Gem the Barebow Archer

27/08/2026

My club mates will be at Berkeley Castle this bank holiday Sunday and Monday doing Have a Go archery along aside the joust that is also taking place, so if anyone reading this happens to be there or even in the area, please pop along and give it a try! You’ll find them by the ornamental pond - just look out for the flag that says Tyndale Archers.

It will be £3 for 6 arrows, payable by either cash or card.

I probably should clarify at this point that I mean the Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England, not the Berkeley in California, USA…

02/08/2026

So, last weekend I was taking part in Cleve Archers WA weekend. I haven’t posted this until now because there was an issue with uploading the results on Ianseo, so I was waiting for the final results to be published, which they were yesterday.

I probably shouldn’t have done the whole two days as my shoulder is still playing up, but, in my defence I did enter this before the shoulder problems hit and archery, bizarrely, isn’t actually the cause of the problem, it’s work.

Anyway, I digress.

After having disappointing results in my previous two comps, mainly due to either my shoulder or the bl**dy weather, I figured that the archery gods owed me at least one good competition this year and they delivered on the Saturday.

I had been getting close to, or over, 500 points at the WA720 round in practice, but I had only managed to get close to it once in a comp and that was my first one of the year at Redhill Archers. I actually managed to get over the 500 mark in qualifying for the head to heads on the Saturday at Cleve. Irritatingly, I was only 4 points short of being able to claim my first Master Bowman score as well, but never mind, that will come eventually, I’m not going to chase it this year. That put me in third place in the standings, and since there were only five of us female barebow archers taking part, a bye straight into the semi finals, as the top three went straight through.

After a lot of hanging around in the afternoon before we actually got started on the head to heads, due, again to fact there were so few of us, it was time to fight it out with Sharon Pitt, who had been my target mate all morning, for a place in the final. It was a close run thing, but Sharon ran out the eventual winner, defeating me 6-4. Congratulations Sharon, if you happen to be reading this, for your overall win on the Saturday as well.

That put me into the bronze medal match, where I was up against my Gloucestershire team mate Lumi Polley. I had one very iffy end, but I managed to win 6-2.

The next day was a double WA720 round and as every archer knows, archery is a sport that likes to humble you, so after the breakthrough I had the day before, reality set in on the Sunday. I was already down 40 points by the halfway point in the morning on my score the previous day, and although I did manage to drag the score back to something semi reasonable by lunchtime it was about 70 points down. It didn’t get much better in the afternoon and I had a worse score than I managed in the morning.

Now, I could do that whole archer thing, and blame the weather, as there was a swirling breeze on the Sunday that wasn’t there on the Saturday, but it wasn’t gale force or anything and although it was a bit of an issue for some ends, it wasn’t the whole problem.

The main problem was me. I just couldn’t get going at all. For some reason I was absolutely knackered. Whether hanging around in the hot weather the day before had taken it out of me or what, I’m not sure, but for whatever reason, it just wasn’t there that day.

Somehow, I still managed to finished third overall on the Sunday, so at least I can say I was consistent results wise all weekend…

02/08/2026

It would appear that this whole dry firing of bows in theatrical productions, either on stage or on screen is catching, as this cartoon appeared in my feed a few days ago.

Apparently it was inspired by Matt Damon’s character in The Odyssey, which I am yet to see and to be honest, unlikely to do so, also repeatedly dry firing his bow on screen.

I’ll re-literate what I said in my previous long winded post about dry firing bows:

Don’t do it!

How to instantly catch every archer's attention around the world.

09/07/2026

That one rogue arrow at 50m strikes again…

02/07/2026

I feel as though I may be shouting into the void here, but nevertheless I’m going to write this anyway, even if it is lengthy.

As an archer, you get used to seeing some terrible depictions of it on stage and screen. In fact for every production that strives to get it right, there are at least twenty that don’t even bother giving a video on archery a quick glance on YouTube.

Most of these are just plain wrong - draw arm not far enough back past the face, the bow arm crumpled up, the anchor point in the wrong place, arrow being nocked on the wrong side of the bow, arrows that don’t arc, shots that are so impossible that not even Robin Hood could manage them…I could go on, but on the whole, while it may be wrong, but it’s usually not going to hurt anyone.

Then there is the plain dangerous.

I was at the theatre the other day watching a stage production of a play that will remain nameless, only to say it was written in Elizabethan times, as will the theatre and the company involved in it. In the first act there was a scene set in a forest where the cast were portraying it as a fantasy like place. Naturally, my eye was drawn to the two who were meant to be the hunter type characters, as they had bows in their hands. Most the time they weren’t doing a lot with them, they were just stage props to add to the feel and visual of it, while they were doing a song and dance routine.

That was until the end of the scene, when they then drew the bows back and loosed them. There were no arrows on the bow, for probably obvious reasons, so they were doing a thing called dry firing. At the sound of bowstrings slapping the limbs, I mumbled loudly enough for the people either side of me to hear about how you shouldn’t do that, you’ll break the bow.

Let me explain why and also why dry firing is the first thing you are taught in archery to never do.

When you nock an arrow on the bow and then draw back on the bowstring, you are creating a lot of the energy you need for that arrow to have enough power to get it to distance you need. This force goes through the arrow and propels it forward.

If you don’t have an arrow on the bowstring and you pull back on the string and let go, all that energy has to go somewhere else and that somewhere else is the bow limbs, which aren’t designed to cope with that amount of force. At best you will end up with a crack on the limbs, at worst, they will break completely with the tips flying off in one direction and the bowstring another. If there are a lot of people nearby, say on a small crowded stage, then, well, you get the idea.

So, let’s go back to our show. The actors had clearly been told to dry fire the bow by the director. When I went to see it, it had already been running for the most the week. Add in rehearsals and those bows had probably been dry fired more times than they should have been already, which if you are following this far, is never, by the way. These bows also looked like the cheap plastic things that you can get off eBay or Amazon for £20, so they probably wouldn’t have been able to cope much longer with forces like that anyway.

I did actually know someone who was in the production (I almost certainly wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Having to study four Shakespeare plays for various exams at school is enough to put anyone off Elizabethan theatre for life. Never take an English A level, kids!), but who wasn’t involved in that particular scene, so they did get a message to pass on when I got home telling not to let them do that again and why.

I just wish that directors and productions would take sometime to at least understand bow safety before they decide to let their cast, who have probably never even held one before, loose with them. Bows and arrows were the primary weapon of choice in war until the late medieval period for a reason. It’s not hard to look up, there is plenty of information out there and if they really aren’t sure, there are plenty of archery clubs around that will let you come, watch and ask questions. Just send an email to the club’s secretary to let them know that’s what you would like to do.

Us archers are a nice bunch, honestly, and are only to happy to help make sure you do it safely.

21/06/2026

I was in Northumberland for a few days away a couple of weeks ago, which reminded me of a couple of incidents that happened to my club mates and me last year at some competitions and just how two similarly named clubs can cause so much confusion, even if they are at opposite ends of the country!

I mean you can see where the problems start as one club is called Tyndale and the other Tynedale.

Let’s start with Tyndale, my club. Based in Gloucestershire, pronounced Tin-dale, no extra “e” in the middle, club colours are green and yellow and the club logo is that of a tower (a local landmark that can been seen all around the surrounding area) with a bow and arrow either side of it. I may, one day, write a post about the history behind the tower on the club logo and why practically every other thing in the Dursley area of Gloucestershire seems to be called Tyndale something, but I won’t bore you with it now.

Then we have Tynedale - based in Hexham, Northumberland. Pronounced Tyne-dale, extra “e” in the middle. Now, I do apologise to any Tynedale archer who may be reading this, as I gleamed the info from their website, so it may not be entirely accurate. Club colours green and yellow, logo of a stylised archer with the club name underneath it. Since the River Tyne runs through that area, I will assume that’s where the name comes from.

As I mentioned at the beginning there was a couple of incidents that happened last year regarding the confusion over the clubs. One was when a couple of my club mates went to a novice tournament in Bath, who seemed to be very excited to have them. Needless to say, my club mates were a little confused, but it turns out that the tournament organisers thought they ever representing Tynedale and that they had travelled all the way down the M1 to take part and not just 45 minutes along the A46.

Another happened to me when I was at a comp in Wales where I was listed as being for the right club, but had the wrong logo attached.

I have no doubt Tynedale archers are on the other end of the confusion as well and I have no doubt archers from both clubs will continue to be for sometime to come.

One of us is going to have to change our name!

02/06/2026

Since it was my weekend off I had booked myself into two archery comps, one on Saturday at Llantarnam Archers for their 50m H2H’s (A WA 720 round in the morning followed by a knockout format in the afternoon) and on Sunday to do a National round (48 arrows at 60yds, 24 arrows at 50yds) at Bowmen of Minchinhampton’s annual tournament. Practice had been going ok, so I was looking forward to trying to get some good, for me, scores on both rounds.

Well, that was the original plan.

My shoulder on my draw arm had different ideas.

About 18 months ago, I did something to it at work and occasionally it likes to let me know that the injury is still there, but usually it goes away after a few minutes. Now, it had been twinging at work the day before, but I had rested it when I had finished for the day, which seemed to ease it, so I thought it would fine for the weekend.

Halfway through my second practice round at Llantarnam it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be ok, as the pain started to return. I gritted my teeth and got through the qualifying round, helped along with some painkillers, which may explain why the second half of the 72 arrows was better than the first half - they finally kicked in!

I was tempted to skip the H2H bit in the afternoon, until I realised that I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, with an uncooperative shoulder, the bottom qualifier. This meant that I would be drawn against one of the top qualifiers, which would mean that my afternoon would be over pretty quickly, as in it would be over in nine arrows, so I decided to carry on and, indeed, I was knocked out straightaway.

When I got home, I vegged out on the sofa watching Midsomer Murders (Is there actually anyone left there to kill anymore? All the inhabitants of England’s deadliest county must either be six foot under or in jail by now…) with an ice pack on my shoulder, rested it and hoped that it would be ok for the next day.

It wasn’t. I woke up on Sunday morning with the pain still there, so I ended up making the decision to withdraw from Minchinhampton’s tournament, which is something I have never had to do before.

No matter now badly the comp is going, I generally finish it, but there was no point trying to shoot with an injured shoulder and potentially doing more damage to it, so I made the right decision.

That doesn’t mean that they didn’t see me at all though, because I still turned up to watch and support my club mates who were shooting.

Now to concentrate on getting my shoulder better before my next comp, which, thankfully for me, isn’t until July.

26/05/2026

From the shooting line - Yes! I’ve cracked the 50 metres! They’re all in the red or better!

Get to the target - What the hell is that one doing over there in the black?

There is always that one arrow in archery…

11/05/2026

I was back on County duty yesterday, shooting in the annual Gloucestershire/Worcestershire friendly in a double WA 720 round at 50m. I had one aim - score more than what I managed the year before.

Which I managed in the morning, despite the fact there was a strong wind was gusty around a lot. When the wind died down, I was actually scoring nicely and had a few ends over 40 points.

Unfortunately, in the afternoon the wind decided to pick up even more and cause havoc for everyone. The ground where we were shooting is notorious for it’s crosswind and I was one of it’s many victims. In fact, I managed to score my personal worst at the 50m in the afternoon.

The main problem is that due to a shoulder injury I had at work about 18 months ago, I had to drop down on the poundage of my bow quite a bit and I am now shooting what is classed as a low poundage bow. My bow quite simply hasn’t got the punch to it for the arrows to fight their way through strong winds that are gusting around all over the place despite the fact I was trying to aim off centre to adjust for it. I was watching a lot of my arrows being blown off course as they made their way to the target, probably made worst by the fact the wind would randomly change direction just as you loosed your arrow from the bow.

You know you’re in for a tricky afternoon when your first end scores 9 out of a maximum of 60 and you’ve watched three of your arrows miss the target completely, despite the fact you are using the same aiming point you were using half an hour prior, which was working perfectly well. And let’s be honest, you don’t go from scoring ends in the 30’s and 40’s to single figures without there being an issue somewhere and my scorecards make it plainly obvious when the weather took a turn for the worse.

Interestingly, when I shot at Redhill, the wind was also a factor in the afternoon, but there were two main differences. Firstly at Redhill, the wind would only last in short bursts, so you could wait for it to stop while on the shooting line and secondly, it was coming from the same direction each time, so it was easier to adjust your aiming point to compensate.

Yesterday was a day where any kind of consistency was impossible and where you were in the hands of the weather gods.

Frustrating - yes, although at least I could actually pinpoint the problem, so I’m not that worried about it. It was one of those things.

Congratulations to Worcestershire on their overall win, the first in five years. I suspect battle will commence again next year!

03/05/2026

I’m going to put this out there now - at times I can be a complete ditz.

This will come as no surprise to people who actually know me.

Last week I was arrow tuning as I had got myself some new arrows. I absolutely hate doing it, but it is one of those things that needs to be done if you want your to arrows to go in the vague direction you point them at. I was going to do it two weeks ago, but I had come down with a nasty cold and, to be perfectly frank, all I wanted to do was stay at home and have a Lemsip, not stand out in a cold wet field. I started it last week and managed to finally finish it this week and after lots or re-adjusting of various bits of the bow (the Allen key has got to be an archer’s best friend!), I finally had them grouping.

Cool. Just need to now fletch the rest of my arrows and go to practice today and get some shooting in. I’ll do it on Saturday.

Guess who spend the whole day doing something else yesterday?

Guess who forgot to fletch the rest of her arrows?

Guess who only realised this morning?

Guess who ended up shooting at 60yds and then 50yds with only three arrows?

Yep, idiot here.

Oh well. No prizes for guessing what I will be doing tonight!