First Competition - Frostbite!

Last Saturday I took part in my first club competition, a Frostbite, which was the last of a series of outdoor competitions run by the club throughout the winter.  A Frostbite round is not an official GNAS or FITA round, but is used by UK clubs in a postal competition.  It consists of three dozen arrows shot at 30m at a 80cm face, with 10-zone scoring.  About 30 people turned up, so we shot in details, 3 arrows at a time.  Compound archers used a different target face, which looked like the the inner scoring zones only (5 to 10), probably due to their expected greater accuracy.

The last time I shot someone noticed that the arrows I was using were quite long, and suggested that I try some shorter ones.  This turned out to be a bad move, as the arrows were not really suited to the bow - they fishtailed all the way up the range.  A few times the arrow came off the rest at full draw so I suspect that they were actually a little too short, and this seemed to affect my confidence to anchor the draw properly.

I was really pleased with the first three half-dozen, scoring 16, 25 and 24, respectively. (OK, not brilliant, but this was the first time at this distance on an 80cm face).  Then it all went spectacularly pear-shaped, with the next three half-dozen scoring 7, 2 and 14 (no figures missing there).  There is not one thing I can put my finger on to explain this sudden drop-off of form, except perhaps the confidence to anchor my draw, as mentioned above.  The only saving grace is that a couple of the other novices who had been on the beginners course had chosen that day for their first outdoor round, and I did manage to exceed their scores (but not by much).

Next time I will move back to the arrows that I have been using throughout my beginners course and the early rounds, so that I can remove that variable.  This experience really does show that you need to match your arrows to your bow and the next time I change will be when I get my own set of equipment, after seeking advice from other members.

By far the best part of the day was some of the juniors shooting in their onesies!