Archery for a late commer adult

Why I started this blog ?

It was some kind of an interesting journey when I started recurve archery 4 years ago. Now when I look at the new starters at my age, which turned out to be 45 this year, I can see not only how much I evolved but rather  think on how may I help others , rather elders in recurve archery

Not that I am very knowledgable on archery but having spent countless hours and years with so many failures seeming achieving my way , but leading to dead ends, I decided to blog my experience whether i may help to anyone

Thus please read these lines not to seek for expert advice but an amateurs' blueprints  spending almost his entire leisure time.

Who am I ?

The above picture is my daughter's. I am the man below.  I am 45, always had a keen interest on any shooting sports, especially archery,  till I started practicing in 2012. I had no experience in archery, nor  did any sport systematically till then. Thus : YOU MAY START ANY TIME

I am a sales director at an educational solutions company  ( Pearson PLC) with 23 people reporting layered to me. Having an engineering background, has not helped me a bit, on the contrary, it degraded the pace I was able to comprehend sometimes, since I sought an answer to any minor detail.

Why I have underlined these details ?

As with every sales director, things get clumsy at quarter and years end. That erodes your chances of a routine training. Added a daughter with all home activities you have to do ( replenishing weekly and daily stocks for home, attending social events and keeping your marriage in form is not easy.

To Shoot  Your Best in Recurve Archery

These are some very basic bullet points which I will dwell an entire blog for each.

Amount of training 

Any sport, with archery no exception, if you want to master, no less than 3 but better 4 times a week with 120 arrows minimum, 150 preferable, more the better over a 2 - 2.5 hours training time. More to detail with reasoning below :

Equipment 

Don't bother that much. A brand new beginner generally has reach to a club's starter  equipment, costing roughly 400 USD, arrows inclusive. Your next gear would be around 1200 USD since an average coach would ask you to start with a mediocre set, should you decide to leave or switch to compound archery, which is most often the case. There is practically no limi to highend gear, starting from 2500 USD upto 10000 USD.
As an elder, you probably have the financials to afford a better set.
Don't ! - No need to at least 2 years. An entire blog will come to that

Coach

You may think the most important item in the list is the coach. Not so. It is the second most. The most important element is you. The coach will hardly ever have an ambition in training you. No matter how hard you try, possibility of you winning a medal arising his club to some above average score, would be very limited. You will hardly ever have the time to defeat the youngsters and other pros, so you have no future for him. Lets be blunt - you are a cash cow with plenty of money, which  has a tendency to let this sport dwon when things get lousy such as home, work or other personal issues.
I will come to that

Attire

Interestingly few adults pay enough attention to it. Coming late from work we don't care what we wear, alas, as for any sport, you have to pay attention that garments should never stand on your way

Patiance

Allow yourself time.. Don't set much expectations on yourself. While you may be very experienced  and successful on your daily occupation, archery asks your concentration , action against your intuition and common sense at times.

Resources

Don't read too much. Not even this guide. Try till you are convinced that even you do not shoot the gold, you feel exactly what you are doing, at the time of the shot. Than correct yourself with one issue at a time. When you read, which I will discuss some resource, there is a tendency that you try what you read as a remedy , to your possibly endless faults without correcting any one of them. This leads you to anger and insubordination to the training schedule, impacting your performance and rapport.
As a resource, bear with a notepad taking notes on how you shoot, reading more on yourself than any other. You frequently forget your past in physical activity, distracted by too many daily issues.

Style

You will have your own. As every human is different so is your body. But while you develop it, best fitting to your anatomy, there are crucial not-to-do postures. These may severely hurt , with some temporary or permanent disabilities. More on to that.