For the last 4 months I have been evaluating a new chest guard, made by an old bloke in England, and I have come to a not-too-quick-conclusion.
 

By way of disclaimer, all of the chest guards I have ever seen or used in the past left me thinking that they were, well, something that had to be put up with.

Typically these chest guards did not fit well, did not adjust properly or more importantly stay adjusted, but were well, "good enough", since that was all there was. It was as if they had been cut from the same bolt of cloth until now, that is.

The old bloke at ARROWHEAD UK must have felt the same way, but he decided to do something about it. The Hybrid Chest Protector he markets is a serious improvement on the alternatives I have mentioned.

It is highly adjustable, tends to stay put, and offers an intrinsic improvement that lessens the potential that the chest protector will create drag and influence on the bowstring during the actual shot, thanks to the choice of materials. This hybrid guard is a notable improvement on an age-old design, that advances through common sense rather than space-age materials.

The hybrid protector is available for men, women, children and juniors in both right and left hand versions. To date you can have any color chestguard you want, as long as it is black.

Philosophically, as archers improve their alignment by following the US's BEST method, the contact of the bowstring with the archer's chest can possibly increase. Even if the string/chest contact does not increase, such a small thing as the variable friction of the string dragging on the guard's material while moving the arrow forward can be a bigger factor in the overall picture if the archer has used BEST to improve in other areas.

In short, I think this kind of enhancement matters. Check with your local archery shop, or if they don't carry them, try Lancaster Archery. I understand they are carrying these chest guards.

Archery in Dubai
By Rick Stonebraker
Oct 13-15, 2005

I had the privilege of teaching an archery instructors course in Dubai recently. This came about back in April when a Texan working as an oil manager in Dubai came to Houston on business. During a day off, I instructed and he earned his Level One Instructor Certification and came back the following Sunday to learn more. He was pretty excited about his new found archery experience and went back to the Dubai Archery Club expressing enthusiasm to his fellow archers. That got the ball rolling ... to read the entire fascinating story, and to see some photos typical of Rick's sojourns, use this link to the Archival Archery website, to Rick Stonebraker's pages.

Cavalier Archery and Sun Devil Archery at Arizona State University are joining forces to bring you the "Archers Personal Scorebook."

*Keep track of practice and tournament shooting"
*Track arrows"
*Document your shooting progress"

The inserts for these books are 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, so they are large enough for you to get a true visual sense of your shooting without over loading you at the field.

The book itself comes with a nifty cover and 50 pages of general practice/tournament double-sided pages (GREAT for FITA distances). The cost is $10 per book. (For pictures, go to http://www.sundevilarchery.com)

Replacement pages can be purchased in lots of 100 for an additional $10 each. We have the original general practice/tournament pages as well as 18m and 70m specific folios. Our mixed pack includes 30 pages of each for a cost of $12.

Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Cavalier, ALL proceeds from the sales of these books will go to support the Sun Devil Archery team!

To purchase a book (or 10), send an email request.

There are FIVE language versions now available at this location.

Quote from Murray: "The archer's reference is now available in Dutch along side the English, Swedish, Italian and Catalan versions, thanks to Kees Methorst for all his hard work... excellent work Kees!!!"