Sunday, June 21, 2009

Club T-Shirt

Attention

Our club latest tshirt will be on sale starting from the new sem

Colour : Sky blue
Printing : Grey
Price : RM 18




Front




Back

Friday, June 19, 2009

Announcement: USM Invitation 2009 Archery Competition

USM archery Club is going to host an Archery Competition in USM called "USM Invitation 2009"

The Schedule of the Competition is as followed:

10th July 2009 (Friday)

0830-1200
Official Practice
Managers' Meeting
Tackle Inspection

1500-1800
Double 70m (All : Recurve - Men, Women; Compound - Men, Women)

11th July 2009 (Saturday)

0830-1230
Individual Olympic Rounds (All)

1500-1800
Team Olympic Rounds (All)

Teams Invited: -
USM
UiTM
Penang MSN
Penang MSSPP

Other info will be updated as soon as possible.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Lessons In Life

Lesson 1:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.'

Puff! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'


Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.





Lesson 2:
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'
The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.





Lesson 3 :
A turkey was chatting with a bull.

'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'
'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.


Moral of the story:
Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there..

Grasping of Bow (How to fix?)

Habit of Grabbing a bow upon release can be a real problem when an archer shift from shooting an wooden bow without sling into shooting recurve, without any proper guidance or by self learning. Somehow when something becomes a habit, it is quite hard to change it back. It requires determination and re-adaptation of muscles of our body and re-discovery the feeling of shooting.

So, ever wonder if there's anyway to change it back quick?

Possible cures for grasping

By grasping the bow during or after the shot, the level of accuracy of the shot diminishes. It is evident that you should try and avoid this as much as possible.

It is very easy to see if an archer grasps the bow. An automatic grasping response takes place almost immediately when executing the shot. Another mistake is that an archer grips the bow as tightly as possible, so, that the fingers are tense and the knuckles of the bow hand turn white. Also, a bow hand forced to be open with stretched fingers is also less desirable because of the reduced control over it.These methods require extra muscle control that makes the shot harder to be reproduced.

The most simple solution for these mistakes is to isolate the error and work at it. It is best to focus on consciously letting the bow jump out of your hand (using a sling, of course!) and pay no attention to anything else. In this way you can become aware of what exactly happens with the bow when the arrow is released and get used to the reaction.

The best way to do this to draw the bow only a few inches (not more than 2 inches) without an arrow, but with sling, and letting the string go. Look and feel how the bow leaves your hand and what movement takes place here. When you are familiar with this movement, start shooting while concentrating on letting the bow jump out of your hand. In the beginning this is hard. Convince yourself that the bow is firmly attached to your arm and that there is no way it can fall. It also does not hurt to try and use a different type of sling, preferably a a wrist or finger sling.

Finally, there are a two less orthodox ways of curing grasping that are too interesting not to mention.

A Korean coach says that an archer cannot get the right feeling of the bow leaving the hand when he or she uses a sling. His method of teaching how to use a sling is therefore the following:

The archer shoots without a sling and keeps the bow hand open and relaxed. After the shot, he just lets go of the bow. The coach lies in front of the archer and catches the bow. In this way, the archer should get the right feeling of the bow leaving the hand without being afraid to let go.

A very drastic measure to prevent grasping is using drawing-pins. Use adhesive tape to attach the pins to the handle on places where the hand grasps the bow. The points should point outwards. Now it becomes very painful to grasp the bow. This method should definitely only be used as a last resort.

So, happy changing!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Basic yet Of the Utmost Importance - Bow Arm (Grip) - Part 2

In the previous part of discussion about bow arm (focused more on grip), we've discussed about the placement of our hand on a grip and the better or biomechanically more efficient way of "holding" a bow.


Today we're going to discuss about different type of wrist position and their advantages and disadvantages.


Low Wrist



The first, and perhaps the most common among the novices are the low wrist position. Check figure 6.


This wrist position is the easiest way to relax the wrist and the fleshy ball of our hand makes full contact with the grip. The wrist is held lower than the hand. In this way, the wrist and the rest of the hand can relax completely. A way to check if the hand is fully relaxed, is to ask another archer to feel the fingers of your bow hand while you are at full draw. It should be easy to bend the fingers.


Advantage : you can fully relax your wrist and you don't need much wrist strength.

Disadvantage : grasping can occur more easily when the hand is not fully relaxed. The larger contact area also tends to promote bow-torsion if the hand is placed off-axis. See also figure 4.





The off axis here actually means that our hand is not placed like as shown in the figure. To put our hand on the correct axis is that, try to imagine a straight line extending out of the right end of the wrist when full draw or when you're gripping the bow and to make sure that straight line actually go through the CENTRE of the grip of the bow.





Straight Wrist




Another way to place our hand on the grip is the straight wrist. See figure 7.





Now the wrist is at the same level as the hand. Pressure is applied on the area between thumb and index finger. Again, hand and wrist should be as relaxed as possible. It is easier to feel an error in the hand placement with the straight wrist.





Advantage : This position is fairly consistent

Disadvantage: Requires more strength than the low wrist position and so it is a little harder to maintain over long periods of shooting. The pressure between thumb and index finger pulls them together, closing the hand, and can lead to grasping.



Grasping of a bow, for most archers, can cause a lot of problem, but that doesn't mean that you cannot grab a bow when shooting to achieve high scores, provided that you have a very stable hand, perhaps. Well, some archers can still do very well to shoot without sling and grasping the bow, some won the Olympic shooting that way, one Example is the 2008 Olympic Men's Recurve Gold Medalist, and 2008 Archery World Cup Men's Recurve Olympic Round Silver Medalist. Still, archers are more advised to not grab their bow and some may still have problems of habitual grabbing the bow during release. We'll come to that later.



Now,

High Wrist



The last position to be discussed is the high wrist, see figure 8. Now the wrist is held higher than the hand. The hand only makes contact with a small area of the grip. Relaxed hand and wrist are essential, as usual.


Advantage : small contact area. The chances of torsion and of grasping reduce to a minimum in this way. With the high wrist position the chance of disturbing arrow flight is minimal.

Disadvantage : This position requires a large amount of wrist strength and is difficult to maintain over longer periods of shooting, e.g. a FITA Star. When tired, the hand quickly drops to a straight or low wrist.




Final remarks

The previous remarks should give a starting point as to what hand position to choose. Always bear in mind that the best position is the one that suits the build of the individual archer best. Pay specific attention to the amount of movement of the wrist.
It is also worthwhile to see how your stabilisers are set up and how they work with the sling. Usually, a well stabilised bow will jump forward from your hand and rotate only after this has happened. Make sure that there is enough space for this between bowgrip and hand. Not too much or otherwise the bow will slip through your hand and end up dangling from your sight. A space of about one centimetre (a little less than half an inch) is usually sufficient.
It is necessary to experiment with different hand positions. There are different types grips available worth trying.
Remember to always keep the bow hand as relaxed as possible and do this in the easiest and most simple way possible.



Tuesday, June 2, 2009

MASUM 2009 , UUM Kedah