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| Warning About Pictures In Emails or "Viruses, Trojans, Spammers, and Worms - OH MY!" CLICK HERE TO OPEN THIS COPY OF THE NEWSLETTER FROM THE AA'S WEBSITE DIRECTLY, IN ORDER TO VIEW PHOTOS IN ARTICLES. A quick precautionary note is unfortunately necessary. If you see pictures in this newsletter email you should consider changing the setting in your software to NOT display photos in emails. The short reason is that pictures can be used to trigger worms, trojans, and viruses, as well as simple code that EMAILS YOUR ADDRESS to spam harvesters. The picture often used in this "trick" by these spammer idiots is as small as a single pixel, about the size of the period . . . and when you open the email, your program loads the picture along with the bad code the spammer put into it, and it secretly betrays your information back to the sender. By turning off the loading of pictures, you gain some protection from this kind of theft and virus hassle. The downside is that you won't get to see the nifty photos in the email newsletter, until you click on the link at the top of the page to go directly to the AA's website page where a webpage copy of this newsletter is stored. That will let you see the newsletter WITH the photos, in a safe way. A last reminder - when was the last time you burned a backup copy of your important files and "stuff" to a CD or DVD? Backups are both cheap and easy, and when you need it there is nothing like a backup. |
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| Paralympics? Just a day or so ago I received an email where someone asked me: "What are the Paralympics"? My first thought was that they are great, that's what they are. But it also was obvious that this word needs to be more understood. I spent most of September in Athens attending the Paralympics, witnessed first-hand a number of competitions in a variety of sports from Rugby to Tennis to Fencing to, of course, Archery. I learned far more about the human spirit from watching these events than I ever have from years of enjoying and appreciating the Olympics. Quite simply, the Paralympics (derived from "Parallel Olympics") is the same as the Olympics, with nearly 4000 athletes from 136 countries competing in 19 sports this year in Athens right after the Olympics ended. They use the same venues that the Olympics use. Some 850,000 spectators (400,000 had been originally expected) flocked to the various venues to watch and cheer on the athletes. Millions around the world tuned in, breaking viewer records as well. More than 750 world and Paralympic records fell at the Athens Games. But the Paralympics are not the same as the Olympics in a very significant way. And what are the Paralympics NOT? These are NOT the "Special Olympics". They are every bit as starkly competitive and strenuous, if not more so, than the Olympics. It's not sufficient to simply participate as it is in the "Special Olympics", these athletes are there to struggle to be the best and to win. The bottom line is that these athletes are not perfect in body but they don't let that stop them. Broadcasters around the world reported that the ATHENS 2004 Paralympic Games were watched by a record number of viewers. Though live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony coincided with the middle of the night in some parts of the world (though only mid-day in the US), 10 million Chinese and 8 million Japanese homes woke up to enjoy the spectacle. Daily highlights programs attracted millions of European viewers. German broadcasters report that the first time highlights aired (Sunday 19 September), nearly 1.5 million homes watched. Two million televisions tuned in Great Britain and 650,000 in Spain. Italian television boasted an average of 600,000 viewers for their nightly broadcasts of Paralympic highlights. In the U.S.??? American broadcasters could not be bothered to broadcast any live coverage, nor any tape-delayed coverage, either. So it is no wonder that so few people know what the Paralympics are. You might get to see an edited summary cramming 11 days' competitions into a 2 hour format on Outdoor Life Network, currently scheduled for November 13, 5-7 p.m. Eastern Time, 4 to 6 p.m. A Time. I've got my fingers crossed on that one!Also, all of us non-disabled folk need to be aware that these people do not look for sympathy and in fact are rather irritable about people like me (reasonably able-bodied) making any kind of "deal" about their presence on the field of competition, and most would rather that behave in a completely normal, casual fashion. One I know simply refers to himself as "severely inconvenienced". You can walk right up and talk to them, for example, though many able-bodied people are too self-conscious and off-balanced to do so. Go figure. These are typical athletes, you could say. They simply use technology where appropriate. And what Olympic Athlete doesn't do that anyway? Think of the high-tech swim suits, bicycle wheels and frames, sculls and white-water kayaks, toboggans, pole vaults, fancy running shoes filled with helium, well you begin to see how nearly EVERY sport, even sprinters, employ the best technology available. These paralympians just take it to another level. As the father of one of the TEAM US paralympians, I am glad to report that our US archery team actually did something the Olympian team
did not do: Bring home two bronze medals, and in the process set a number of new records. Unfortunately Olympic Team US set no records and took home no medals this time around in the Olympics. In the Paralympics, though, Single-handedly using a compound bow with no peep and no scope (open aperture only) Jeff came nowhere near his competition personal best but still took bronze. And I do mean "single-handedly" in the literal sense - Jeff lost an arm and a leg in an accident but happens to shoot world-class archery using a mouthtab to hold the arrow and string, and PUSHING the bow away with his arm in order to draw the bow. Unlike compound archers, Jeff uses an open aperture with NO magnifier and NO peep site. He took David Cousins to within one point of defeat in a head-to-head OR match last year in the US Open 2003, I believe. Jeff Fabry of California took bronze in his W1 division and was part of the US three-man team to take bronze (despite shooting better arrows than every team they faced). Jeff set one world and also a paralympic record, a 677 for 72 arrows at 70 meters which shattered the previous records by 34 points. Lindsey Carmichael  (author's daughter) shot a 603 for her qualifying score (72 arrows at 70 meters), bettering the previous paralympic record by 34 points (coincidence!) and the previous world record by 13. Another archer from China also shot this score, but Lindsey had more Xs and was therefore ranked first going into the OR event, and they will both share this record in the books. For her 18 arrow match she set another paralympic record of 145 (old record 141). In her first 12-arrow match she shot three weak arrows, two 5s and a 6, to lose by 7 points to a Thai archer. Her competition was over in a match of seemingly less than 15 minutes - years of dedicated effort, focus, practice and dedication to archery, and a couple of weak shots was all it took to go out 98 to 91. But it was anything but a waste, and served to make her aware of just how tough archery is. Some Olympic sports, such as tennis, rugby, or basketball, the athlete(s) are permitted to make a huge number of efforts, any number of which can be bad and still hold the medal in hand at the end of it all. Serve a dozen faults? no problem, you get second serve each time. Throw up a brick, or muff a bunch of free throws? You still get to compete. Put 5 volleyball serves into the net, or long, and you still can move on. But as the Olympic and Paralympic archers will attest, you can't afford to make even ONE mistake in execution, one blue (aka "smurf") shot and still expect to move on to the podium without lady luck. Archers must train to be literally perfect in a very unforgiving way that few other sports require. Lindsey will likely go for Bejing in 2008 - it's not too soon to start and she is already working on perfection training!  Back to the men's team for a minute. Everyone in the archery community should know that these three archers actually lost due to errors not made by them, not because they failed to shoot better arrows than the teams they faced, but due to conditions beyond their control. In the quarterfinals they initially shot a 236 against the Italian team, which was at the time a new record. One arrow, a ten, was taken away because the US coach interfered with a US archer for that shot, attempting to assist him in nocking the arrow. That's against the rules and the coach was given a yellow card at the time, signaling the violation. Still, that left the US with a 226 to the Italian's 223. So the US team then shoots against the Japanese to see who gets to shoot for the gold medal. In this match, the US team of Aaron Cross, Jeff Fabry, and Kevin Stone absolutely ruled the field, easily outscoring the Japanese' 215. The US team leaves the field thinking that the next match was for the gold, and the way they were shooting they could taste gold. Unfortunately, the US coach had continued to handle the arrows for one US archer (that's still against the rules) throughout the match, and the jury of FITA Officials ruled the entire match was therefore a forfeit. So minutes before they go on the field the US guys are told that they won't have a chance for gold but instead will be shooting for.....bronze. Fellow archers, can you imagine how you would feel at this point? How calm could YOU be? How well would you be able to shoot an arrow 70 meters downrange at this moment? Piled onto the HUGE stresses of the entire competition they were handling with admirable and record-setting success, this new blindside emotion of being somehow deprived of something they had EARNED, and many of us might falter, might choke, might focus on "what might have been" and the all too natural "why me". Remember that these are guys who already faced that kind of emotional disaster we can only imagine, and they chose not self-pity, chose to NOT say "why me" but instead chose to fight for their place on the field and indeed, even as in life, fight to do their best. So Team US sucked it up, and went out and took care of business, defeating the British team 231 to 212, to win bronze. This was Aaron's third paralympics and without a doubt his best performance ever. He rose to the challenge and in this last match shot extremely well and needed no assistance with his arrows (indeed, his dad says he has never needed such help). He retires from paralympic competition with this match. Jeff and Kevin are both already making plans for redemption in Bejing in 2008. I hope to see you all there. And bravo to the NArchival Archery for insuring that "disabled" archers are welcome at all competitions, and to the USOC for their support as well. The U.S. has many athletes in wheelchairs and with disabilities that need to be introduced to archery so that in four years we can compete more effectively. For example, while there were a number of female teams from other countries competing for gold in Athens, the US sent only ONE female archer, so we had NO WOMEN'S TEAM. We simply do not have any other women with disabilities that are competitive at these levels and that is very surprising. After all, there are more than 54 million Americans with disabilities, more than 2 million in wheelchairs, and more than 135 million family members to disabled Americans. This is a suggestion/request to ALL archers, including instructors and coaches, to extend your awareness to those around you, to perhaps recruit disabled athletes who can either learn to shoot or who already know how to shoot, but just aren't aware of the possibilities of representing the US on the international scene. Do you know someone in a chair or with a prosthesis that shoots or that can learn? Get them in contact the USOC! Teach them how to shoot and you just might guide someone to achieve gold! |
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| She Did What? For the first time in a regulation senior competition a recurve archer shot 35 nines and 109 tens in an outdoor FITA 970-60-50-30 meters, 36 arrows each distance). That's a score of .......1405, with a recurve bow. Not a compound. By now you probably expect this was some well known male archer. Not so. Her (!) 70 meter score was a 351. Certification by FITA is pending. Oh yes, the archer? She was a double gold medal winner at the Athens Olympics, 21 year old Park Sung-hyun. The score was achieved (with a recurve bow) during the Korean National Sports Festival and a Korean newspaper writeup is at this link.  She was in the news a few years back as an 18 year old when a startling story about Korean Archery Program training methods surfaced. They were viewed as very arduous and part of the controversy came from the fact that the entire men's team was summarily replaced when, fearing injury perhaps, they refused to do the tasks. Interesting story. Back to the NSF games - Ms. Park was unfortunately able to "only" shoot a 357 at 30 meters and lost to underdog Lim Gwi-sook who shot a 358. I wonder if she shot two 9s or one 8 along with all those other 10s? Folks, did I mention this was with a recurve bow? Another good example of how Korean archery training techniques *may* be the best, for even American sensibilities, when taught in the right way. And I'm not talking about the weird tasks you read about in that BBC article! Elite US archers such as Guy Krueger and Chris Shull, taught fundamental Korean archery techniques by advanced coaches such as Don Rabska as well as what they absorbed while studying in South Korea, have done very well indeed without ever carrying a boat up a mountain. Perhaps if our youth were to be started on archery with these sound execution techniques at an early age it could have a greater impact. Lindsey Carmichael's successes at both the last NArchival Archery National Target Championship and the Paralympics in Athens, setting numerous national and world records, is clearly attributable to working with Don to adopt the Korean techniques that he incorporates into his curriculum. If she had had "years" instead of "months" to work with this technique I am certain she would have been even more successful and likewise had Guy and Chris started with this technique early on instead of only recently in their own careers, who knows what could have happened? By the way, did I mention Park shoots with a recurve bow? 11/1/2004: news story by Korea Times Newspaper provides a great insight. |
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| Upcoming Tournaments To Plan For The Archival Archery schedule calendar has a lot of activity in the next few months. In order of appearance, the Aggie Indoor is just a few days away - the weekend of October 29-31. As usual it has filled up more than a week ahead of shooting time.  There are a number of 4H indoor tournaments being held throughout the next few months. For locations and times, use the Archival Archery Calendar. (Hint - the cells are in green for 4H events) The first weeks in November have several outdoor events in Southern California - the South Coast Fall Classic in San Juan Capistrano and a Turkey Shoot Outdoor FITA at the archery complex in ARCO, Chula Vista. Then back to Austin, A for another classic, the Longhorn Indoor at the University of A . Registrations are already being taken for this event, the weekend of November 19-21, and space is even more limited than at A&M so do NOT delay in registering if you wish to participate. Something that you need to plan for is a great high-level tournament that is being held practically in your back yard (if you live in the DFW area or central A). The NArchival Archery is holding the trials for the World Indoor Championship on January 13-16 in Hillsboro, TX. The prize if you place high enough in these trials is a trip to Aalborg, Denmark!! And for those that don't shoot, Hillsboro has more than 200 antique stores as well as a HUGE outdoor mall complex of 85 stores that rivals anything in Southern Florida, and it hasn't been completely under water lately, either! Chamber of Commerce webpage for Hillsboro is at this link.The A State Indoor location and time will be decided based on bids submitted by the deadline of December 1, 2004. See the Archival Archery Website's "What's New" listings for the bid package information if you think you might be interested in conducting the indoor tournament in January. Sorry, limited to those in A only, though perhaps Hawai'i might be considered by the board if the weather looks realllll bad for January. Gina Carmichael has compiled a package of information based on prior years' event dollar figures, a new form describing the logistical information. And as always, wrapping up the indoor season will be the NArchival Archery National Indoors Championship held in all regions of the US in a more or less simultaneous timeframe on February 18-20 for College Station. Your location around the US may have a different time so be sure to check the new NAA(USA Archery) website's calendar. Mark your calendar and plan to take advantage of all these opportunities to shoot. A Lot! |
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| Archery Tip Of The Month by Rick Stonebraker If you are using a Cavalier Tab, it is a good idea to tighten the screws from time to time. They will come loose and they will get lost. To further ensure they don't fall out, put a small dab of Fletch-Tite on the threads before tightening.
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| Clout. Clout? Clout! Ohhhh, CLOUT! Clout: (noun) a white cloth on a stake or frame used as a target in archery, according to Webster's Dictionary. In the Oxford English Dictionary it is a piece of cloth. ![[image]](annhoytperfectform.jpg) (Ann Hoyt Exhibits Perfect Clout Archery Technique During 2002 National Clout Tournament)
CLOUT: A rarely practiced discipline, most archers take part in clout archery only for fun. Basically, it is a test of trajectory skill, the same talent used in the lighting of the flame at the 1992 Summer Olympic Opening Ceremonies. In clout archery, the target (15 meters in diameter) consists of five concentric circular scoring zones on the ground, each ring 1.5 meters from the center. The innermost circle is worth five points, and scores
In the olden days, clout was a means of shooting arrows into the air and lobbying them into a castle. Shooting at a flatter arc could send an arrow over the entire castle without doing any harm. There are two arcs possible: The faster the bow, the better the aim but if it is too flat of a trajectory, you risk skipping an arrow right out of the clout ring if the arrow hits a hard spot. Here are some links to learn more about clout archery, the History of Clout, and another overview of clout.
Addendum by Ron Carmichael: Each year at the National Archery Association's gathering for the National Target Championship, a Clout Championship is also held, usually the day before the larger event is to begin. Rick Stonebraker is an extraordinarily good clout shooter, and just as he has several times at the National event, this weekend he actually hit the clout pin with an arrow during competition. This time it cost him - the pin was a 3/4" steel rebar, and his arrow lost the battle with the pin. By the way, 165 meters is a little over 180 yards. How's that for accuracy.
Here's her writeup on the event: It was a cloudy day but with very high humidity. Little did we know it was a sign of things to come: one of the most torrential rains of this season for our area with 4 inches falling in one hour. However, the rain held off and did let us finish the tournament. As the last arrows were shot we could feel drops of rain and by the time awards came around , we were all huddled together under two tents trying to stay dry. All in all, I think everyone had a fun time! We even had a couple of shooters "castle" by hitting the target flag. Tom Barker's arrows were shot so high in the air we would all have to wait until they circled the earth to hit the target (just kidding Tom!) It looks like such a success that we have been asked to host this clout again next year; so for those of you who really want a challenge in your sport of archery; you'll have to come try clout next year ! Editor's Note: We will again post information about the event on the Archival Archery website well in advance, so make a mental note to try it when it comes around- you don't have to change your setup at all, regardless of whether you are tuned for indoor or outdoors! |
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| Bidding On Fun The Board of the Archival Archery is accepting bids for hosting of the State Indoor Tournament (with annual meeting) at this point. All bids should be submitted using the online form found on the Archival Archery website. Archival Archery secretary Gina Carmichael has put together acrobat files of the financial particulars of each tournament to use in your planning. Tom Barker,  seen here "shooting the moon" with his recurve (!!) participating in the recent clout tournament in San Antonio, penned his thoughts about two tournaments that he conducted for the Archival Archery one summer. These were two of the best events in Archival Archery history, and the watchword for Tom's efforts was "teamwork". His writeup makes for very good reading for anyone considering wearing the Tournament Director hat. All of this information can be found at the top of the Board of Directors' page at this link. A couple of more docs (marked pending) will be posted in the next day or so. All Archival Archery members are encouraged to consider going for a tourney.Also - this is a call for agenda items for the Archival Archery Annual meeting, which is held each year at the INDOOR TOURNAMENT. Please send an email to the Secretary of the AA with your requests and suggestions for items to be addressed and discussed during the upcoming tournament. The actual date and location for the Indoor in 2005 will probably be in January or February, and will be determined based on bids submitted by December 1, 2004.One final note - there have been a lot of returned newsletters due to people changing their email addresses and forgetting to let us know about the change. Please remember to email the webmaster or else re-subscribe if you do change your email address to insure you keep getting these occasional archery missives. Please pass this on to any archers you know, or at least point them to the Archival Archery website so that they can subscribe for themselves if they wish. |
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In most sports they have to use equipment to compete, and I'm not talking about baseball bats, pole vaults, or recurve bows. I'm talking about wheelchairs that are more like racing cars or battering rams, titanium legs that enable a double-amputee to run a 100 meter dash in sub 11-second times. A high jumper with one leg who clears 1.77 meters (how high can YOU jump?). A tennis player with the ability to use ONE arm and barely the hand of the other arm, controlling his power chair and hitting the tennis ball well enough to medal against opponents with full upper body control. You want to see the human spirit at its finest then the Paralympics are what you want to watch. But wait, you didn't get to see any, did you?
(US Men's Team Bronze Medal Ceremony)
Additional pictures from the paralympics ![[image]](metalcloutpin.jpg)
![[image]](sa_clout_line2004.jpg)
