Thursday, August 23, 2012

Youtube Invade London

And that would be that. 6 videos over six weeks for Youtube's Invade London initiative. They had been aiming for 25 million hits and apparently achieved 40 million. I don't know realistically how successful it was, but folks saw archery videos and that was the goal for me. Thank god that's over. A video a week is harder than it sounds.

'Invade London' was a focus group initiated by youtube to show themed content over the duration of the Olympics. And my channel was chosen as archery is an Olympic sport. A number of the archers featured were at the Olympics, including the Aussie lass in the final vid and the Mexican girls in the first two vids.
My videos featured people/friends we all know from the World Cup circuit. Martin and Reo for example are huge names in target Compound. The Canadian team are big characters on the field and great archers etc I was trying to give a little feel for the people that make up our world. It's not easy to explain to people that this is our whole world, our friends and our family. The announcer on the first two vids is George Tekmichov, designer of the x10 arrow and voice of international archery...we always miss that voice when he's not there.

Fascinating stuff seeing how other creators approach youtube and their respective audiences. And what goes viral and what totally tanks. Even seeing it is sometimes still totally mystifying.Big thanks to Youtube for the project and big thanks to the folks who helped out. Martin, Sherry, Duncan and everyone who stood in front of the camera (not as easy as it looks) :)Those of us with real jobs find it very hard to train enough as is without extra projects on the side. It's been a long, sleep deprived 6 weeks and my treadmill has been much neglected as a result of too much travel and too much youtube stuff. So last night I settled in on the treadmill with Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles on the iPAD and hopefully life will be a little quieter from now on.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_c7ZGCThYs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcXYzLvOao8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm-ncrYWDsM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo9SWS8dF0w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0g9V2fdFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNOaQJgN0uE

And tonight we'll see if the draw length adjustment is a true fix or just beginners luck again :)


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The mysterious paper tear...

Now I would generally caution compounders about paper tuning. Too many archers think it will show arrow spine/rest issues, but don't realise it will also show nasty bow hand habits which can obscure results. And a bad paper tear can still come from a bow that groups. So not the be all and end all of tuning.

But in HD video we could see a really nasty arrow flight that we couldn't tune out of the bow. So took it inside and shot through paper to see what we could see.  Tuned for bullet holes... Had it down to a 2cm tear, but could see a bit of variation in nock position... ie left, right and or high with no consistency. And every few arrows a 3inch horizontal, nock right tear that neither myself or Martin could repeat on purpose even massively torquing the bow in either direction.


We filed half the cable guard out (don't do this at home folks, I am not recommending it as it is messing with factory spec and there's a high risk of breaking something or your self) and managed to improve the arrow flight and lessen the weird tear, but it was still at least 2 inches.

So we put it down to archer error and I started putting a lot of arrows through paper to see if we could tune me instead of the bow and get some consistency. 600 arrows (over a week) later and no improvement and no real idea where the shot came from. On Monday night I was feeling a little cramped in the draw and more than a little pissed off with the whole thing. So lengthened the D-loop a little in sheer desperation and low and behold...bullet holes. 36 arrows and not a single bad shot.



So lesson learned. Paper tune is not totally useless... it can show you a thing or two... and total wow I never realised just how much bad draw length can queer the shot. And I gotta start listening to myself when I'm not comfy!

So Mr Damsbo has gone home :( and now we start planning for either Berlin or the F2F... not sure which yet. But the bow is at least tuned for paper and I'm slowly getting arrow count up again. Now maybe we can start worrying about score again :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo9SWS8dF0w