Archery 2018-2019

Archery

Coach: Gayantha Nimeshan
Archery at Colombo Archery School (CAS).

I do Archery once or twice a week, each session is for 1 1/2 hours. For this year I want to perfect my stance and aim for the 5-10 meters shooting range. I will do this by practicing my positioning at home and working on my weaknesses every class. For the past couple of months I have been doing Archery and I will be continuing this activity for this school year. I want to be skilled in archery and I can do this by attending all of my classes, giving it my best. Each time I overcome an obstacle, there is another challenge such as fixing a part of my form, or building my upper body strength so there is always a challenge to overcome. I can improve myself by watching videos on YouTube as well and every next class will determine if I reach my minor goals created based on the previous class.

There are many videos available online to help me with archery along with my classes.

This show my planning before each class and I hope to improve this by recording my process somewhere. My attendance and engagement with the activity shows my commitment and perseverance to this sport.  I’ll be able to demonstrate my skills by the end of this school year. This is an individual sport however, sometimes the other students around me help correct my form or bow positioning which shows that its beneficial to work as a group even for individual sports.

Archery Routine

Each session, I start of with a couple of stretches (some of these change):

  • Neck stretch: Tilt your head to one shoulder and try to look at your ear, feel the stretch and hold this position for 15 seconds and repeat on the opposite side.
  • Shoulder stretch: Hold one elbow and push it towards your chest and hold it for 15 seconds, do the same for the other elbow.
Shoulder stretch
  • Triceps stretch: Grasp your elbow and pull it behind your neck and push it downwards, hold the position for 30 seconds, do the same for the other elbow.
Triceps stretch
  • Wrist stretch: Keep one arm straight in front of you (horizontally) and bend the wrist towards you with the help of the other hand for 30 seconds. Do it for the other arm as well.
Wrist stretch
  • Chest stretch: Place one of your palm on a wall and rotate your body to the opposite side, so that your body is facing away from your hand and hold it for 30 seconds. Do this on the other side as well.
  • Archery plank: Do a sideways plank and hold the archery position, do this on the other arm as well. Hold the position for 30 – 60 seconds each time.
Archery Plank

Archery gear:

After my stretches, I go back downstairs and put on my archery gear:

  • Arm guard: Arm guard goes on your left forearm (if right-handed), sometimes when you are in improper form, the string can hurt your arm when released. To prevent this from happening, the arm guard shield’s the arm holding the bow.
  • Finger tabs: This will protect your fingers from getting blisters because a lot of force is applied on the fingers while pulling and releasing the string. The finger tabs go on your right hand (if right-handed).
  • Chest guard: Sometimes with the wrong posture, the string can hurt your chest when it is released. The chest guard prevents you from getting hurt.
  • After this I get my bow (26/68) and arrows.
Putting on the arm guard.

Shoot

When I’m ready, I go to the 5 meter shooting range and start shooting. We have 6 arrows each and after each round we collect it and repeat.

 

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