Learn About Archery Right Now

Archery has been around for thousands of years. The Greeks, Romans, British and Germans used archery as a means of defense and when hunting as a means of survival. The oldest known arrow was located in Denmark. The ancient archer or bowman used an arrow made of a pine shaft and a flint point arrowhead. When firearms were developed and used more readily in the place of the bow and arrow it became less a weapon of survival and more a piece of equipment for recreation.

There are many different types of bows available to the sportsperson interested in the pursuit. Recurves have a tip curving away from the archer while longbows are tall bows with narrow limbs and a D-shaped cross section. Flat bows are flat, wide with a rectangular cross-sections. Cable-backed bows use cords found at the back of the bow allowing the draw or weight of the bow to be changed by altering the tension in the cable.

One of the most popular bows is the compound bow which reduces the force needed to hold the bow string at full draw. The benefit of this type of bow is that the mechanics allowing less muscular stress while drawing also gives the archer more time to aim the arrow.

The arrows are a shaft with an arrowhead at one end and a fletching at the other. The fletching is usually made of some sort of bird feather and the most popular is the turkey feather. The arrow typically has three fletches because having only two feathers would destabilize the arrow and cause it to shoot erratically. The styles of fletchings include the parabolic or short feathered and the helical which has a shield type end and is attached at an angle.

The shafts themselves can be made of various substances including wood, fiberglass, aluminum or carbon. Wood shafts can warp and fiberglass shafts can become brittle. Aluminum is light and stays straight allowing the arrow to go farther faster. Beginning in the nineteen nineties carbon shafts came into popularity because they were lighter, faster and flatter than even the aluminum shafts.

Arrows have something called a nock at the opposite end of the arrowhead. This nock or notch keeps the arrow in place on the string of the bow while the archer takes aim. Usually nocks are simple slots in the shaft but they also can be made of additional pieces of plastic or wood. The bow string is made of a material like Dacron.

Additional equipment for sporting archers might include a bracer or arm-guard used to protect the arm from being hit by the string of the bow or to prevent clothing from catching on the bowstring. Plastrons or chest guards are available but mostly used by female archers. Lastly, there are leather tabs, gloves or thumb rings that can be worn to protect the drawing fingers.

There is a basic form to archery that involves the archer stance and the loading of the bow followed by aiming, drawing and releasing the arrow. The basic stance is one where the archer stands body perpendicular to the target with feet shoulder width apart. The arrow is pointed downward to load then hold the arrow with three fingers it is placed on the bowstring. The bow is raised aimed drawn and fired in one fluid motion.

If someone is competing they probably use a compound bow. There are two different ways to compete either with target archery or with field archery. Target archery is a basic form of shooting for accuracy. Field archery has a more varied set of targets and distances and takes place in woodlands or rough terrains. Either competition is regulated by the International Archery Federation or FITA.

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