Archery

The first evidence of man using arrowheads is believed to be around 50,000 BC, the primeval need to hunt being the catalyst for the early development of the bow and arrow.

Using the skill for attack and self-defence has also been important of course – good use of a bow and arrow could mean the difference between life and death for an individual and many great armies in world history have prided themselves on the skills of their archers. These have included the Ancient Egyptians, Macedonians, Persians, Hannibal, Qin Shihuang (1st Emperor of China), the Mongols and Ghengis Khan.

Archery has also entered into legend and folklore through heroes such as Robin Hood and William Tell. It is not surprising therefore that a skill so necessary and useful for thousands of years has evolved into a competitive sport – an arena where men and women can compete and tests their skills against each other.

Modern competitive archery, or target archery, is basically defined as shooting arrows at a fixed target and can take place both outdoors and indoors. The targets are marked with 10 concentric rings with a value of 1 to 10 and there’s an inner 10 ring, sometimes called the X ring. Each competitor gets to fire either 3 or 6 arrows.

Indoor archery will usually use distances to target of between 18 metres to 25 metres with the targets themselves smaller - 40 cm size. Outdoor archery distances to target are greater ranging between 30 metres and 90 metres and because of the longer distances, the targets are larger – up to 122 cm size.

Outdoor archery is offered as a country sport on some of Britain’s country estates – eg. at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, archery is an option for corporate team building. In recent years there’s been a growth in the popularity of field archery which takes place outdoors with the targets laid out in a wooded setting.

Variations on the sport have developed significantly over the years and today there are a number of recognised ‘alternative’ forms of archery – these include:

• 3D archery – basically this uses life size models which simulate real hunting conditions.
• Clout archery - here the archer attempts to drop arrows at long range, men up to 166 metres, ladies up to 129 metres.
• Flight archery – essentially who can shoot the furthest.; typically seen on old aerodromes where there is plenty of space.
• Ski archery - similar to a biathlon but using a recurve bow as opposed to a gun. There are kneeling and standing positions with a shooting distance of 18 metres.