Sunshine

What a difference a week makes! This weekend I was lucky to be able to shoot arrows on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Both times the sun was out and although the temperature was just into double figures (°C) it made for a far more pleasurable experience than the previous week (see Wind).

My archery weekend started on Friday when my new limbs were delivered.  I have opted for a pair of SF Premium medium length limbs giving a draw weight of 24lbs on a 25" riser.  Note to online retailers: can you PLEASE work together to standardize on the description of limb length and draw weight?  I had incorrectly ordered the wrong size from a different retailer and it took almost a week to get the order amended and the limbs removed (they didn't stock the size/weight I needed).  I also had a new string to fit, as the original one made by Martin seemed a little short, needing very few twists to achive the desired bracing height of 23cm.  So I fitted the limbs to the riser, attached the string, marked the nocking point with a bow square and marked the nocking point with dental floss kept in place with superglue.  I was very careful and was pleased with the result, so I removed the string.  At this point Mrs EA took a look at the new limbs and pointed out that the one marked 'Upper' usually goes at the top......

On Saturday, after a couple of hours maintenance, I moved onto the practice range to try and get used to the new, heavier limbs. I also tried out some club arrows which were more suited to my draw weight. The EA family were playing musical limbs: I had my new ones, Mrs EA had borrowed a set of 26lb limbs to try, and EA jnr decided to tryout Mrs EA's 22lb limbs.

The afternoon session was spent concentrating on my draw technique, trying to follow the valuable advice of the coaches. There were times when it felt as though I was attempting to put my body in positions that it was not designed to do! The basic take-aways for the afternoon were

- keep the front shoulder down
- use the shoulders and back to bring the arms into line at full draw
- keep the head still during the draw. Move the bow not the head

The Sunday morning round was a Short Metric. You may recall that the last time I attempted this, I had only two hits at 50m, so I was hoping for better this time. The sighters were much needed as I had no sight marks since changing to heavier limbs, but managed to hit the boss reliably in the first half-dozen. During the round I made an effort to put the previous day's advice into practice and I think it paid off, although I have to admit that my back and shoulders were becoming tired towards the end of the round. I was pleased with my score of 51 at 50m, as this was 43 more than I managed last time. My total of 159 for the round was equal to my PB in handicap terms, which can't be too bad. However, I checked the required score for a GNAS 3rd class classification and found that it is 334, so I have a very long way to go before I reach that level. It does seem relatively harder for gents to obtain classification scores than ladies or juniors of similar experience, and many other club members seem to agree. The classifications for juniors also seem to have very large step changes across the age boundaries, which means that an 11 year old and 12 year old of similar ability might end up with dramatically different classifications. It would be interesting to find out how the classification scores and boundaries have been arrived at.

Sunday night : needed a nice hot bath then crashed into bed...