comfortable than the one I had been using.  I also picked up a platform version of the same tab on the Facbook group and I now perefre to use this when shooting outdoors, as I need an under-the-chin anchor point to get the longer ranges.  When indoors I use a corner-of-the-mouth anchor point with the non-platform tab, otherwise I end up string-walking a stupid distance away fron the nocking point.  The other addition was an extra 200g weight on my riser to help keep reduce the amount of backward rotation after release.  I already had a 350g weight on the lower stabiliser mounting point, but this one is attached onto the middle position.

In terms of shooting acheivements since December, I haven't really moved on much after winning the handicap medal at the Surrey Indoor competition.  I didn't really get going on the indoor rounds as I missed many of the weekly sessions due to being away from home more than usual, either for work or more frequent trips 'Up North' to visit family.  Outdoors I managed to maintain second-class scores on all but a couple of occasions, but I didn't expect to make much progress during these colder months.

A couple of weeks ago I stepped-in to help out one of our club members - Dave - who is working towards becoming an AGB Level 2 coach.  Part of the course requires that the candidate works with a couple of 'improving' archers to identify their goals and to work with them on achieving these goals.  There are a number of sessions where the candidates come together and this coaching is observed by AGB assessors to make sure that it is being delivered correctly and to offer advice wher necessary. Unfortunately one of Dave's improvers had a nasty accident where he severely lacerated two of his fingers and was therefore unable to shoot.  Thankfully he has since revovered enough to get back on the shooting line, if not back at his previous capacity.

The first of these assessment sessions was held a couple of weeks ago at an indoor venue, and formed the first part of a full weekend session for the Level 2 candidates.  Dave started by checking and listing my equipment, then discussing my short, medium and long-term goals.  He observed me shooting for a few ends than started to make some suggestions to improve my techinique.  The first was the placement of my feet to improve my stability.  Next was my hand position on the riser grip. This felt very odd at first, but the change he suggested resulted in an immediate improvement to my groupings.  Tridh, one of the assessors took a particular interest in me, as she is a former World champion field barebow archer and I was the only 'improver' shooting barebow.  She suggested that I might need a little more weight in the bottom of my riser, as it was not quite sitting vertically in my hand before drawing.  More shooting and more feedback made for quite a tiring morning, but I came away with a feeling that I had learned something.

Now that the clocks have gone forward, we are now able shoot outdoors at our club on two weekday evenings (only one of which I can attend due to other commitments) as well as at the weekend, so I have had a few more opportunities to put into practice the revised techniques.  It appears to be having a positive effect, as I have managed to set new Personal Best scores for both the Warwick and Long National rounds.  My score for the Long National was only eleven points away from a first class score, so I am hopeful of crossing that particular barrier in the not-too-distant future.

One of the recent saturdays was set aside for a public Have-a-Go day.  We were busy most of the day and everyone went away pleased with the opportunity to shoot.  There were some so keen that they rejoined the queue a number of times to have more turns.  I was particularly pleased that there were lots of youngsters who were keen to emulate Katniss (or other on-screen archers) but were not disappointed when they found it wasn't quite so easy at it looked.  We look forward to welcoming many of our visitors onto our forthcoming beginners' courses.