Tokyo Olympics...

Omegafanman

At $15.4 billion the cost of hosting keeps heading skyward

Archer

Interesting comment, and if I can possibly risk boring the hell out of you with an answer...

Olympic archery is a bit of an unusual sport, in that the bow hand has to stay very stationary, while the draw hand on the other side of the body is moving continuously during the shot. It may look in videos like they stop, but if they do it's sort of poor form - the shot should be one continuous motion. There is a device on the bow called a clicker, and the arrow goes under that little piece of metal, and when you draw the arrow through it, it will come to a point when it drops off the tip of the arrow, and clicks against a plate on the bow - this is the signal that you are at the right tension, timing, etc. and you are good to shoot. Not my video, but a good basic overview from Crispin himself:

This is with a bow that weighs maybe 6 pounds, but the draw weight (the tension on the string) when at full draw may be in excess of 50 pounds, held with just three fingers. It's very fine motor control of that draw weight and perfectly balancing that with the push of the bow arm that is the key. You don't really pull the bow with your arm muscles once you get past the very early part of pulling the string back, but with mostly back muscles, and by moving the scapula on the draw hand side, pulling those together and expanding the chest slightly. It takes tremendous strength and control to do it well.

So the difficulty, particularly mentally, is keeping that draw hand side moving at the risk of pulling the bow left or right, and the sight coming off the center. If you are near the part of the shot where the clicker is going to release, and the sight gets pulled off from the movement of the draw hand, the tendency is to stop pulling, which is very bad. I struggled with this hugely from a mental perspective under pressure, and I would stall out right near the point of executing the shot when the arrow was about to come through the clicker.

This is similar to the yips in golf when putting, and in darts they call it "dartitis" (not sure who thought that one up!), I think it's the yips in snooker, and in archery it's commonly called "target panic." It's the ting that any archer absolutely dreads having.

When I had that under control I was beating lots of people, and when it wasn't I was losing to lots of people. On the shooting line at most events, you have someone right beside you, and I had a very bad habit of shooting when someone else's clicker went off. Then at the Arizona Cup one year, and archer from Ireland was chatting to one of my team mates, and mentioned this issue. He showed me what hew as using, which was a "thumb clicker", so it was a wire with a pad on it the contacted my thumb, so when the clicker went off, it didn't make a sound, but tapped my thumb. There was a guy in Sweden making them, so I ordered a couple, and that greatly improved things.

So yes, it's very mentally demanding, and the people who are highly successful, like Crispin who has a bronze medal at the world championships, can control this far better than I ever could.

Cheers, Al

Dsloan

Yeah, but not everyone's shaped the same. There's tons of little variables that are affected by individual anthropometry - draw weight, draw length, brace height, tiller, etc - that make it pretty unrealistic to have a 'one size fits all bow'.

The bows may look really elaborate, but they are really very similar in construction: everyone's got a riser, limbs, stabilizers, string, clicker, plunger, and sight. No one out there has a gear advantage. Everyone in the games has tried tons of setups and settled on what helps them shoot best.

Walrus

https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/japan/?back=https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&safe=active&as_q=Japan's google positivity rate&channel=aplab&source=a-app1&hl=en

Archer

Interesting comment, and if I can possibly risk boring the hell out of you with an answer...

Olympic archery is a bit of an unusual sport, in that the bow hand has to stay very stationary, while the draw hand on the other side of the body is moving continuously during the shot. It may look in videos like they stop, but if they do it's sort of poor form - the shot should be one continuous motion. There is a device on the bow called a clicker, and the arrow goes under that little piece of metal, and when you draw the arrow through it, it will come to a point when it drops off the tip of the arrow, and clicks against a plate on the bow - this is the signal that you are at the right tension, timing, etc. and you are good to shoot. Not my video, but a good basic overview from Crispin himself:

This is with a bow that weighs maybe 6 pounds, but the draw weight (the tension on the string) when at full draw may be in excess of 50 pounds, held with just three fingers. It's very fine motor control of that draw weight and perfectly balancing that with the push of the bow arm that is the key. You don't really pull the bow with your arm muscles once you get past the very early part of pulling the string back, but with mostly back muscles, and by moving the scapula on the draw hand side, pulling those together and expanding the chest slightly. It takes tremendous strength and control to do it well.

So the difficulty, particularly mentally, is keeping that draw hand side moving at the risk of pulling the bow left or right, and the sight coming off the center. If you are near the part of the shot where the clicker is going to release, and the sight gets pulled off from the movement of the draw hand, the tendency is to stop pulling, which is very bad. I struggled with this hugely from a mental perspective under pressure, and I would stall out right near the point of executing the shot when the arrow was about to come through the clicker.

This is similar to the yips in golf when putting, and in darts they call it "dartitis" (not sure who thought that one up!), I think it's the yips in snooker, and in archery it's commonly called "target panic." It's the ting that any archer absolutely dreads having.

When I had that under control I was beating lots of people, and when it wasn't I was losing to lots of people. On the shooting line at most events, you have someone right beside you, and I had a very bad habit of shooting when someone else's clicker went off. Then at the Arizona Cup one year, and archer from Ireland was chatting to one of my team mates, and mentioned this issue. He showed me what hew as using, which was a "thumb clicker", so it was a wire with a pad on it the contacted my thumb, so when the clicker went off, it didn't make a sound, but tapped my thumb. There was a guy in Sweden making them, so I ordered a couple, and that greatly improved things.

So yes, it's very mentally demanding, and the people who are highly successful, like Crispin who has a bronze medal at the world championships, can control this far better than I ever could.

Cheers, Al

Engee

Always a delight for me when someone shares their knowledge, and the more obscure that knowledge, the more delightful it is. Thank you. I too will now be looking out for the archery competition on the olympics.

loniscup

Took my boys (8 and 10) to an archery club two months ago. I don't know why but I love this sport despite never tried it myself. I understand the self control, the inner peace, the balance it takes to take that shot and I am so fascinated for them. They both seem to enjoy it for now :fingers crossed
Wishing the best to your friends!!