Hail and well met for those returning, or for first time readers. With the last club competition (or at least the last one I'm doing, archery darts is rather frustrating with a longbow) just gone and the end of the indoor season looming its time for a recap of the past events.
This month had in store the Club Indoor Championship, the last Frostbite, and the Monthly Medal.
Luckily my raven's have survived up till now, though some are in better condition than others, as most if not all are curvy, esp one in particular which has decided to bend in two places. There will be a new flock of ravens shortly as I have picked up supplies to work with the new longbow for the outdoor season. The new longbow is very nice but I know I will have to build up muscles to shoot it properly, but I suppose as the wood learns to bend, my muscles will learn to draw the bow and as such we'll grow used to one another.
But back to the monthly news. This year's was a Portsmouth round, and despite not shooting up to my best I shot well enough with a score of 397 59/7 (yes I don't know why I've been missing recently on this target). So very pleased with myself, though Doug Shaw since putting down his recurve for a longbow is becoming some stiff competition as after the first dozen he was ahead, but I managed to push past in the 2nd dozen and stay there. Elsie Smith shot very well with a score of 414 making us both wonder why weren't we shooting better at Chester the previous month.
The next round to come was the Frostbite, now since longbows don't generally tend to get high enough for Frostbite score submissions, barring the occasional scores by Shaun Allan or no recurves turning, neither of these factors stopped three longbow archers coming out into the open air to shoot, myself being one of course. Because we were outside I decided to use my short winged ravens (they only have short fletchings), so picking up my straighter ones ventured out to the shooting ground, and though I shot worse than the last Frostbite which we shot in Knutsford, I still managed to stay ahead of the other longbowers though it was very close, one point.
Last but not least was tonight's monthly medal which was a Bray 1 round, though there was definitely something in the air tonight as everyone shooting longbow seemed to do badly in comparison to usual. I don't know what happened, esp the previous Tuesday I had shot a Bray 1 round, of 162 seven off my personal best with only two misses. Tonight I just scraped to 100 with lots of misses, to show how badly we were shooting I don't think barring Shaun any longbower tonight got 100+ after the first two dozen, four of us stayed to shoot another Bray1 afterwards, and even though we all improved by some varying degrees we still weren't shooting well and each end seemed to last forever. Now a Bray1 is only 30 arrows, very quick round, but when your shooting bad arrow after bad arrow and not knowing what your doing wrong it just drags on and on. But congratulations to Alex Smith(scratch), John Stubbs(Compound), Shaun Allan(Longbow), and Joe Shaw(Handicap) this months medal winners.
In all honesty I have a suspicion that my shooting is going down is that as well as being tired most archery nights, I'm bored with shooting indoors. Last indoor season I was using a home made longbow, and just starting so was a challenge to hit the target, then when we went outside I had a new pro-made longbow and I was learning the distances and enjoying the weather and all its variables that effected the shooting. Being able to shoot six arrows at a time in competitions, or dozens while practicing, and being able to spread out between archers and open up the body. Now back inside the challenge was just to reduce the handicap and I have done from a 79 to 60, possibly try to make it a 59 before the month ends and the season really closes, but we'll see. Now I just want to get out again and enjoy real archery (longbow, with no aiming aids) and all that comes with it. Yes I know shooting a longbow without an elastic band or an aiming stand is not the best but to me, its proper archery, I often wonder if those aids were removed from longbow archers would those high rankings be so high or would they drop? would they drop alot or a little? But that's my thinking, I'm sure other longbow archers will say that its target archery and if I want instinctive go to field archery, everyone has their own style of shooting and that's mine.
The next post I shall post up my high scores and average scores for this indoor season and allow those who shoot to compare. I should have pictures for the next post too of the new flocks. Goodnight and good shooting.
Oh just remembered this month, as my chainmail shirt is now of a wearable state of completion I've worn is a couple of times to archery, and despite needing some minor adjustments it does feel nice shooting in it, and doesn't effect things that much. Ok true to do get warmer in it and does weigh your shoulders down, but that's just needing to get used to the weight and build up the muscles to cope.
