Archery again!

Well over the last few weeks, I have been all over the country at various archery competitions.  Some have gone better than others but the one thing they have in common is that I have thoroughly enjoyed them all.

I have even had a bit of success with them.  At one competition I was 9th but the highest scoring non West Midlands archer.  This meant I won the Open 1st place medal.  It felt a bit like a thanks for turning up prize though!  However, last week in Doncaster, I got 3rd place at the shoot I was attending.  It was a lovely club and there were only about 20 archers there, one of whom was an Olympian.  It was interesting watching him shoot and unsurprisingly he won the gents competition.

I don't have a competition for the next couple of weeks but after that I think I have at least one competition every weekend until the middle of October.

Archery competition today

Today was my first inter-club competition and surprisingly, especially for me, I was REALLY excited.  I got my new bow on Wednesday night but had only shot it a few times to practice with, so I had the dilemma of whether to use the club bow where I knew what my sight needed to be set to more or less or my new bow that I had absolutely no idea of where to set the sight.  After a long chat with my coach yesterday, he worked out some rough sight marks for me to start with so I could use my new bow!

Sadly, this morning dawned grey and miserable and VERY wet as predicted by the weather people. Typical! It's the one day they actually get it right!  We set up all the range and inside and had to wait about an hour or so for the starting time.  By then it was raining harder!

It then rained and rained and rained!  Then it stopped raining...yay!!!!!!

The competition should have been a Western which is 48 arrows at 60yds, 48 at 50yds.  I was to shoot the 'short' version of it which was the same number of arrows but at 50yds/40yds.  I couldn't get my sight down low enough to actually use it properly so spent the first half of the competition aiming for the top left hand corner of the boss (straw thing that the target is put on).

After a break for lunch, which was very tasty, we ventured out again to shoot the second half of the competition.  The rain had started again, although lightly and the wind had started to get up too. IT WAS COLD!  I was only shooting in a T shirt and a sweatshirty type thing as my coat is too bulky to wear and shoot, however I put in some good scores once I had got my sight sorted out.  The good news was...it stopped raining, the bad news was that it was now chucking it down with a howling gale (for non UK readers, chucking it down means that it was raining VERY, VERY heavily!  For my last arrow, the rain was nearly horizontal with the wind.  The field captain called us together and asked if we wanted to call it a National instead of a Western, which was less arrows and basically meant that we had finished!  Now, call me a numpty, but I would really have liked to have finished even in those conditions, just to see how close to last week's score I could get with the dramatic change in the weather.  I was a big chicken and didn't have the nerve to put my hand up and say so though!!!

Anyway, I have just got off the phone to my coach and he is really proud of me, as I am of myself, especially as some people either didn't come at all or gave up at one point or another apparently! 

Archery update

I have been having a lot of fun at archery lately. Dave (the coach) is amazing and has managed to finally get me shooting in a straight line!  He spent an hour (hour and a half?) a few weeks ago coaching no-one but me and something finally clicked.  For about 3 weeks after, every time I took a shot I could hear his voice telling me what to each time!

I went bow shopping on Friday but sadly the riser (handle of the bow) that I wanted was out of stock. They had it in orange, but I didn't want orange - I wanted blue!  So hopefully it will be in for Weds or Thurs.  Keep you fingers crossed for me!!

Next weekend, there is a competition against another club...only a friendly and Dave kept telling me I should shoot in it.  I kept laughing and telling him NO!  He persuaded me to come and shoot today at 50m and 40m to have a bit of a go and see how I got on with it.  So I did and I did ok!  I scored 525 in total.  I am now going to compete in the inter club competition next week - I must be mad!

I am really enjoying archery, although it annoys the hell out of 'someone' at home, never mind!

Archery (not stitching)

If you are looking for something stitchy to read, please move along...there is nothing stitchy here today.

Today, I want to tell you about my archery.

I signed up for a beginner's course for archery around the start of October.  I chose archery as I had tried it on the year 6 residential trip and thoroughly enjoyed it. In all honesty, I am totally rubbish at it, BUT I thoroughly enjoy it so I don't care!  Thursday nights are coaching nights and I keep looking at Dave's (the coach) head to see if there is any sign that he has been banging it on a brick wall!!! Seriously!  I am THAT bad!  Last Thursday, he had me change how I was shooting and he kept telling me that I was improving (glad he thinks so as half the time I can't see it!)

Today I went to shoot and all I could hear was this little voice in my head telling me what to do (Dave is now a 'virtual' devil on my shoulder!) and I kept practising and practising...when suddenly...this happened...(even if it's blurry!)

I was shooting 6 arrows at first but I broke the nock on one so was one short.  It's a rubbish photo but what it shows is all 5 arrows in the gold...some are 9's but 1 is a 10.  It is the first time I have got ALL the arrows in the gold at the same time.

Then later on, also for the first time ever...I shot the X out of the centre of the target!  So I am really hoping that something is cliking now and that I am starting to improve.  In a couple of weeks time, I am having a trip over to Leeds to buy my first bow and the rest of the equipment I 'need'. 

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!