New Art Exhibition

I have badly neglected this blog. I think I was just feeling very disillusioned with life in general and art in particular! But getting this art exhibition together with John Rubery has done a lot to re-ignite my enthusiasm. It was supposed to be held last year and was then cancelled due to COVID. We got the chance to put it on again at very short notice - only two weeks - but decided to go ahead!

Visitor numbers are still down - I think because of Covid - but reactions to the show have been excellent!

 

Frustrating!

 In some ways it has been a very frustrating month! For the first half I was shooting well and quite consistently. It was cold and I was using my improvised "winter shooting gloves". The right hand consists of a normal - but rather light - archery glove inside put inside of a gardening glove to which I had sewn some leather to protect my fingers. Works well! But the weather has got warmer and these gloves are no longer comfortable.

Unfortunately, my bought archery gloves are a bit too light for the bows I am using now. I have tried tabs - don't like these - and several others. I also experimented with various ways of giving my fingers extra protection, sewing on extra leather, etc. Then I tried pushing one too light shooting glove inside another - this actually worked for most of last year. But now the outer glove has become rather worn and the reinforcing leather at the tips is beginning to catch on the string. Can still get in some very good shots (as above) but I am also seeing an increase in poor shots and I can sometimes feel a roughness in the release. Overall, not shooting that badly - just not as good as earlier! I think I can do better!

I have ordered a new glove which should be heavier, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before it arrives!

A Decent Practice

 A decent practice today, 89% scoring 8 or above (yesterday it was 92%). My average for the month so far is 88%. I would like to get the average up to 90%. The importance of this is that it indicates how tight is the "scatter" of my shots. However, the odd mistake is always going to creep in, so it will be difficult to improve this percentage much more.

Perhaps a better indicator of progress is going to be the percentage of my "gold" shots. At the moment I have an average of 60% scoring 9's and 10's.

I am shooting instinctively. The biggest difficulty is in not "correcting" myself and over-thinking what I am doing. My best shots follow from when I draw the arrow into position - and then succeed in concentrating on the target while trusting my hand and eye to co-ordinate and do the rest! I have noticed that scoring a very high percentage of 8+ shots is not necessarily accompanied by a higher percentage of very good shots to the center of the target! I suspect that this is a result of being too "careful", rather than trusting my instincts!

Archery glove problems?

Until a few days ago I was using a pair of winter gloves for shooting, averaging about 88% of the arrows scoring 8 or better. At the other end of the scale I was scoring between 10% and 12% into the the inner gold circle. With the weather getting warmer and I decided to change to lighter gloves - and suddenly I was scoring many fewer really good shots, no more than 5%. Today I changed my glove again to a thinner one and my better shots are back up again! Possibly I need to get a new archery glove, the old ones are getting quite worn.

Flying Straight!

My bow rack in my studio - 80lb Warbow, 65lb Longbow, 40lb homemade Self bow.

A decent practice today. My release seems improved as the arrows were all flying straighter. Not a big improvement in the score though. 89% of my shots are still scoring 8 or higher, which I think reflects well on my daily practice, but I can do better! I should be getting more arrows in the gold.

A Little Improvement!

 Archery practice today was just a little bit better. For some reason, yesterday's felt "flat"! I was going through the motions, hitting my targets with reasonable accuracy, but it still felt a bit "off".

One clue to how well I am shooting is the flight of the arrow. It should be smooth, without discernible "wiggle" and should go into the target straight, not at an angle. When it doesn't, it usually means my release was poor - effectively I have pushed or dragged the nock a little to one side. I might still be quite accurate but consistency suffers. Today, at least some of the shots felt right - I was focused on the target (rather than thinking consciously about what I was doing), the release was smooth and the flight straight! Now I just have to keep doing that!

Skilled Archery versus Inspired Archery!

 I have been rather neglecting this blog, I think that I need to use it simply to think out some of the things on my mind, whether anyone else is interested or not.

My practise range,in the snow!

At the moment I am mostly thinking about how my archery practice has been going. Today was interesting, not because it was good, but rather because it was rather average! My longbow is tillered to 62lbs @ 28" and I start shoot 5 rounds of 20 arrows at 10 metres, 2 per target face. Then I change to a warbow, tillered to 77lbs @ 32" (I am actually pulling about 75lbs at my 30" draw and I use a different set of slightly longer arrows). I shoot 2 rounds of 12 arrows (plus 1 extra to make a total of 25), I am still trying to adjust to this bow as it is approximately 15 lbs heavier than the longbow, so 25 is enough to avoid risk of excessive strain. I record my results as percentages, I count the arrows touching or inside the inner 10 circle, then all the 10's, the the 9's PLUS the 10's and finally ALL arrows within or touching the 8 circle. Anyting outside that is counted as a miss.

When I first started archery I thought I was doing well to get 70% 8's or higher. Last year I was averaging 80%, now I am beginning to push 90% with the longbow! What is interesting is why ALL the arrows aren't within this area. I usually miss - and I know it - because I have temporarly lost concentration, rather than because of any physical mistake. The "better" shots will still vary a bit. A few, though, give a different feel - like everything is just coming together perfectly! I tend to average about 5% close to the exact center, as today. But when it really comes together, this goes up to 10-15%. It almost feel like something is clicking into place at the exact moment of shooting! This is the moment when archery becomes "inspired"!

"The Valley"

l am rather proud of the pathworking I created based on this painting. It is intended to take the viewer on an imaginative trip into the painting. The video is an attempt to recreate the performance I put on as part of my "Dreaming Reality" art exhibition in 1988. The video is nine minutes long with two pauses of about ten seconds (which can be paused for longer if the viewer desires). It takes the viewer from a hot summer's day in the country into a mysterious and restful shaded valley. If you would like to experience it for yourself, try the link below!

''The Valley Pathworking"

My Virtual Exhibition on Facebook

My friend, John Rubery, and I were supposed to have a joint art exhibition at Bangor Carnegie Library in April, to be called "Thomas Spencer and John Rubery Exhibition - The Class of '76" (since we went to Art College together).

Unfortunately, due to fears over the Coronavirus, that had to be cancelled. However, I have decided to create a virtual exhibition on my professional Facebook page, Thomas Spencer Artist, posting pictures with a short explanation about them.

Please visit!

Warbow versus Longbow

Got a new bow from Fairbow, in the Netherlands, as a replacement for a previous bow which, unfortunately, failed. Beautiful bow, hickory with a yew belly. It's a true warbow, tillered to 77lbs@32". In practice, I am finding that it is 75lbs@28" and 80lbs@30", which is my preferred draw length. At the moment, I am only drawing to 28" and I expect it will take several months before I can comfortably draw 30".

Got a nice sequence of 12 arrows at practice yesterday with the new bow. Only shooting at 10 metres, but this would give me an average score of 25 for 3 arrows.

The day before I was practicing with a different, lighter, longbow I bought from traditionalbowshop.com in Hungary. A nice bow, tillered to 62lbs@28", but in practice I am pulling it at 73lbs@30". The comparison between the two is interesting. With the warbow I got 10% really accurate shots touching the inner circle, with the longbow only 7%. However, with the warbow I went wide (outside an 8) 33% of the tIme, whilst with the longbow it was only 18%!

l think that the extra strength of the warbow helps accuracy when I get right, but also makes it more likely that I will strain and get it wrong! It will take time for my muscles to adjust!

Encouraging - my first medal!

Yesterday I took part in a 3D shoot organised by Lough Cuan Bowmen. I was shooting a longbow for the first time in competition. We had good weather and an excellent venue (apart from some mud). A very enjoyable day.

Unlike during the previous competition, I felt relaxed and confident and this showed in the result. I attained a respectable score of 277 and did not lose or break any arrows! The score was sufficient to get me my first gold medal!

I would not claim that this represents something that extraordinary, but it represents a significant personal improvement! I do find that I am much happier shooting a longbow and I much prefer it to my previous horsebow.

Good and not so good!

On Saturday I had a particularly good practise. As normal, I shoot 4 rounds of 25 arrows at 10 metres. 90% were in 8 ring or better, 65% gold, 28% scored 10 and 9% were in or touched the inmost ring.

That made it even more frustrating the next day when I attended the Lough Cuan Bowmen's Ice Breaker Shoot. I didn't shoot that badly, but I just couldn't get the confidence together to shoot really well. Of course, some shots were difficult, longer range, shooting up or down hill, but even on relatively straight forward shots I was trying too hard, not relaxing into it! I guess I need more practise at those trickier situations

What is "normal" ability?

I was shooting at the Lough Cuan Bowmen's weekly meeting when I shot this group at 25 metres with a 70lb horsebow. The frustrating thing is that this should not have been exceptional (which, of course, it was), it should be normal!

I shoot instinctively. My practise at home, at 10 metres, has improved considerably. About 25% are within the inner gold, about 50% score somewhere in the gold generally and above 80% are within the next red ring, scoring 8 or above. However, what is interesting is the difference in the feeling for the various shots. 10% of my shots are really accurate, hitting or touching the tiny inner circle. When I shoot one of these I am totally at ease - then I become aware of what I am doing and the moment is lost! It is not often that I can keep my awareness at bay for three successive shots, as happened yesterday at the Archery club (although I think awareness was creeping back in with the last shot, which went fractionally low)!

For the rest of my news, I got my longbow at the start of last year. Had it break in May, due to a flaw in the outer stave. Under guarantee, but still waiting for its replacement. Got a my present Chinese made horsebow to keep me shooting in the meantime. It has worked out very well. 60lbs at 28inch draw but safe to draw to 31inches. I draw to 30inches, which works out at about 70lbs.

Long delayed progress report!

There has been an overall improvement in my shooting. Using the system as discribed in my last post, comparing my average scores in April to that in October:

       Inner 10's:   4.73% -   7.25%

                 10's: 11.80% - 17.63%

       9's & 10's: 31.50% - 45.98%

8's, 9's & 10's: 54.63% - 72.65%

I changed to a recurve, take-down bow, but I have now ordered my first longbow. I suspect that I am over-straining the recurve bow as it seems to be designed for a draw of 28 inches and I have a 30 inch draw (it was a relatively cheap bow, so I really can't complain that it developed a small crack). 

The longbow will be much better quality and is something I have always really wanted. My experience with the other bows tells me that I should be able to handle the draw weight I want. The new bow is just heavy enough to be classified as a war bow at 70-75 lbs at a draw of 32 inches. However, at my usual draw of 30 inches it should be roughly what I am already used to.

Update

It has been quite a while since I last wrote anything and quite a lot has changed. Firstly, I now keep my own way of accurately recording my progress.

Scoring:
The normal way of scoring is that an inner gold scores 10, an outer gold scores 9 and then the inner red ring counts as 8, etc. However, there is a further small ring marked at the center which is normally only used in competitive shooting, to differentiate between two 10 scores. For my purposes I count how many arrows are in or touching this inner circle, then how many (including these) that would have scored 10. The I count the total in the gold target area, then the total (including the gold) that would have scored at least 8. I do not bother counting anything outside of this. I now have three targets set up with a total of 11 small target faces mounted on them. I shoot two arrows each into 8 of the faces and three arows into my third target which only has 3 faces. Rather conveniently, this means that I can shoot a round of 25 arrows before needing to recover the arrows and score them. 4 rounds gives me a total of 100 which therefore gives me the score as a percentage. I normally shoot 300 per day, usually in three separate sessions. (Sorry if this is boring, but that is how I can keep track of any changes in my shooting.)

When I was last writing, I was just getting used to shooting with a 60lb Hungarian style horsebow. By August of last year I was getting on quite well, my muscles had adjusted and I was consistently keeping at least 70% of my shots within the inner red and gold bands of my targets. Then I noticed that the bow was becoming distorted! The core of the bow seems to be a steel spring and the top and bottom of the bow were no longer sharing the same degree of curvature. So in September I started with a new, take-down, recurve bow. Nominally, it pulls at 55lbs at 28inches of draw. I draw to 30inches, so I calculated that should give me the equivalent of my 60lb horsebow. Miscalculated! Turns out that it was giving my 65lbs of pull for my draw length, so I was a little over-bowed once again! Took me a lot longer than I expected to get fully adjusted to this. I reckon that it took me two months before I could shoot this bow with ease and my scores were about the same as with my previous bow!

Then I decided to increase the distance I was shooting at from 10 metres to 13 metres (the furthest I can conveniently do in my garden). The result was a bigger decrease in my accuracy than I expected! So I am now on a new learning curve!

Instinctive skills.

When I first started shooting with my new 60lb Horse Bow I was only getting about a third of my shots in the gold and inner red bands of the target. In addition, my back and chest muscles rapidly became sore. After a month, I am now getting over half of my shots in the inner area. Still not good enough, but my muscles have largely adjusted and I anticipate further steady progress.

I am interested in shooting accurately through instinctive archery, without conscious aiming. The process is the same as in learning to draw accurately without conscious effort and can be illustrated with a little experiment. This demonstrates the link between thought and action (I originally got it from an old book on auto-suggestion).

First you need a target. You can print out the one provided (click on the image for the full size version) or draw it out roughly on a piece of paper.

Next you need to make a simple rod and pendulum. Get a straight piece of light wood about 30 cm long (or a piece of stiff wire – anything will do). You need a weight (a small nail will do), which you attach to the end of the rod with thread so that it will hang about 20cm below the end of the rod.

Hold the rod so that the pendulum is hanging just above the centre of the target. It is a good idea to hold your arm slightly away from your body, so that your body does not steady it (and do not rest your elbow on the table). Hold the rod lightly and as far away from the pendulum end as you can comfortably manage. Relax your arm and - from this point on - ignore your arm! Concentrate on the target! (You will NOT need to make any DELIBERATE movements of your arm.)

Please note that the following exercise does NOT rely on anything “supernatural”.

This exercise is entirely to do with the normal functioning of mind and body. However, please do NOT try to work out how it functions until later (there is an explanation at the end).

Concentrate on the target and start saying to yourself, slowly and steadily, over and over again, “A B, A B, A B, . . . “

(It may help at first to look rhythmically from one end of the A/B line to the other, at the same time.)

After a few moments the pendulum will start to swing along the A/B axis. Don’t get excited, just keep going until the swinging motion is nicely established.

Now try thinking, “C D, C D, C D, . . . “

(you do not have to say it aloud, although it may help at first).

The pendulum will gradually respond and change until it is swinging along the C/D axis.

Again, just keep going until the C/D swing is well established.

Now try thinking,

“Circle, circle, circle, . . . “

Just keep going until the pendulum is steadily swinging in a circular motion over the target.

All these pendulum movements should have happened WITHOUT any requirement for deliberate arm movements - it should have felt like the pendulum was swinging all by itself!

Finally, just think, “Stop”, look at the centre of the target - and relax!

(It can take some time for the pendulum to fully slow down so, after a moment or two, I usually just break off and put the pendulum down.)

How does it work?

Well, the preparations have made it clear that something is supposed to happen with the pendulum. The obvious expectation when you start thinking, “A B, . . . “, is that it is supposed to swing along the A/B axis. So your unconscious mind promptly fulfills your expectations by synchronising the tiny movements that your (unsteady) arm makes anyway. Normally, these movements cancel each other out and so (apart from the odd quiver) the pendulum stays stationery. Since these tiny movements now reinforce each other, the movement of the pendulum will gradually buildup without any noticeable effort on your part (another observer MIGHT notice very slight movements of your arm, but these will be tiny compared to those made if you deliberately swing the pendulum).

This is a very good exercise for training yourself not to interfere with things that are best done on an unconscious level, i.e., learning to think about the desired result and knowing that it will come about without the need for deliberate effort on your part. It is also the way that I try to teach students to draw - to perceive what they want to draw, whilst letting the hand and eye do the rest, without conscious effort or strain.

NB :
There is a twist to this exercise that can be very revealing. You get the pendulum swinging in a circle. Then try to convince yourself that it is very frightening, perhaps that it is "supernatural". You want it to stop, but it won't stop swinging. If you can work yourself into a convincing state of panic, the pendulum will normally swing even faster! This is because your unconscious mind does not understand negatives. The intensity of your fear is interpreted as an even stronger desire to make the pendulum swing harder. Your unconscious mind is simply carrying out what it is interpreting as your wishes.

The moral of this is - DON'T PANIC!

Back on target!

I haven't blogged about my archery for a while because I am still getting used to my new bow. The first effect was that my poorer shots got worse, probably because it was harder to get a smooth release with the heavier bow. Then my muscles started to protest under the extra strain and, as I got sore, my accuracy suffered! I went down from one third of my shots being gold (or touching) to only a quarter!

Gradually my muscles have adjusted and now I am nudging 40% good shots. However, I find I am more accurate if I don't go to the full extent of my draw. I suspect that, at present, I am only pulling about 55lbs. However, that is now coming easily and I think that my draw length will naturally extend as my muscles adjust further.

The important aspect is that the bow now feels more natural to me. I find that I make corrections to my draw with less thought, whereas at first I was very aware of the extra strain.

New bow!

A few weeks ago my bow developed a crack, which I repaired with glue and reinforced with tape. The repair appears to have been effective but, since I couldn't know if or when it would fail again, I thought it was time to upgrade to a new bow. My old bow was an American flat bow, nominally pulling at 35lbs. However, since I draw arrows to my ear, it was actually working out at 40lbs. The new bow is a Chinese made Hungarian style longbow, bought through Amazon. I wanted a stronger bow and this was quoted as being 50lbs at a draw length of 28 inches. However, it has a safe draw length of 33 inches and my own draw length is 30 inches, I anticipated that I could probably get a pull of 60lbs (which has turned out to be the case).

(I have to admit that the price was an important factor in my choice of bow. I would really fancy buying a genuine English longbow but, at five to six times the price, that would be too much to pay unless I was sure that I could handle one of at least 60lbs draw weight.)

The new bow arrived last Wednesday, since when I have been learning to adjust to the bow's particular characteristics. At the start, with my old bow, I was hitting the gold with roughly a third of my shots. This continued with the new bow but the wilder shots nearly doubled in number! I think that this was because the extra power exagerated the effect when my technique was poor.

I have been concentrating on using the new bow and the ratio of good shots to poor ones has improved considerably. However, when I briefly went back to my old bow it was interesting to note how little effort it seemed to require to use it! My accuracy had also gone up to nearly 50%!

In the longer term, I expect the greater power to be a big advantage, particularly over longer ranges. Already I find that I am making adjustments in my technique and the bow is becoming comfortable to use.

Zenless!

I got quite a bit of practice in today, 400 shots. But the most remarkable thing about it was how unremarkable it was! I scored an average of 35.25% in the gold and 20.25% outside of the red band. That is just 1% improved on two days ago, but the percentage of poor shots has also gone up by 1.75%. However, whilst there were fewer really bad shots there was also very few very good ones. Normally, every so often, things will just come together and I will get a series of shots which just seem to go effortlessly into the right spot. For example, 3 arrows will perfectly place themselves into the inner gold - and that is really what it feels like!  It is as if the arrows decide where to go, I just go through the motions of firing the arrows! But today the spread of the arrows was remarkably even, not too bad, just not very good!

Better Zen!

Yesterday, over 400 shots, I  was averaging 34.25% into the gold, with 18.5% going outside of the red band. Today, over 300 shots, I averaged 44% gold, with just 13.67% outside of the red.

I was undoubtedly more relaxed today, able to quickly settle the bow into the position to shoot, which I think is an important factor. The poor shots often seem to be the result of poor timing, releasing hurriedly or "snatching" the shot. I believe my frame of mind is the important factor in continuing to improve.