Flint Senior Games @ Flint Bowmen
Flint Senior Games @ Flint Bowmen
Fitness Guide to Archery for Beginners
By Dominic Acito
The most common sports in high school are usually football, basketball
and track, but although those might be popular, there are plenty of
other interesting sports with which you could get involved. Archery, for
instance, is relatively easy to learn and excel at, and who doesn’t like
the idea of shooting things with arrows like Robin Hood or Katniss
Everdeen? Archery has been around for thousands of years, first as a
practical method of hunting or warfare and then as a competitive
sport. And while it might not appear to be that athletic at first, archery
does require you to keep in good shape, just like other sports.
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Winter Leagues!
8 Health Benefits of Archery
Archery is a fitness activity that benefits areas from muscle development to mental health.
The sport of archery requires precision, control, focus, physical ability and determination. Top athletes train daily, and for hours at a time, but even recreational archery can carry huge benefits to your health. Whether practised indoors or out, competitively or socially – and despite often being perceived as stationary – archery gets you active, burning calories and in a better state of mind.
Here’s eight reasons why…
1. EXERCISE
Archery is a sport that can be practised by all, no matter age, gender or ability. While physically drawing a bow does expend energy, so does walking to the target end on end to collect arrows. During the London 2012 Olympic Games, The Economist compared the calorie usage of winning Olympic golds to 10 minutes of other activities like dancing, snorkelling, sweeping and vacuuming.
On their way to topping the Olympic podium, a male archer burns an estimated 1,084 calories – only 747 calories less than women in marathon but more than 1,054 than the 100 metres’ sprint men. (Yes, the timeframes are different – but the point is valid!)
At tournaments, archers walk around eight kilometres (five miles) eachg day and can burn between 100 and 150 active calories every 30 minutes.
2. STRENGTH
As an exercise that requires short bursts of energy from core muscles, the act of drawing a bow puts tension in the chest, hands, arm and large upper back muscles, and non-core areas of your anatomy like the rotator cuffs, which support your shoulders. The correct and continuous repetition of this movement strengthens these tissues.
3. CONTROL
Archers learn to maintain focus on their shot routine, avoiding distractions like wind, distance, noise and their competitors to deliver the perfect arrow. That control is beneficial for other areas of life, too.
4. COORDINATION
The steps requires to create a good shot combine to form a high-precision routine that needs to be ingrained into an archer’s muscle memory and sub-conscious. There’s so much happening at the same time – and with such little margin for error – that the coordination of all these movements becomes almost instinctive.
5. PATIENCE
Archery’s easy to learn, but difficult to perfect. Although fun, it can be frustrating – and patience in practice is essential for a longer-term future in the sport. Having the determination to precisely repeat a technique makes you a better archer and, consequently, a better person!
6. RELAX
Staying calm and accurate under pressure is an ability that archers develop by managing their breathing, concentration and nervousness. When you’re shooting well, hours can pass by in a blink of an eye – and, as much as the sport can be sociable, when you’re on the line, archery is only about you and your bow. The perfect time for some internal meditation.
7. SELF-CONFIDENCE
Even in competition, an archer’s greatest opponent is himself. Identifying what to improve and setting clear goals is easy – after all, results are all based on easily-measurable scores. Progression breeds confidence, and there’s no better sport to measure that than archery.
8. SOCIALISE
There are very few sports in the world that allow the world’s best to compete on the target with someone fairly new. Tournaments in archery are, often, without barriers – and enable friendships between individuals from all walks of life. You never know who you’ll end up on a target with next.
Youth Winter Competitive League
This is a competitive archery league and each child will need their own equipment, Flint Bowmen will NOT be renting equipment for this league.
The range monitors will not be providing instruction, however, they can and will provide guidance if an archer asks a question or if the range monitors notice something obvious that the archer is doing wrong.
This league will be on Saturday mornings and run for 8 weeks, but will shoot for 9 weeks. The league start date will be January 19, 2019. March 2, 2019 will be a week off as the club will be hosting an SVAA tournament this week.
Last week of shooting will be March 23, 2019 and the banquet will be held on March 30, 2019.
League sign in and practice will begin at 8:30 am and scoring will begin at 9 am, this should have us wrapping up right around lunch time. The first week’s score will be used for a bank score and to help establish an average. This score would then be used if an archer is absent for one week. Make ups will be allowed for archers that can’t make it a week. Make ups will be done before, during break, and after league the week after the missed week. Other arrangements maybe made with the league runner if an absence is known ahead of time.
We have room for 35 children to shoot in this league, ages can range from 7 to 18 years old. These 35 slots will be filled based on first come first served preregistration with paid in full league fees. After the slots are filled up we will begin a wait-list. It may be possible to have an am and pm time slot if range monitors can be found for the afternoon time slot. Preregistering will be required and payment in full within 10 days of receiving the registration confirmation number is required. There is a $20 league fee and a $5/week shooting fee for members, and a $6/week shooting fee for non-members. Total league fees for members is $65 and nonmembers are $74.
Each child will receive a Flint Bowmen Competitive Youth Archery League T-Shirt.
15 – 18 age group
The league will consist of 3 rounds. Each round will consist of 5 ends, each end will be 4 arrows from the following distances.
5 yards
10 yards
15 yards
20 yards
The fifth end will be a walk up with one arrow shot from 20 yards, 15 yards, 10 yards, and 5 yards. League Coordinator and range monitors will be present on the line for the walk up to make sure all safety rules are followed, and the line is clear before anyone moves up to the next shooting line.
We will take a 15 – 20-minute break after the second round. This group will keep track of X’s when scoring arrows. These will be used to break a tie at the end of the league if needed.
11 – 14 age group
The league will consist of 3 rounds. Each round will consist of 5 ends, each end will be 4 arrows from the following distances.
5 yards
10 yards
15 yards
20 yards
The fifth end will be a walk up with one arrow shot from 20 yards, 15 yards, 10 yards, and 5 yards. League Coordinator and range monitors will be present on the line for the walk up to make sure all safety rules are followed, and the line is clear before anyone moves up to the next shooting line. We will take a 15 – 20-minute break after the second round. This group will keep track of X’s when scoring arrows. These will be used to break a tie at the end of the league if needed.
7 – 10 age group
The league will consist of 3 rounds. Each round will consist of 5 ends, each end will be 4 arrows from the following distances.
2 ends @ 5 yards
2 ends @ 10 yards
The fifth end will be a walk up with two arrows shot from 10 yards, and 5 yards. League runner and helper will be present on the line for the walk up to make sure all safety rules are followed, and the line is clear before anyone moves up to the next shooting line.
We will take a 15 – 20-minute break after the second round.
Scoring:
Targets will be the NFAA single spot and 5-spot targets for 5 weeks of the league and Fita
targets will be used the remaining 4 weeks of the league. Each archer will have the choice to shoot at either style target each week. It is recommended that if an archer is damaging arrows they move to the multi-spot target face to minimize the damage to arrows and keep the parents cost down, however, this is not a requirement.
NFAA Targets
Fita Targets
NFAA Target scoring on the single spot will be X, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Scoring on the 5-spot targets will be X, 5, and 4. Arrows will be counted for score in any of the 5-spot targets, (i.e. if more than one arrow is in a single spot on the multi face target all arrows will be counted for score). The X is counted as a 5 and will only be totaled at the end of the night for a tie breaker at the end of the league if needed.
Fita Target scoring on the single spot will be X, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Scoring on the 3-spot targets will be X, 5, 4, and 3. Arrows will be counted for score in any of the 3-spot targets, (i.e. if more than one arrow is in a single spot on the multi face target all arrows will be counted for score). The X is counted as a 5 and will only be totaled at the end of the night for a tie breaker at the end of the league if needed.
Total score for each week will be 300 points.
Each round will have a total score possible of 100 points.
Happy Thanksgiving, from Flint Bowmen
