CLUB NEWS

PPattaya Archery Club -- the first and only archery club in Pattaya

GETTING STARTED

As the club was only formed in February, 2006, most of the club members are new to the sport. After completing basic coaching, there was a natural desire by everyone to buy their own archery kit. This has been an extended process as it entails ordering the kit from Europe and waiting for it to be delivered.

Most of the members have now been able to show off their new bows.So now the club has a more professional look on the shooting line, and scores are starting to rise. Several "Personal Bests" have been recorded already.

We also encourage the social side of the club, by holding monthly parties at one of
the members' houses.

COMPETITIONS

It is too soon for most of the club members to think about entering archery competitions in other parts of Thailand, as most of us are still getting used to our new bows, etc. But now there is a general desire to commence to the next coaching stage and move away from just practicing techniques, to shoot competitively amongst ourselves.

One of the attractions of archery is that although it is a competitive sport at a more advanced level, it is also very good for personal development, as primarily you are always striving to perform better than before. Trying to improve your techniques so that Personal Bests are regularly achieved can be very satisfying.

We now shoot a basic round, as a regular fortnightly club competition. This has given the experience of target archery shooting by competition rules, something that only the coach had done before. We shoot our own PAC round - 4 dozen arrows at 20 metres; and this will be followed by the FITA 25 round - 5 dozen arrows at 25 metres. This is strictly an indoor round, but it is a good starting point for the club, and as we only shoot outdoors we can turn a blind eye to this minor discrepancy.

WE MOVE TO A BETTER ARCHERY RANGE We unfortunately had to leave the original site off Siam Country Club Road, where we had been shooting for the past two years, as it was starting to be developed. Arrows and construction workers don’t mix! We were offered the opportunity to continue archery at the Pattaya Shooting Club in Hua Yai. The facilities are excellent, including full shade from the sun, toilets, and food and drinks readily available. So we moved to the Shooting Club with no regrets. The horse in front of the targets does not mean we have taken up bowhunting, it merely escaped from its handler and wanted to eat “our” grass!			A very brave horse

Club members at our new range at Hua Yai			GROWING MEMBERSHIP After two years successful growth, the club now has 30 members. And here are just a few of them posing in front of the targets at the Pattaya Shooting Club’s archery range. Our ages range from 26 to 72, and there is a wide spread of nationalities and languages. We are linked with the Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled who have a number of excellent archers (all coached by our club). Very soon we will be setting up regular meetings and competitions with these disabled archers.

PATTAYA’S FIRST-EVER “ROBIN HOOD” Pattaya Archery Club has possibly made some “first-ever” history for Thailand, in that one of its archers, Rudolf Cigler, from Switzerland, recently shot “a Robin Hood”. This is an exceedingly difficult thing to do and is a very rare feat indeed. It would be much rarer than a hole-in-one in golf, and is similar to a bullet hitting another bullet. Archery is in its infancy in Thailand, compared to England, Europe and USA, so it is highly unlikely, given the small number of archers in Thailand, that “a Robin Hood” has ever been achieved in this country. Such a claim may possibly be challenged, of course! The archery club’s president and coach, Eric Hearn, has over 15 years experience of archery and has shot in hundreds of archery competitions, but has only ever seen “a Robin Hood” once before. The odds of shooting “a Robin Hood” must be several millions to one, maybe it would be more likely to win the first-prize in the national lottery! So what is “a Robin Hood”? This expression describes the joining-up of two arrows, where a second arrow pierces the end of a first arrow that has already been shot into the target. This collision of arrows opens up the end of the first arrow like a peeled banana. The expression “a Robin Hood” is well-accepted in archery terminology. Obviously it is possible that an arrow from another archer could stick into the end of someone else’s arrow, so Mr. Cigler’s achievement of piercing his own arrow is doubly rare. This was one of the alleged feats of the legendary Robin Hood of English folk-lore, but he, of course would have been shooting the old-fashioned English longbow. As this has no sights to aim with, such a feat would have been truly amazing. But then, of course, it is only a legend. Rudolf was shooting his modern Olympic-style recurve bow, complete with sights, but even so his “Robin Hood” was one of the rarest of feats. Because the tip of an arrow is bullet-shaped, to achieve “a Robin Hood” the second arrow has to hit the first arrow absolutely dead-centre, otherwise it would simply be deflected off.			A “Robin Hood” Rudolf and his “Robin Hood” As Rudolf’s first arrow was in the 9-ring he scored 18 for his “Robin Hood”. However, for Rudolf it is an expensive achievement, of course, as both arrows are effectively unusable after that and new replacements will have to be bought. The pair of arrows now occupy a treasured place on the wall of his house in Pattaya ─ a striking sight, a guaranteed conversation-piece and a permanent reminder of one very unusual and memorable shot.

OUR COACHING METHODS ARE A WINNER We help Pattaya’s disabled archers to triumph in Thai national games One-on-one coaching in archery techniques is very important to encourage beginners and novice archers to develop to their full potential. So the following story illustrates how successful our archery coaching methods are, and how we can enable a person with no prior archery experience to quickly learn to shoot to a good standard. In late July, 2007 the Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled, based in central Pattaya, approached Pattaya Archery Club to seek its assistance in training some disabled students in archery techniques. There was to be a large archery tournament for the disabled in southern Thailand, scheduled for late October, and the school wanted to send some teams of its students to compete in the tournament. The Redemptorist School specialises in providing vocational training for disabled people, and has a superb facility in central Pattaya that caters for their various needs. The school has been in existence for many years and has established an excellent reputation for the quality of the care and training it provides for the disabled. However, archery was a subject the school had no experience of, and so it approached our club to see if we could provide coaching for the forthcoming tournament. Naturally we were only too pleased to help the school, and so a coaching programme was quickly agreed and implemented. The Redemptorist School had no archery equipment of its own at that point, so we used our own training bows, arrows and targets to start the coaching programme off. Four archery club members ─ Britons Eric Hearn and Roger Lorton, plus Swiss-born Rudolph Cigler and a Thai lady, Kotchakorn Srithawong, acted as the coaches for the 25 disabled students that wanted to learn to shoot a bow. Initially the distance shot by the students was 10 metres, but it quickly became apparent that there were some potentially good archers in the group of students, and so the targets were moved back to 18 metres, which is one of the distances they were expected to shoot in the games in October. Later the targets were moved back to 25 metres, which is the other distance they will have to shoot in the games. There were two moments of hilarity during one archery coaching session, firstly when a stray arrow pierced a water pipe that lay across the ground. It caused quite a fountain until someone turned off the water supply. On the same evening, not to be outdone, another student pierced the same water pipe, shattering it completely. Both shots were such that if a challenge had been given for all the archers to aim for the water pipe, it is highly probable that none would have hit the one-inch pipe lying on the ground, however hard they tried. Still, good for a laugh! The National Games for the Disabled In late October 2007 the Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled sent a 12-strong team of its disabled students to the Thailand national games for the disabled, and had a triumphant first-ever archery tournament. The Redemptorist School’s archery team, representing Chonburi province, bagged a total of 11 Gold Medals, 9 Silver Medals and 2 Bronze Medals, a mixture of individual and team medals. Despite constant rain during the two days of the archery tournament; held in Nakorn Si Tammarat in southern Thailand, all of the young disabled archers excelled in their performances, and many produced Personal Bests. They overcome many obstacles apart from the appalling weather. Just to get there they endured a coach trip lasting 17 hours, in a vehicle whose air-conditioning had broken down. On arrival they were housed in a dormitory holding 40 beds, with just one toilet for all to share. These deprivations did not dampen their spirits and they just ignored the rain, even though the archery field could best be described as a quagmire. Their infectious good humour and resilience transcended the weather and the facilities, and they just got on with the job of shooting for themselves, their school and Chonburi province. New kids on the block The opposition archery teams were impressive; and most had far better and more expensive bows and arrows than the Chonburi archers. It was clear by the average ages of the other teams, and by their well-used equipment that most of them had been shooting archery for a long while. So it was going to be a very tough competition In contrast to the other teams, the Redemptorist School archery team were mainly in their early 20s and none had picked up a bow until three months prior to the games. Their archery equipment was basic training level and did not feature some of the more professional extras used by the other teams’ archers. For example, their arrows were entry-level aluminium, as compared to the more advanced all-carbon arrows used by the other teams. Certainly none of the Redemptorist School archers had ever taken part in a professionally-run archery competition before, whereas the other archery teams were clearly experienced competitive archers. The Pattaya Archery Club coaches thought that to take such a group of youngsters and turn complete beginners into competitive archers in three months was a very tall order indeed. But that is exactly what we were able to achieve, and our coaching methods were proven by the splendid results achieved by the Redemptorist School archers in appalling weather conditions. Archery coaching at the Redemptorist School started only three months previously and as the school had no archery equipment of its own at that point, the students used the few bows that we could let them borrow. So there had to be a lot of sharing of equipment which meant that most students only got to shoot a few arrows at each practice session. By the time the school had bought its own bows and arrows, there was less than one month for the team members to get used to their “own” bow, before going to the Thailand national disabled games in Nakorn Si Tammarat The Redemptorist School archers have impressed the archery coaches by their determination and commitment. They overcame many difficulties and showed great spirit and enthusiasm. Their desire to put on a good show for themselves, the Redemptorist School, and the Chonburi team was very evident. So the expression “new kids on the block” was most appropriate, and no-one expected that they would figure much in the medals table. However, they did more than just get into the medals table ─ they scooped up many of the top places. Much to the pleasure of Samrit Chapirom, their team manager, and Eric Hearn, their head coach.			Archery coaches Roger and Nice, and, right, Malai, a Redemptorist School staff member The school’s new fountain “Boonyarit” the winner of the “standing men” category and overall champion The disabled archers in competition The Redemptorist School team On the shooting day The weather in Nakorn Si Tammarat was so bad that pre-competition practice was almost impossible. The rain lasted all day, every day, preventing any familiarisation with the new grounds. So when competition day arrived the Redemptorist School archers were faced with the unfamiliar set-up and rules of a national archery competition. This alone can be quite daunting when encountered for the first time. Each archer shot 60 arrows at 60cm targets 25 metres away, followed by 60 arrows at 18 metres distance. Except the target face for the shorter distance was only 40cms in diameter. This increased the difficulty of the shorter distance. The rain never really stopped and so everyone got very wet indeed. The ground between the shooters and the targets became a muddy quagmire, and there were great puddles of water everywhere, making walking anywhere a real challenge. And of course shooting a bow in the rain with the water running down your neck and getting into your eyes, is not the most pleasant of experiences, especially if confined to sitting in a wheelchair. However, when the results were announced, the blue and yellow tracksuits of the Chonburi archers seemed to dominate the winners’ podium, and the smiles of the Redemptorist School archers when one of them was called out to be presented with a medal made all their efforts worthwhile. Everyone was delighted with their own and the team’s outstanding performance. Other Redemptorist School students competed in different sports, including swimming, basketball and fencing ─ and other medals were won in these events. So the school’s eventual return to Pattaya included a large bag of medals, that were proudly worn ─ and richly deserved. The Pattaya Archery Club coaches were also very impressed with the Redemptorist School team’s performance, and naturally were pleased that their coaching techniques had produced such splendid results in such a short time.