Archery
Yesterday was the official last night of our archery course.
I’ll admit that Muffin-Decapitating-Boy missed two more lessons than me because he had to work late , so theoreticallyI had a four hour practise head start. To my great surprise, I didn’t come in last, actually, I came in 5th! (6 points and one “place” higher than M-D-B) out of about 20 contestants…
Some of those had just taken up shooting again after a longer period of time, some of them had done the course like we did, and everyone was shooting with different bows.
Mind you, I had the “easiest” bow, I was using a compound, as opposed to the recurve and bare-bows I was shooting with before…
We’re going to take out a candidate membership for our archery club, Concordia, (Dutch) to see what we like shooting best, after three months, we’ll hopefully be able to buy our own equipment and become full members :-)
I’m still in doubt between shooting any bow that’s out there, as I haven’t had enough experience to tell which one I like yet. Mind you, compound is sooooo easy and comfortable, I think I’ll stick with that, as I don’t have to work so hard :-)
4 comments
Permalink1
Awesome! I didn’t know you were into archery!
I shot for about two years, around my 20th… Still have my flatbow and longbow lying around. I’d love to pick up archery again, but right now we can’t afford it.
Congrats on finishing your course :)
Permalink2
WRT the choice in bows…
* Recurve: very easy and this is what I used for my first X lessons. Didn’t shoot anything over 20lbs.
* Flatbow: also quite easy, though more challenging than a recurve. This’s been my mainstay for most of my shooting days. This one was 25lbs. Still a bit of a Jr. bow, but it came cheap.
* Longbow: hard, but fscking awesome :D This was my first heavy bow, weighing in at around 38lbs.
I had a longbow custom made by Wim “Monkey” Gibbon of Gouda. We took all the measurements and chose three very nice types of wood for the bow. Thanks to the choice in woods, the bow isn’t very powerful, but it is very fast. Of course, it’s also a beauty to look at ^_^
I never shot compound and I doubt that I’ll ever will. Because of my days in the SCA and my love for traditional bows I’ve always had a prejudiced dislike of these “garage door opener” bows.
Permalink3
Cailin, I have the opportunity to make my own longbow/flat-bow. I would love to shoot a longbow, but I just don’t have the strength for it. The 23 lb. recurve was wearing me out after an hour or so (my back still isn’t in great shape, and standing on my feet for two hours straight didn’t really help, where as, with the compound bow, I didn’t get tired until after an hour and at least 45 minutes… (The compound being a kid one, coming in at a staggering 20 lb.)
I know, practice makes perfect, and I do need to work on my strength in general, but hopefully, I’ll be able to join the same workshop somewhere in November. Perhaps I’ll have found some of my former strength lying around by then.
I completely agree about the “garage door opener” type of bow, but it was the first one that I could actually shoot for more than an hour. Perhaps I should just head to gym and do more physical work in general, but I’m still very afraid that I’ll damage my back again. A two hour driving lesson taught me that it’s far from over, even though I didn’t have any problems for three weeks (no driving lessons then)…
Permalink4
Oh yea… I forgot about your back… I don’t think you’ll have to go to the gym though, just keep shooting regularly :)
I think it’s cool that you’re into archery :) Now there’s a fellow geek that I can share my enthusiasm with..
Oh yea, I wanted to add you on LinkedIn, but I don’t have your email addy… Care to add me? (you have mine or can easily get it on my contact page)…