Traditional Archery

Regularly scoring your arrows or ‘shooting a round’ can be a scary proposition for a novice archer. I also see this in more advanced archers low on confidence, or archers who have had a long break from archery. It’s often easier – on both our shooting and our ego – to say that we’ll start scoring when we have ‘sorted our release’ or ‘shot in the new string’. Without wanting to get at anyone, I think that many archers avoid scoring because they are afraid they will be more accountable for their arrows.

Scoring your arrows however can be one of the simplest steps you can take towards improving your archery. It took me a long time to realise this, because – as an archer at least – I’m not actually very competitive, and much of the enjoyment I derive from archery comes not from ‘beating’ other archers.

I shoot occasionally with an older gentleman named Roy. Every time I used to shoot with Roy we would have good conversation, but while I wouldn’t be scoring he would always be there with his score book and sun hat (regardless of the weather). Even shooting longbow – where he may have had four misses, every miss was noted with a steady ‘M’. Now for me, an ‘M’ on the scoresheet was always a big deal – and if I had enough of them I would get visibly unhappy about it. Not Roy. He was pretty happy with his four misses, because shooting the same round the week before he’d been getting five or six misses per end!

And that, is the point. Just by scoring he now had the ability to monitor how he was progressing over the season. He didn’t take it too seriously, but he knew how he was doing.

I recommend the following:

• If you feel sensitive about your misses, you don’t even need to keep a proper score sheet – or tell anyone else you are scoring. Start by keeping a small notepad or wad of paper in your quiver, and note down where your arrows went every time you collect your arrows.
• I recommend buying a proper archery score book (they’re small enough to fit in your quiver, and most archery stores sell them). It’ll keep things tidier and make it easier to monitor your progress.
• Stick to shooting the same round for a few weeks in a row. The more scores you put in, the better you can see how you are doing.
• Be competitive with yourself (if not with others). My barebow recurve PB on a Portsmouth is 478, and it frustrates the hell out of me that I can’t get nearer 500.
• It’s fun to shoot a round with someone else.

Remember, regularly scoring yourself may mean you get much more satisfaction and enjoyment from your archery.