What would be a meltdown? I would expect that an asteroid hitting the earth is the most likely cause for my concept of immortal data to be wrong, followed by a large enough exchange of nuclear devices to trigger a worldwide blanketing of EMP sufficient to terminate all electronic interchange and put us back into the bronze age overnight. We'd be far too busy rubbing two sticks together during the nuclear winter to worry about our inability to continue surfing. An even more distant third possible reason is the unleashing of a tailored bacteria that digests the stuff that makes up transistors or CPUs. Since the asteroid event is fairly small odds, making the other two possibilities even less possible, I'm back to the reason for this article: I wish to put name to archer for as many photographs on the USA Archery Records website photo albums as possible. Once named, the photo page will be searchable by all the main internet search engines for essentially all times. If you know of yourself appearing in a photo on the most recent Target Championships for example, please send me an brief email note with your name AND the URL (address) for that page. I will in turn search that page out in my development copy and update it on the web to properly reflect your name "fer all time".

It will help if you describe which person in a photo you are when there is more than one archer (and if you know the other guy/girl help me out with their name as well!). I am also willing to go to any other photo on either the USA Archery Records website or even (egad) the 13,000+ photos on the A State Archery Photo department and likewise update them. So if you have a favorite photo of yourself, let me know and I'll put name to face. Thanks.

Gary Holstein and I took many thousands of photographs of the archers, the judges, and even the pets in attendance. All the "good" photos have been published to the USA Archery Records Website and the rest consigned to the bit bucket. In fact, the photos were published in most cases on the very same day that they were taken during the tournament, which put a severe load on the hotel's internet connection. I'm sure that the rest of the hotel's guests were forced to put up with slowwwww surfing while I clogged the bandwidth with the pixels of all 2700+ photos. Well, actually, there were three times that many uploaded: the original HIGH resolution image, the easy-to-view in your browser downsized version, and the tiny thumbnail size that gets displayed in the thumbnail page.

So all of the photos are displayed for your viewing pleasure, and you will find that you can actually download a picture suitable for printing an 8 x 10 glossy of you or your best friend! To get access to that photo just look for the very small download icon (a downward arrow pointing to a tiny picture of a square that emulates your computer: ). It is just below the bottom right corner of the photo, to the right of the file name on every photo page.
There have been 174 record claims from the event as of this writing - 84 were "National" records (those which can only be set at a National Championship) and 90 National Star FITA records which are set during any event recognized by FITA as a Star event (which our National Target Championship always is).

Incidentally, a score shot by an American during the course of an event in another country can be claimed as an American National Star FITA record provided it is equal to (a tie record) or higher than the existing US Star FITA record and the proper claim form process is followed.

Our National Target Championship is always registered with FITA as a Star event so that any score can be considered for world record status as well as US national Star FITA record status. I risk over-explaining things because I have had a lot of archers contact me, confused about their claim for either a National or a (national) Star FITA record.

One last note: while it is true that you can shoot a STAR FITA record at the National Target event, you can NEVER shoot a National (Target) record at any tournament except the National Target event held by the USA Archery once each year, usually at the end of the summer season. The National Target Championship allows for the setting of both Star FITA and National records, and it is possible (and it often so happens) that a National Record is broken but not the
corresponding national Star FITA record. This makes sense, because there are many more opportunities each outdoor season to shoot a Star FITA record score. There is only once chance/tournament per year where you get a shot (pardon the pun!) at a National (target) record. Make sense? Good. Also, the number of "x"s scored are not counted except when a perfect numerical score has been reached - for example, a 36 arrow round has a perfect score of 360. Once that becomes the record then the only way to differentiate, to recognize a new level of excellence, is by the number of Xs shot. Frankly, no one has explained to me what to do when someone shoots 360 with 36 Xs, but we'll figure out something when that happens I am sure. As always, I'll just ask Jane Johnson what to do - she has helped me constantly with setting up the website properly.

And now, here is the listing of the 90 Star FITA records set anew this year during the 123rd National Target Championships:

	Division	Bow	Gender	Archer	Distance	RoundType	Score	Xs
Star FITA	AR Open	Compound	Men	Eric C. Bennett	90 meters	Double	635
					90 meters	Single	323
					FITA	Single	1339
				Joseph A. Bailey	30 meters	Double	706
					50 meters	Double	669
					FITA	Double	2658
					FITA	Single	1332
	AR1	Compound	Men	Jeff Fabry	30 meters	Double	713
					30 meters	Single	359
					50 meters	Double	678
					50 meters	Single	340
					60 meters	Double	674
					60 meters	Single	338
					70 meters	Double	665
					70 meters	Single	335
					FITA	Double	2730
	AR2	Recurve	Men	Kevin Stone	30 meters	Single	340
					90 meters	Single	276
				Russell Wolfe	50 meters	Double	601
					50 meters	Single	307
	AR3	Recurve	Men	Steve Bosson	30 meters	Double	642
					30 meters	Single	326
					50 meters	Double	557
					50 meters	Single	279
					70 meters	Double	515
					90 meters	Double	432
					90 meters	Single	255
					FITA	Double	2146
					FITA	Single	1117
	Bowman	Compound	Men	Aaron DeJong	20 meters	Double	707
					20 meters	Single	355
					25 meters(80cm)	Double	694
					25 meters(80cm)	Single	344
					25meters(122cm)	Double	710
					25meters(122cm)	Single	356
					30 meters	Double	702
					30 meters	Single	351
					FITA	Double	2813
					FITA	Single	1407
	Cadet	Compound	Women	Paige Pearce	50 meters	Double	696
					50 meters	Single	350
					60 meters	Double	682
					60 meters	Single	346
					FITA	Double	2768
					FITA	Single	1391
	Cub	Compound	Men	Alexander Sahi	20 meters	Single	360	17
					20 meters	Single	360	17
					30 meters	Single	349
					30 meters	Single	354
					40 meters	Single	354
			Women	Hunter Jackson	20 meters	Double	719
					20 meters	Single	360	28
					30 meters	Double	696
					30 meters	Single	355
					40 meters	Double	704
					40 meters	Single	354
					50 meters	Double	692
					50 meters	Single	349
					FITA	Double	2811
					FITA	Single	1408
	Master 50+	Barebow	Men	Mike Frizzell	30 meters	Single	315
					50 meters	Single	268
					70 meters	Single	261
					90 meters	Single	200

					FITA	Double	2030
					FITA	Single	1018
	Master 60+	Compound	Women	Sandra Horton	30 meters	Double	636
					30 meters	Single	324
					40 meters	Double	613
					40 meters	Single	307
					50 meters	Double	607
					50 meters	Single	304
					60 meters	Double	589
					60 meters	Single	316
					FITA	Double	2445
					FITA	Single	1237
	Senior	Barebow	Women	Rebecca Nelson-Harris	30 meters	Double	645
					30 meters	Single	323
					50 meters	Double	553
					50 meters	Single	279
					60 meters	Single	279
					70 meters	Double	483
					70 meters	Single	269
					FITA	Double	2225
					FITA	Single	1144
		Compound	Women	Erika Anschutz	60 meters	Double	704
				Jamie Van Natta	70 meters	Single	351
		Recurve	Men	Brady Ellison	50 meters	Double	683
					FITA	Double	2700
					FITA	Single	1357

In 2003, what seems to be light years ago, as Lindsey and I were being taught the virtues of a higher grip by Don Rabska, he took out a tube of plumbers epoxy putty and built up her wood Loesch grip to help her acquire the proper grip and hand position. He explained a lot of things about it, some points very clearly obvious and others much more subtle. A summary of how to customize your grip with this material is located on the Archival Archery website's documents page, at this link.
This was the first time I had seen anything besides bondo to alter a bowgrip's elevation with short of a whittle knife) and it was super!

Since then with every new riser she used I have insured that we got a grip that duplicated what Don fashioned for her. I would carefully wrap her "Don Grip" in bubble wrap and ship it to the woodworker and spend literally weeks going back and forth in an attempt to get the grips to conform to the proper height, bevels, and angles. The putty-ied up grips are functionally effective but look nowhere near as elegant and esthetically pleasing as do the laminated bowgrips that James Loesch and others are so well known for producing. They are also similar to the ORTHO grips that Hoyt now markets as an option for the Helix riser.

Over the last 4 years or so I have also attended numerous coaching training camps at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista and COS and had the profoundly moving experience of learning from Kisik Lee as well as numerous training sessions where Don taught Lindsey and generously allowed me to learn from him as he taught her. Not a single time when I review the videos I made with Don during those sessions do I not learn yet something else, some subtle nuance that I missed previously. Thanks, Don!

Where was I going with this? Oh yes, the higher bow grip. The BEST grip. It turns out that the grip Don fashioned for Lindsey is indeed very, very close to the grip Coach Lee prefers - in fact when I first showed Don's grip to him, Kisik wanted to know how it had been made, and that allowed me to explain the material, how to mix it (that's the pharmacist in me) and how it worked and could be controlled. Coach Lee reacted with a great smile upon learning of this material and I could see his anticipation build instantly.

Coach Lee then took this tool and applied his insight and knowledge and wisdom to create exactly what he wanted in the grip for his RAs, and did not make the same grip for each archer. Instead he customized each for what he perceived the archer to be able to handle at his or her skill level, and to gradually increase the angle over time. What is important in this article is that he showed me was how to adopt an incremental approach in altering the grip for the archer. During one training session he demonstrated for all of us how to take OFF the old buildup of hardened putty (with a hammer, which caused the archer who owned the bow no little distress as he WACKED briskly on the grip, popping the putty off). He then explained that it was important to make the next higher grip a little higher, but not to make it too high all at once.

He told us that if it was raised too much too fast, the archer would actually experience instability that could impair the archer's progress in acquiring BEST skills. So I remain convinced that the "little-bit-at-a-time" plumber putty approach is critical for evolving an archer who has a history of shooting with a low grip. Elevating the angle in small increments for an experienced archer is smart. Doing it all in one fell swoop injects RISK. I have seen firsthand the results of making a change that causes instability, which causes insecurity, which causes emotional distress, which impairs physical performance, which leads to an archer NOT shooting well....you get the idea.

It is possible that the archer will simply make the adaptation with no faltering, no sweat, and fly with the eagles. Perhaps especially for the newbie that has little muscle memory to be adversely affected by a radical change in the way the bow behaves.

When I got back home, Rick Walker, Shooting Stars over A JOAD club coordinator, and Chuck worked to bring me to Tyler for a BEST seminar. On September 14^th and 15^th we made it happen. Rick had been to the BEST training clinic that was held in College Station last year, but was eager to hear more for clarification. Like most of us that have been exposed to the BEST method, we get something more out of every iterative training session.

We started on Friday evening with a two hour discussion of the basics of the BEST method. We used the Easton Sports Development DVD hosted by Don Rabska with some commentary on my part and demonstrations for understanding. There were about 15 coaches, parents and youth archers from the Shooting Stars archery club in attendance and they asked very good questions to learn as much as they could.

The club members then signed up for one of three two hour slots for Saturday to apply the principles of what they heard the previous evening. We started out with some warm up exercises and stretching. We then quickly moved to some stretch band work to apply the BEST method. We focused on getting the set up correct and reinforced the feel of the right muscles being employed to draw the bow. The small group size facilitated the quick correction of errors and made sure the new approach was understood. After a while with the stretch bands, the archers were allowed to use their bows with more hands on training to try the BEST principles.

After the three two hour sessions we all got back together to review some of the common issues and to let them ask me questions for clarification. The customers seemed to be very pleased with what they learned and were eager to continue applying the concepts to their shooting. They asked for a follow up seminar in a couple of months for reinforcement.

While this was by no means a complete immersion in the BEST method, the Tyler Shooting Stars over A JOAD club now knows the terminology and has been exposed to the basic principles of the BEST shooting technique. (Tom Barker at a foreign tournament)

It is also important to align the edge of the wrap with the axis of the shaft - a crooked wrap means all three vanes will be on crooked as well. Once applied, you may find as I have that they last all season long! It is a simple matter to fix a broken vane while on the field, especially if you are also using my favorite method of holding the spinwing (the Beiter spinwing holder). You can keep a pre-taped vane loaded in the BSH and just, well, whip it out of your quiver and fix an arrow in seconds.