[Archers] Draft of Archery Rules

[James Kriebel]

> Two points here: completely disagree that hand straps
> are there to stabilize the bow and not drop the bow.
> What is this based on? If you go to mundane
> competitions, you will see that 99% of the archers,
> whether compound or recurve shooters, use hand straps.
> The reason is that when you are concentrating on
> aiming and releasing, it is not unusual to have too
> loose a hand on the bow and lose control of it. Having
> a strap keeps you from having to worry about it,

Believe what you may, but competitive olympic style archers do not do anything unless it directly affects hitting closer to the X on a regular basis, their issue is winning, the refs(marshals) issue is safety.  With that style of strap the hand is held completely open, no grip at all.  The only thing keeping the bow in your hand is the back pressure of pulling the string.  The strap is set just behind the
base of your thumb so it can not go over your hand on release.  On release the bow rolls forward hanging only from the strap.  The strap is short enough that it does not leave your hand at all but being connected to the bow below your hand simply tries to roll forward out of it.  That technique was taught to be separately by two repeat state champions and a former olympic trainer.  I had to modify it
slightly to shoot in the SCA where straps were not allowed initially (East has since changed their rules to allow it).

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It is very true that the three different types of bows shoot differently score wise.  That is one thing I like very much about the Atlantia scoring system, it has always kept your average completely separate for each bow type.  Most other Kingdoms have a combined average (your three highest scores regardless of type), usually without bow type noted.

Jonathas