USM Invitation 2009 Ends

The USM Invitation Archery Competition hosted by USM Archery Club has at last ended with success. Though there had been a few technical and management problems, the USM Archery Club committees have managed to pull the competition off while keeping up with the scheduled events, thanks to the assistance provided by various personnels.

Score results and pictures will be uploaded as soon as possible.

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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.

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!

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.

MASUM 2009 , UUM Kedah

Basic yet Of the Utmost Importance - Bow Arm (Grip) - Part 1

Bow hand position is an area which is somehow, criminally neglected in the coaching literature. Hand position is the only interface between archer and bow and therefore vital to get right. Poor hand position is the root cause of most technical failures and so can not be overstated...

THE BEGINNING AND THE END

The bow hand is the first body part to touch the bow as you set up for the shot and it’s the last body part touching the bow as the arrow crosses the arrow rest on its way to the target. This makes bow hand placement on the bow’s grip section extremely important. You have to do this form element correctly through most of your form steps if you’re going to be happy in archery.

So, what is the basis of a good hand position?

If you've asked most of the experienced archers, either recurve or compound archers about their grip, most of them will tell you or give you instructions on how to relax your hand and improve your archery result by using the grip as shown below (right) by switching from the grip which most beginners would use which is the left one.


So, how is it done? and why should we use this grip and what are the types of grips with their disadvantages and advantages? Let's discuss about all these.

Relaxation

As stated earlier, it is essential to keep the bow hand as relaxed as possible during and after the shot. Every movement while the arrow is still on the bow will result in a large deviation on the target, especially on longer distances.

A bow hand that grips the bow firmly will tend to move more during the shot than a relaxed hand because of the required extra muscle control. On the other hand, if you force your hand to be open by stretching fingers, this also will mean that more muscle control is necessary. Both styles are impossible to maintain over longer periods of shooting because it is impossible to use the same muscles in exactly the same way every time.

We can see that it is very important to maintain a relaxed bow hand throughout the execution of the shot.

When relaxing a hand, the fingers should be curved, not straight. Just try laying the back of your hand on the table and relaxing it. You will see it right away. It is normal that fingers are curved while holding the bow. This does not necessarily mean that they grasp the bow. When your hand positioning is correct, one or two fingers will not touch the bow. You can probably bend your little finger and ring finger without touching the bow. See also figures 2 and 3.
Holding the bow is here not really the right word. The bow should more or less 'rest against' the hand when it has come to a full draw or during the drawing, without gripping the bow.

So we shall start with:

Hand placement

General remarks

There are several ways to place the bow hand on the bow and keeping it as relaxed as possible.

With every placement you should keep the centerline of the bow in the same line with that of the hand, see figure 4. This is the best way to transfer force from the bow to the arm. In this way you use as much of your bone structure and eliminate the need for extra muscle control.
It is important that the bow is held exactly in the middle, that pressure is not exerted sideways. In this way the arrow, and after that the bow, will only move forward after release, giving the best possible arrow flight.

Finding the right placement: The Touch pad

The lifeline that runs down the palm of your hand separates your hand into two regions for the purpose of archery, the “inbounds” and the “out-of-bounds”. The thumb pad portion, called the thenar eminence, is the in-bounds portion while the other pad on the little- finger side of the lifeline, the hypothenar eminence, is the out-of bounds region. The thumb pad and only this pad should be touched to the grip area of the bow handle. If any other part touches the handle then side torque to the handle may, and usually does, occur.

It is also important not to try and hold your hand parallel to the handle but under an angle, of 45 degrees to a vertical line. This is the most natural position and thus is the best way to relax the hand. A way to experiment with this is the following:

Assume your shooting stance, without bow. Relax the bow hand and, with the tip of your index finger, touch the tip of your thumb. With a relaxed hand, the remaining fingers will also be slightly curved. The fingers should behave as they were handling something very delicate. Bend your index finger and ring finger a little more, until both fingertips touch the palm of your hand. Tilt your hand up and towards you and stretch the index finger a little. Now ask a fellow archer to push a bow into your hand. If this went right, the bow will now press on the inside of the ball of your thumb, see figure 5. Your knuckles will make an angle of about 45 degrees with the bow. Little finger and ring finger should be between hand and bow. Try and shoot some arrows in this way and observe the bow's reaction.

or more experienced archers, who have a fairly consistent release, the following method could be of help in finding the best hand position.

Shoot a few arrows without stabilisation and observe how the bow leaves your hand. You probably cannot prevent the bow from tilting backwards towards your head. What you should be able to prevent through your hand placement is left or right rotation of the bow.

To get an idea of what can go wrong, try and apply pressure on the left side of the grip. Do this by bending your bow hand to the right, your wrist is now left of the bow. ( for a right-handed archer). This results in the string hitting your armguard and the arrow hitting the target more to the right. Try the same for the other side of the grip, apply more pressure on the right side of the grip. This is not easy for a right-handed archer. You can do this by reaching towards the target with your thumb. The bow will rotate anticlockwise after the shot and perhaps the bow arm will move sideways to the left.

After experiencing these two extremes, try and find the golden mean between them, the ideal case being that the bow does not rotate either with or without stabilisation. After you are done, ask a fellow archer to watch if the tip of your stabiliser and if the bow travels in a straight line forward or not.

It is emphasised that this method will only give good results for archers that have a good release, i.e. a release that does not make the bow rotate.

EXERCISE:

BOW HAND PLACEMENT ROUTINE

Here’s a set of steps for getting the bow hand placed correctly.
1. Pen-mark the lower inch of the lifeline in the bow hand as atouch-point reference.
2.Touch the pen-mark to the left edge (for right-handers) of the bow grip section.
3. Relax all fingers and the thumb so they are limp.
4. Slide the bow hand upward until the index knuckle and thumb lightly touch the arrow shelf *naturally.
5. Allow the thumb pad to lightly roll onto the bow grip.
6. Do not pressure the bow hand onto the grip.
7. Hold the bow hand in the proper position throughout the raising of the bow to the target level.
8. During the draw, the bow will pressure into the bow hand at the target and aiming level yielding optimum bow hand consistency.

Annual General Meeting 2009 (31st March 2009)

The annual General Meeting 2009 has been held at DK U on the 31st March 2009.
The Objective of the Meeting generally is to discuss and for the election of president and council officers of the Archery Club.

The New Elected Members of Council and Authority 2009/2010 are as followed: -

Captain (Men Archery Team) - Aaron Lim Soon Liang
Captain (Women Archery Team) - Lau Pei Ling

President : Simon Lim
Vice President : Ammar bin Ibrahim

Secretary : Ling Jem Shan

Treasurer : Lau Pei Ling

Q/Master :
Nurul Fatiha binti Muah
Tan Jun Chao
Leng Yin On

Publicity (IT) : Ling Jem Shan

Members of Authority(AJK) :
Afwa binti Roslan
Lee Boon Pin

If anyone would wish to join the archery club in next semester, kindly look forward for announcement about the time and date of our roadshow and booth set-up for registration and enquiries next semester. Thank You!

SUKAD 2009

Congratulation to the winners of SUKAD 2009 both men's and women's team.