an answer.. not THE answer

[Deadeye Doc]

There are a number of "innovative" techniqes that briefly "burned and crashed" in other sports although there were presumably some lessons learned. I'm thinking of Grahame Obree and his "washing machine" bicycle (we don't see any washing machines in the Tour de France) and a theory proposed by Mindy Blake many years ago, based on Lee Trevino's stance. In the latter case there are still some golfers who hit the ball, predominantly with "fade", to achieve better control.
Trevino stood with an "open stance" and Mindy Blake wrote a couple of books about this. In archery the "open stance" is still being taught, although, because I am only a newcomer to archery I am less sure of my facts on this, I believe that it is going out of fashion. Aren't we returning to the Roy Matthews school of archery? Ray Axford's book on archery anatomy ought to tell us that we are really constrained by our physiques. Add bells and whistles if you like ...

Edited...
I knew there was something I had forgotten.
One great success of which some of the older members on the forum will remember was the introduction of the "Fosbury Flop" to high jumping. I remember the astonishment among the commentators on the Olympics when Dick Fosbury won Olympic Gold with his really radical new technique. Before this we had little more than the "Western Roll" to clear the bar. Something slightly less spectacular happened with Bob Beman's massive long jump which stood as a world record for years, although the hitch-kick was less of an innovation. Both these techniques were truly "paradigm shifts" in the true sense of the phrase.

[Watch_Man]

Originally Posted by clickerati

The top Korean archers don't have jobs or families. All they do is archery. It defines them. It's what they do. Park Sung Hyun said as much in the most recent Bow International.

Agreed..... neither do all of our top archers. However I would argue that irrespective of their lifestyle the way they are taught works. We only see the very top Korean archers at International competitions, not the ones that fall by the wayside who no doubt are still excellent. I appreciate the difficulties in immersing ourselves in the way they do, however the techniques used by Korean coaches can be transferred or why would GBR, India, Phillipines..... etc etc all employ top level Korean coaches?

As an example, we have a new club member, a gent recurve. He experienced archery while on holiday 6 weeks ago and really liked it (he is in his 30's BTW) so he decided to go to a private coach for a 4 week course. After the course was finished he was pointed in the direction of a shop for his kit and our club to join. He shot at our club for the first time last night and you could really tell he had taken notice of the coach. He obviously has natural talent but considering he is just 6 weeks into archery I would put him up against many of our existing members with years in the sport. I think this illustrates what I said in a previous post regarding driving lessons - get a good professional instructor and take notice of what you are taught and there is less chance of you developing bad habits.

[not dead yet]

as far as i know there is only one or two on a full time wage for shooting.

the majority of the elite are on a work supliment wage ......they work 16 hrs plus.

and clicki is correct. regarding the koreans. shoot shoot shooot

[Watch_Man]

Originally Posted by not dead yet

as far as i know there is only one or two on a full time wage for shooting.

the majority of the elite are on a work supliment wage ......they work 16 hrs plus.

and clicki is correct. regarding the koreans. shoot shoot shooot

Andrea Gales, Nichola Simpson are two that spring to mind. I appreciate its not many compared to a Country where athletes are part of the Government machine or military.

[Jerry Tee]

I started archery in 1974, nobody had heard of compound bows or Koreans, no one used buttons, there was no carbon fiber. The way I shot in those days was refered to I think as ' power shooting' most archers used a shallow hook and opened their fingers. Platform tabs and finger separaters were unheard of.If we had said then that there is only one way we would still be shooting like that. Stagnation and a lot of catching up to do when some one comes along with a better way.
The writing analogy is a bad one I prefer the spoke word. Archery is like the english, there is one basic language but a huge number of regional dialects.

[ASW1973]

there are basic principles that are true for recurve, compound, barebow and longbow as there is with different languages, not dialects. Then there are single core principles in each of these disciplines