Yesterday I went to the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire. It was the first time I'd ever been to a RenFaire and I was pretty fascinated to see all the people, costumes, and exhibits there.

For the very first time in my life I tried archery. I paid 9 dollars for 21 arrows, got a minute or two of instruction, and tried it out.

It was a lot easier than I thought it'd be to get the arrow the leave the bow and fly forwards in a dangerous manner. I thought that would be difficult but it was actually really easy. My aim remained atrocious, though, the whole time. I tried closing one eye and then the other but I just couldn't hit the target with any regularity. I'm cross eye dominant so if I leave both eyes open my left eye takes over while I'm right handed. When I fire rifles I always close my left eye.

But, wow, much easier than I imagined. I imagined that you probably needed to train for like a year to just get the arrow to go.

If I were a D&D character who used a bow and arrow I'd carry 100 arrows on the grounds that is the most I feel I could carry along with other gear before they'd start to really get in the way.

Apparently dry-firing a bow is a big no-no. It can cause the bow to destruct.

Yes, please don't dry fire the bow, it makes archers cry, lots. If you really do want to get into archery, always shoot with the dominant eye, even if its the wrong hand. I'm right handed but left eye dominant, I shoot with the left hand, improves your aim so much. Most of archery is tiny little things to adjust just bow tilt, not 'plucking', draw point, shaft weight, types of nock....getting the arrow out somewhere in front of you is the easy bit ;7

Yeah, no dry firing. It's kind of a physics thing (drawing it builds up energy, and if you let go without an arrow for that energy to transfer to, the energy just snaps back into the bow, which is bad for it).

I taught archery for several years at a Scout Camp, but I haven't touched a bow in about five years now (since I got into shooting guns more seriously, it's eaten up all my range time/money). I miss it terribly sometimes. For years, I could reliably hit the bottom of a 20 oz. soda bottle at fifty yards, with this beat up old Bear-brand compound, 35#, and the scuffed up arrows from the camp range. It was a great little "noisemaker" so the kids could hear that I'd hit the target, when I was showing them the basics of stance, draw, aim, etc.

The biggest thing to remember is that, much like with a rifle, you do your aiming with your off-hand. Just like you keep the stock tight to your shoulder when shooting, you keep your right hand (and the string, arrow, etc) in the same spot when you draw back a bowstring. Adjust your other hand to aim, but keep consistent with that rear one. And follow through is crazy important with archery, even moreso than firearm shooting -- because the arrow leaves so much slower than a bullet, holding still when you release is that much more important.

Ah, good times. Dammit, this makes me wanna grab my bow again. Or, even more, go run a range again.

Any idea what kind of draw weight they had you using? I'm sure it wasn't a Welsh longbow, at any rate, but it's nice of them to give Wales a little credit for something. My blood doesn't get much love the way the Scots and Irish do.

Hmm, follow through. That makes sense and I probably had none seeing as I was focusing all my attention on getting the bow to just fling arrows.

Actually, I could play around a bit with archery if I wanted to here in Las Vegas. There are stores that sell bows, and a gun range where I've got a membership has got one archery stall. I'll have to think about it.

Most ren fair bows would probably have a 25-30 pound draw.

Anything more and you can kill someone with it, instead of just wounding. I used to fire a 70 pound. You slowly work your way up, once you get comfortable, you get a high pull bow.

The welsh longbow had a pull between 100-150 pounds and you need someone with serious upper body strength for that.

Oh, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't all "hahah, you suck at archery, you should have been doing this!" Just giving what few pointers are possible over the interwebs, is all. When you're releasing the bowstring, ALL you should be doing in that moment is exactly that...releasing the bowstring.

Just relax the fingers that are holding it, and let it go. Don't jerk your hand away (like they always do in movies, to look realistic). Don't shrug as you do so (ditto), don't drop your front arm to try and take a look (huuuuuuge thing I ran into all the time)...just relax, let the string pull away, and don't move until you hear it thwack into whatever you were shooting at (or the guy behind him, or swoosh through the grass, or whatever).

Oh, you can kill someone with a cheapie fiberglass 25 pounder just fine. The tough part is just to get 'em to stop screaming and running around and bleeding all over the basemen--errr, nothing.

Yeah, D&D is wrong on a major point: real warbows totally use strength and not dexterity... I used to own a longbow with a 90 lb. pull. WOW, now I know why archer's backs were deformed and they were apparently really buff.

Ronin, if you want to do more archery and enjoy the medieval type thing there is probably a branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism near where you are. You can show up to practices for free and learn how to shoot. They will probably have loaner gear for you to use until you can get your own. And unlike SCA fighting you can show up to any event and shoot without having to be authorized. Which makes it a nice easy activity for people to get into.

Being near Vegas puts you in the West Kingdom.

Aye, you got us Scots to thank for Golf. Because who else besides a drunken Scotsman would think, "Hey, I'm gonna go dig a hole over there, then I'm going to come back over here with a stick and a ball and try to hit the ball in the hole, while it's raining heavy and I consume a jug of my best spirits!" And kilts, you know you love our kilts.

I had an archery unit in high school. I rather enjoyed it. I was gone the first day so I missed the "how-to" parts, I got to work it out for myself. Only my first two shots missed, after that I always hit the target (often nowhere near the center). I found that I preferred the Apache horse-archery style. I really sucked at the English perfectly vertical bow deal. I held the bow alot closer the parallel to the ground. It allowed me to stabilize the shot much better. I went from really sucking to only moderate sucking because of that. The instructor wasn't happy with my form but he didn't argue with results. I miss archery. One of these days I'm gonna hafta get a bow and start practicing.

One of my long-term goals for the last two years has been to make more friends. I have been making various efforts to this effect and getting into various hobbies. It had occurred to me that if I fell in with one of the groups represented at the Renfaire I would likely be able to make many friends.

I'm putting this into my mental rolodex for the next time.