Archery - shoot to win

You are sure to have watched and enjoyed the adventures of Robin Hood on television. His amazing skills with the bow and arrow would have thrilled and fascinated you all. I'm sure you still remember the episode where Robin, taking part in the Silver Arrow contest, shot his arrow which split Nazier's arrow in two.

It is quite astonishing how such a feat was possible with a simple bow like the long bow, isn't it?

Even though it was something that you only saw on TV, such things were definitely within the capability of early master archers; we should never forget that our own ancestors, the Veddah or Adi Vasi people, too were really good archers.

As time passed and the world evolved, archery turned out to be a popular sport throughout the world, and it has become a rapidly growing sport in Sri Lanka too. Therefore, we will enlighten you on this interesting sport in today's edition.

How, when and where it all began

If we seek the origins of archery, we can go back in history as far as five thousand years. Pretty amazing, isn't it? This was an innovation which helped our ancestors succeed in their day-to-day lives as it helped them hunt animals and attack predators.

Those days, the bow was made of a simple, quite flexible stick and the arrow was merely a straight stick with a pointed stone at one end as the arrowhead. Later, after the discovery of iron and other metals, better arrows were made and were used in warfare. Civilizations such as Persian, Macedonian, Nubian, Greek, Indian, Chinese and Korean had large numbers of archers in their armies.

But as archery evolved in the European region, during the Middle Ages (5th to 16th centuries), it wasn't as dominant as in the previous civilizations. Did you know that archers were the lowest paid in the armies of this time? This was due to the low quality of the bows and arrows of that era.

Special training spanning many years and expensive bows were required to become a professional archer those days, which resulted in very few good archers.Archery was highly developed in Asia and in Islamic civilizations.

However, the invention of firearms made bows obsolete (going out of use) in warfare. Armies equipped with guns could provide superior firepower, and highly-trained archers became obsolete.

Competitive archery

As archery evolved as a favourite pastime after it became obsolete as a combat skill, it became more

organised and has been developed in many avenues over the years. As a result, various types of archery have come into the scene, which test a variety of skills of competitive archers. Let's have a look at some of these types:

Flight archery

This involves long distance shooting. The skill tested here is the ability to shoot the longest distance. Due to arrows flying in a longer range, this sport is carried out in a

 protected area, since otherwise, there is a high possibility of someone getting injured.

The arrow is projected at a certain angle to achieve the maximum distance.

Ski archery

As the name implies, the archer moves on skis on a cross-country track, and shoots at targets either kneeling or standing. The archer is not allowed to remove his or her skis during the competition and the shooting distance is generally 18 metres.

Target archery

This primarily tests the archer's ability to hit a target. Target archery competitions may be held indoors or outdoors where indoor distances are 18m and 25m and outdoor distances range from 30m to 90m.

Targets are marked with 10 evenly spaced concentric (having the same centre) rings, which have score

values from 1 through 10 assigned to them. The archer who obtains the highest total at the end goes away with the prize.

Modern competitive target archery is governed by the International Archery Federation (Federation Internationale de Tir a l'Arc-FITA); Olympic rules are derived from FITA rules. Target archery is becoming quite popular in Sri Lanka now.

Field archery

This type gives a bit of a rough time to the competitor since it involves shooting at targets of varying (changing) distances and often on rough terrain. One goal of this sport is providing a more realistic setting quite similar to bowhunting without too much fatigue and guessing.

3D archery

This can be considered as a subset of field archery. The significance of this type is that life-sized models are used to provide a realistic hunting environment. This is done basically as hunting practice.

Aravinda Dassanayake