Archery Video

Attached is a link for the Discovery Channel in Canada and a show called Daily Planet. On the Sept. 29, 2005 archive, you will find a link to a segment on modern day archery, featuring a friend of mine and also my personal coach (and coach of our Olympic archery teams in 1996, 2000, and 2004).

The video is grainy, but it gives you some basics of the sport. If you watch to the end, you'll see the guy shoot a ping pong ball - there is a trick to this that makes it much easier than it would seem........I've done this in demonstrations myself. ;-)

Anyway, this young man certainly has a lot of potential, and is the #1 male archer in Canada at the moment (and to think I used to kick his butt a few short years ago....... ). I'm sure he will go places.

Enjoy!

http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=9/29/2005

[JJ Irani]

Amazing video, Al. Thanks.

Guys, I'd highly recommend you take a little time off (about 15 minutes) and watch this video. Great show by a true champion of the sport.

Al, you have my admiration, pal!! Fascinating how those arrows bend all over the place in flight at 200 kph; but boy are they ever expensive at 600 bucks a dozen!! Don't want to lose any, uh?

Thanks once again - JJ

Originally Posted by JJ Irani

Amazing video, Al. Thanks.

Guys, I'd highly recommend you take a little time off (about 15 minutes) and watch this video. Great show by a true champion of the sport.

Al, you have my admiration, pal!! Fascinating how those arrows bend all over the place in flight at 200 kph; but boy are they ever expensive at 600 bucks a dozen!! Don't want to lose any, uh?

Thanks once again - JJ

Six hundred bux a dozen? Geez Louise, archery is almost as expensive as bicycle racing (said the guy with over $15,000 in bicycles in his basement).

[Earl]

sweet

[Manatee]

Interesting, Al. The hardware is far cooler than I imagined. The few times I tried arching as a teenager, I always burned my forearm. :-( It's nice to watch people who are very good at it.

BTW, in Canada, are you allowed to carry a concealed bow? :-)

[mailman]

Originally Posted by Atomic

Six hundred bux a dozen? Geez Louise, archery is almost as expensive as bicycle racing (said the guy with over $15,000 in bicycles in his basement).

Or the guy with over $500 ploished SS nuts and bolts on his motorcycle.

[padi56]

That was cool Al quite amazing to see how much the arrows bend on
the way to the target.

Originally Posted by Manatee

Interesting, Al. The hardware is far cooler than I imagined. The few times I tried arching as a teenager, I always burned my forearm. :-( It's nice to watch people who are very good at it.

BTW, in Canada, are you allowed to carry a concealed bow? :-)

Yes, it is far cooler than most imagine......

It is a sport that requires a certain degree of technical ability, both in the equipment, and in the actual shooting technique. In my goegraphic area, it seems that engineering types (people like me ) are drawn to the sport because of it's demands in terms of knowing the physics behind the bow/arrow/archer system. Having all three working in harmony is key to shooting well even if your technique is suffering on a given day. We spend a lot of time "tuning the bow" as we call it, but as noted above it's really the bow, archer and arrows that have to be fit to each other.

As noted in the video, we have to control the amount that the arrows bends as it leaves the bow, in order for it to track properly to the target. We do this by several methods, but one is tuning with bare shafts (no feathers or rear stabilizers on the arrow). We shoot them at 70 meters along with shafts that have fletching (mylar feathers) and compare where they hit on the target, and make adjustments from there. Try throwing a dart without the rear flights and you'll get the idea.

Actually the equipment shown is not the most complicated out there, as there are compound bows with cams that reduce the amount of tension you hold at full draw. I shoot 46 pounds of draw weight (tension), so am holding that with my string fingers when at full draw - a compound can be set with 80% let-off, so you can shoot 60 pounds but only hold 20% of that at full draw - much easier physically. These were developed as hunting bows, but have developed into target shooting bows as well. These bows typically have many other gadgets on them that we are not allowed to use in the Olympic style (such as magnified scopes on the bow, rear peep sights, and mechincal releases that allow you to hold the release, not the string, and let it go by touching a button). Since those bows have cams or wheels on them, most Olympic style archers refer to them as having training wheels attached.....

As for carrying a concelaed bow, not unless you are 20 feet tall and have very large pockets.

[JJ Irani]

Thanks for the excellent info, Al.