Becoming a Celtic Archer

for the last couple of weekends i have been taking a longbow course at the Celtic Harmony Longbow Club.
taking place in beautiful Hertford fields, we were first taught to shoot with familiar round targets, learning how to hold the bow, draw the string, aim and ... release.
then repeat. repeat. repeat ...

the goal of this practice is to start to become consistent not to hit the gold (although that was very satisfying!). any variation in how you hold the bow, or how you hold yourself changes where the arrow hits, and we wanted to hit the same place over and over.

once we could shoot straight (and safe), we tried out field archery, which is altogether much more fun!
wandering through woods you find targets in the shape of deer, boar, fox, etc, hidden behind trees, obscured by bushes. sometimes you have to shoot from a ditch, sometimes crouching to avoid branches. first one target may be close, then the next is at a distance. the course is designed to throw you off, stop you getting used to a pattern.
all very challenging, and as someone pointed out, quite like golf. the difference of course is that we were using lethal artillery!

in addition to practice, we had to do some theory research into the Archer's Paradox: essentially the arrow does not go where you point it. this is because the way the arrow rubs the bow when you shoot causes it to bend and flex.
so, the archer has to compensate for this, which would be more simple if all arrows behaved the same - but they don't. the flexibility of the arrow shaft is its' spine, and you have to match the power of the bow with the spine of the arrow. this is further complicated as longbow arrows are (traditionally) made of wood and so like all organic things, they vary. it wouldn't be fun if it was easy, would it?!
here is a good explanation with a picture, and here to some high speed video, including a bit that shows what can happen if you get the balance wrong...

my membership cheque is in the post. see you there!

The Planets

this is close to being work on my not-work blog, but bear with me...
whilst camping in Norfolk we were star gazing in general wonder at the universe.
this simple past-time soon drew a crowd of fellow enthusiasts, all of us with very little knowledge of what's what up in the sky.
all this changed, however, when Joe joined us, with his amazing binoculars and more amazing knowledge of the stars and planets.
following his guidance we navigated around the milky way, found the pole star, and even gazed in awe at the Andromeda Galaxy, "a faint smudge on a moonless night".

truly amazing.

this wonder filled night brought to mind a wee experiment i thought about a while ago (watching Pitch Black of all things) - i wanted to program an animation of the solar system.

well - here it is.
still a work in progress, but you can zoom in and out (bottom slider), click and drag around, and speed up / slow down time, or even make time go backwards (bottom slider).
there is also a button that makes all the planets, moons, and Sun the correct relative diameters (messes with relative distances though).
making it was pretty simple, but even this simple model gave me a great sense of just how big our solar system is. and showed me just how small the earth is, as part of this amazingly delicate system.

Graffiti walk pt 2

so i have found out more about this awesome work...
it was the London end of the world wide Meeting of Styles street art event this year.

the website's here, and this is the flickr pool....

Science of barefoot running

so barefoot for me is, in part, about finding a simple way of doing things.
However, the health / injury avoiding benefits form a big part too. running barefoot is meant to reduce impact injuries commonly associated with shod running due to a front-foot strike that uses the foot's structure to manage your bodies weight with each step better than the heel strike encourage by all the padding in modern shoes.
obviously these claims meet with scepticism from some quarters, but they are also being backed up by some serious research.

check this video from Harvard's barefoot professor:


if you follow the science try the research site here.

Graffiti walk

some amazing graffiti on the road up to the Holloway recycling centre. Mostly on the buildings along the road, but some real beauties in a locked compound at the end. will have to go back and try to get more up-close with those another time...

took a few pics. some images below, and you can see some more on flickr.

the detail in this huge piece is incredible...

this is the locked compound...

Sunday Afternoon Knap

to celebrate the F1 result in Belgium i spent about an hour flint knapping in the afternoon.

i was hoping to make a big leaf-shaped arrowhead but i missed a strong ridge and split my stone in half...

i used the opportunity to practice making the deep in-cut used to tang and barb, and cut through the oddly shaped larger half to make a much smaller leaf.

the mud coloured flint seemed quite brittle and having not practised for ages i found the balance of power difficult with the copper point, and just crushed the edges with the antler.

in the end i found i could make the flakes i needed with 'nibbles' holding the piece up rather than down between my knees.

the result is ok for shape, but not so thin.

update

as a simple thank you to my archery teacher, i improvised a setting for the point - using a fresh bamboo pole for the shaft, i bound the point on with the inside of a shock-cord, and finished it off with some pigeon feather fletches.

not at all practical, but looked a cool gift.