Archery for Beginners

Archery is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK. Open to all, archery can be enjoyed by young and old, people with disabilities and whole families (2020 has a great junior club with Mums and Dads shooting alongside young people each weekend – www.juniorarchery.co.uk). 

As a sport that can be practiced inside or outside throughout the year, socially or competitively, archery can really be said to cater for everyone. Over here at 2020 Archery we currently have 1 completely blind club member and 1 with significant visual impairment. We’ve also had a number of wheelchair users and people with mobility issues as members in the past. 

Forms of archery

Target archery: this is the most popular form of archery in the UK and the style that is currently featured in the Olympic games (although the Olympic version is somewhat different than regular competitions). Target archery takes place on flat ground - indoor or outdoor - and involves shooting a specific number of arrows at particular sizes of target faces at 

distances of up to 100 yards. This type of archery can also take place inside over shorter distances. Indoor archery – like we do at 2020 - typically sees us shooting 5x dozen arrows at 60cm target faces for a score out of 600 at 20 yards. You can see our club members scores on the club website here (http://www.2020archery.co.uk/club-6/)

Field archery: this form of archery takes place on a series of targets set out in outside locations, often in woodland. The shooting distances are usually unmarked so archers rely on their judgement and instinct, especially if they choose to use a traditional bow such as a longbow or flatbow. Saying that, I also know a number of compound archers who also enjoy this type of more ‘natural’ shooting.  

Clout archery: this form of archery is similar to target archery but the archer must drop the arrows at a long range into a number of circular scoring zones on the ground. Arrows are shot at an angle of around 45 degrees up into the air. This type of archery probably emulates the kind of military training that used to take place when an enemy might be a known distance away (e.g. approx 150 yards) and accuracy at the specified distance could mean victory or defeat.  

Flight archery: requiring a lot of space, flight archery is a sport in which the archer must shoot the arrow as far as possible. This is generally done in very specific categories for weights and types of arrows shot from specific bows. James Farrar of Fairbow holds a number of flight records using very heavy traditional bows known as warbows – he also sells great traditional archery gear which we like a lot over at 2020 (http://www.fairbowuk.com/). 

Getting involved 

There are a number of ways that you can get involved in archery but the best place to start is your local club. Most clubs are very welcoming to beginners (as long as you’ve made an appointment or booked a session) and many offer Have-a-Go sessions. This gives newcomers the opportunity to try out the sport before enrolling in a beginners course and - hopefully - becoming a member and starting to practice with the club. 

Although clubs often welcome beginners, it is important to have a basic understanding of the sport before you try to join a club or start practicing.  Most clubs will offer structured beginners courses to set up would-be archers with the basic skills and techniques required. The course can take place across a number of weeks or over a weekend and gives new archers the opportunity to join an archery club for further training and the chance to compete in tournaments if they want to. 

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Mark : First Competition Norwich Stafford Part 2

If you missed my last post, let me bring you up to speed… We’re in Norwich shooting a Stafford; this is my first competitive shoot and all’s going well. 

I found out about the tournament in the directory at the back of the Archery GB magazine, which brings me to a very important point : if you want to shoot competitively you must be a member of Archery GB (often still referred to as GNAS). If you aren’t a member then you won’t get past the stage of filling in the tournament entry form. It doesn’t cost much to join and you can do it through the club (just send an email in to the office). As well as enabling you to shoot at competitions it also means you can shoot at other clubs, assuming they allow guests (and you ask nicely!). Perfect if you ever spend lengths of time away from home and want to keep up your practice.

The tournament directory lists all the UKRS and WRS shoots that are going on around the country, along with some other open club competitions. If you shoot regularly at 2020 you are probably familiar with the Portsmouth round, but there are other indoor rounds you can shoot too. Don’t let this phase you; they are all similarly structured and of similar difficulty. 

The Stafford round is 6dz arrows shot in ends of three arrows at a distance of 30m at an 80cm target. It feels very similar to a Portsmouth, as the increased distance is countered by a larger target face. It is not a particularly common round as it’s difficult to find a large enough indoor space to comfortably shoot it, so many of the competitors were using their sighter ends to coarsely set their sights rather than fine tuning a sight mark worked out previously. I didn’t want to take that chance, so I had been practicing shooting at 30m for a few weeks beforehand at www.ArcheryFarm.co.uk (often in sub-zero temperatures – how’s that for dedication/idiocy!) and had worked out my sight marks.

There are a few pieces of etiquette that you should be familiar with before shooting at a tournament and although we shoot safely and respectfully at 2020 we don’t always follow rules that are standard at many clubs. A couple rules you’d be wise to be aware of:

• Do not step up to or back from the line if the archer in front or behind of you is at full draw, it’s distracting.

• If you are the penultimate archer to finish shooting your arrows, stay on the line until the last archer has finished shooting. You don’t leave someone up there by themselves. Even if you have to stand there looking like a plum for 30 seconds.

Other points of etiquette are relaxed. For example, we frown a little bit if you stand on the line at 2020 adjusting your sight as it slows the session down, but in a competitive shoot each end is timed. You generally have two minutes to shoot your three arrows, so if you want to spend some of that time adjusting your sight that’s up to you.

Although the experience was new and there were a few things to learn I’m pleased to report that I had a good shoot. I scored 623/720, a little lower than my practice average, but still placing me 6^th out of 15 in the Gents Recurve and leaving me with an itch to scratch… that evening I entered another four tournaments!

Full results can be found here: 

http://www.davidlong10.webspace.virginmedia.com/results/staff13.pdf

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