Go team Denmark :)

So recall I said Danish team captain. This is really Danish for fetch and carry, but it comes with a uniform and responsibilities (and when I say team I mean Martin Damsbo and Louise Laursen). I attended the team captain meeting and checked the team in tray and accompanied the team to practice and competition and wrote the report after each day. And confused everyone used to seeing me in green and gold :)

And no Easter in China... only chocolate eggs we saw were the ones were brought ourselves. Miss B gave us hand painted ceramic eggs from Croatia and marzipan for the Danes and I brought Easter Bilbies (of course). There was also a Hagen Daz across the road from the hotel and a coffee establishment of some description so there were frequent coffee/ice cream dates after shooting was done. And of course the must see bargaining at Xiang Yang the underground market. However cheap you got your bargain, it was always cheaper the next store over.

First day on the field (unofficial practice) and we almost lost our recurver due to locking her room key in and missing the first bus. Good thing they have more than one bus... I locked my key in the room first day too :) And general consensus was that the Supreme Towers Hotel was much better for food, plumbing and location than the main hotel the Minya.

Ranking for my honorary team was rough all round. Martin shot a dodgy first round with a 342 and then changed stabilisers in the break for a 353 (went with a short stab for the wind) which dragged him up from 25th to 15th. Louise was perhaps tired from an already long trip away from home having shot the Coup des miss and a training camp in Korea before she arrived and her ranking round was not pretty, placing her in 81st and well below expected. Conditions were tricky for the week with the flags showing the wind in one direction and arrow flight suggesting the opposite.

Matchplay was shot in similar conditions. Louise had a rough start and rallied at the end but not enough to beat the girl from Ukraine 6-2 set points.
Martin cruised through the first 3 matches (including a bye) including a rematch against Aussie Mike Brosnan who gave him a tough match in Shanghai last year. Martin lost to Titscher in the 1/8 in a close match 146-145. And then as we say everyone was officially a tourist..so back to the training field.

In and around scheduled training times we managed some time for me to shoot. Martin brought me some new strings and cables in BCY 8190 to try and also some new wraps for my bow limbs and arrows.   I think we're trying for the ultimate in colour matching... :)

Because my bow is 60lb and I've been shooting it at 50lb, there's a 1/2 inch difference in draw (due to the limbs being wound out massively) which I had compensated for by adjusting string and cable twists as needed. So the initial set up with the new strings was out by a half inch right off the bat and took a little tweaking to get right. And then we did a re-tune with the help of Pagni's high speed camera...I need me one of those!! And got the bow shooting pretty for the remainder of the week. And put a half turn on the limbs which while being slightly heavier, improved the tune/feel immensely.

Finally home again if only for a few days and missing my 'team'. Shot 210 arrows today with a 674 for the last 72 arrows... not great unless you realise by this stage my shoulder was burning and fingers were aching. So progress in the making with my new set up all pimped in pink and my new vocab - how to say 'damn cold' in Danish :)

Danish team captain...lol

So heading to Shanghai in two weeks. Not shooting, just playing support staff to the Danish and Croatian team...and anyone else they volunteer me for :) But officially for Denmark :D Uniform and official letter of invitation all arranged. How cute! :D

Shooting is going really well. People ask a lot about accuracy (yes I can show you a target with arrows in it...not much point when it's how you shoot in competition that counts) and right now it's not where I want it, but I'm crawling back slowly. I changed the grip on the release just after Vegas and so far I think we're on a winner. Waaaaay back in the day when I was still a poor starving lab rat... I learned how to shoot my first compound with a two finger Stanislowski CNC release... yes we do mean in the days when releases had loops on them and D-loops where a new fangled fancy idea and people still thought shooting compound with a bent arm made sense.... way back in those days. But the thing about the CNC was that it was an interesting beasty. I just wasn't strong enough to shoot it off the mid section of my fingers so I gripped it much deeper in the hand. And well just never really looked back.

But changing to the triggers has been a learning curve...I had amazing beginners luck. Shot a 1400 in practice in something like a month of shooting with my first trigger (gotta hate beginners luck!).... then comes the 3 Ds (doctorate, divorce and diabetes) to majorly interrupt my line of thought and the scores have suffered greatly... and now we've come full circle and we're addressing every annoying habit I've picked up over the last couple years and fixing them one by one. And I think changing my grip on the release was a big one :) Everything just sits in a better line. And even that stupid bow shoulder is in a better position.

Archery can be like herding kittens sometimes...super entertaining, but not always getting anywhere fast :D

Vegas Baby :)

But wait...I must digress...

So post Denmark

Playing with getting better tension on the back wall....I was falling into bad habits getting super tense and applying strength without getting actual movement....like shooting a recurve and pulling for all you're worth and anyone watching the clicker can tell you the arrow didn't budge a millimetre. Apparently you get that with triggers too :D

And had decided that the GTX cams have it and worked out I can't shoot indoors and outdoors with the same bow, so had to fly interstate to use a real bow press so I could pull all 3 bows apart and re-jig them to suit my evil design.

Started with 1 Contender  and 1 Contender Elite with GTX cams and 1 Contender Elite with Spiral cams.
Put 2012 limbs and GTX cams on the spiral cam CE
The old limbs from the spiral cam CE were swapped onto the contender along with the spiral cams.
Finished with 1 Contender with spirals and 2 Contender Elites with GTX cams all with the same draw weight and timed. Please note uber impressed with myself. Not every girl can operate a bow press, let alone swap out limbs and cams :D

Then had no time to do more than a rudimentary paper tune before the Aus day shoot. Draw length wasn't right and I think I was getting contact and generally shot like a retarded toaster.

Two days later I was on a plane to Vegas to shoot some arrows, lose some cash and see my guy. Thankfully my first GTX CE was already tuned in.

The Bass Pro shop in Las Vegas was huge! Spent a few days shooting there and catching sneaky practice at the World Indoor Champs practice venue where I was just a tourist for the week since my indoor performance at nationals was just nasty :D
Las Vegas is as one would expect, loud and bright and glitzy....did the requisite shopping and checking out the strip. Wasted money on the pokie machines and got thoroughly confused about who you tip and how much... Oh and had an emergency rush to the doctor in the middle of the night with some random tummy bug and got put on pain killers and antibiotics for the rest of the trip....the drug bottles here really do look like the ones House uses on tv :D

Decided on shooting the flights instead of championship this week since the purpose of my trip wasn't so much competition as a chance to get some shooting with my fella and work on a few things...and well Vegas is something every archer should see :)

First round (285) was a considerable disappointment with 4 8s after I hadn't dropped any all week in practice.....2nd round (292) I could barely draw the bow, the cramps in my draw arm were so bad. After much experimenting and shooting, my trigger is now lighter and I'm trying out the new platinums by Doinker. The 3rd round (294) the shooting was considerably improved and only the 8 I shot on the last end made for disappointment.... but baby steps. Won $105 and got to shoot in a relaxed environment with folk shooting at a similar level and just there to have fun :)

New form, new focus and the shooting is getting more consistent... I'm overall happy with the progress. Score we can work on as I get stronger and I'm told that that is the main problem now...but next year I'll shoot in the championship round...

Watching the men shoot in Championship flights is an exercise in human study. Everyone describes it the same...you can smell the fear. Guys who haven't dropped a point all season go out with a 9 in the first round. Watching down the line you can see shoulders slumping and heads bowing. Those still in are like men awaiting the axe to fall. And anyone of them will tell you how easy it is to clean a round right up until they get to Vegas.

So thumbs up for the biggest shoot in the world. I think we'll all be back next year. Apparently everyone thinks Australian accents are cute except Australians :D

Glædelig jul og et Godt Nytår

Sooo...Christmas in Denmark.

After 3 fairly traditional christmas meals (modern and old fashioned) I don't think I ever need to eat again....Meat, potato, rugbrød, risalamande....and loooots of marzipan.... ooh yeah and schnapps....still haven't seen a vegetable :D It's like Ireland with a pub on every corner...just it's a bakery on every street. 


Erika and cold....we were sitting in the lounge after xmas dinner and it's was apparently 26C in the room...I had a blanket over my knees and my coat still on...everyone else was sweating :D


New years eve with my favourite people... and a cancelled flight so I got an extra day my fav person :)


Shooting was worth it. Denmark knows how to set up an indoor range :)
Just playing with a few things and getting my new Contender Elite with GTX cams set up. Love the bow so far :) I'm still bow tuning retarded. But having two of the top compounders in the world to scratch their brains and offer their thoughts was gold. Learnt a little more about bow set up and shot set up...and philosophy on bow tuning...made Danish tv :D, heard Danish in a cornish accent... learned a little Danish, saw the little mermaid... got Hans Christian Anderson's stories in Danish (my new reading project...a bigger challenge than Harry Potter in Spanish)... watched candy being made in the Søemod Bolcher.... 42kg of sugar a batch...kind of funny for a diabetic, but they make great sugar free ones too :)


So now kicking back in København Airport waiting to fly the too many miles home and start planning for Vegas...and seriously need to qualify for something...so hoping I've got the help I needed to make it all come together again. We'll beat that pancreas yet.

Erika Queen of bow press :D

So it may surprise you to know that what makes my world complete (certain hottie and my kittens aside), is a bow press. OMG words cannot describe how bad my withdrawal symptoms were getting... They were talking about naming the DVA sur loc press after me since I spent more time using it than anyone else. A year without one readily on hand has me practically gnawing on the furniture crazy by the time i get to use one again. Life is so much easier when you're setting up a bow if you have a bow press there to use as you need.

So a few peeps noticed that the bow in the current vid is a Contender and not a Contender Elite. This is not my new bow, it's just to tide me over and work out which cam i like. So far I'm not sure about the GTX...as it's a softer cam I thought I might prefer if to be a slightly shorter draw length to account for how hard i pull on the back wall... but thinking it might be okay to run them the same now i've shot it. Now queen of the Bow Master.... great temporary fix for those without a real press...but a little scary to operate...spend a lot of time going 'please don't blow up, please don't blow up'
And I'm thinking I need to get back up to 60lb ASAP....the difference between 18m and 50m @50lb appears to require a difference in draw length...just adjusting the peep isn't enough...it's driving me crazy...so another reason to run two or three bows again.

George the dinky pancreas is doing well although hiding from my endocrinologist after the last 2 months of evil George.... I've heard rumours that there's an insulin patch in phase 2 trials...then I'll just look like a smoker desperately trying to quit instead of an accident prone, human pin cushion :) can't wait! :)

24 days and counting... hope your xmas plans are as cool as mine xx

running a little early but i'm trying to get some recurve posted... it's been a while and i really want to start getting my recurve up to speed. latest vid you can see it's a little rough, i haven't decided if i want a front or side anchor... side is more natural for me, but there's a suggestion front has better clearance.
gotta knock up a new chest guard with plastic on it...my old one is seriously antique and my mum's doesn't fit me right :D and it's eating the string...so no chest guard until i get one as good as my trusty and dying one... shot the Aussie Open with both compound and recurve. I'd forgotten how hard it is to do that. But I think it will be worth it in terms of strength in the long run... and we won silver in the teams event for compound.. so not a disaster.

i've got a Contender with GTX cams coming to play with and a new Contender Elite GTX on it's way...i think i prefer the spirals...but i need to check and see again. and i really want an indoor bow. it's driving me a little nutty having the same set up for indoor and out.

getting back into the swing of things. 100-200 arrows a day and an hour of cardio. the warmer weather will make life easier.... lol and planning to drop a few kg so i can do some more anatomical vids. my back musculature is looking pretty good these days, but it's easier to show the bone, muscle and tendons etc when you're a skinny bint.....so diet :(

the ups and downs of a failing pancreas...the last month has been nightmarish. sky high on two slices of toast one day and hypo the next.... i'm thinking it needs a name... so i will love him and hug him and call him George (i love that cartoon :D). It's been the name of many a dead plant... a dying pancreas is kind of similar...so George is giving me a lot of grief lately. I'm thinking of having him put down. Or maybe we just need to have me put down... at least that's what my boyfriend tells me 'if you were a dog we would have put you down already'...thanks honey :) xx

There's 5 pancreases in my household...and the only working ones belong to my kittens...I'm sure there's something in that...

So maybe wondering why so many vids close together.... I'm working on my bow arm/shoulder position... may remember I've had a fair bit of advice about this lately. But what has escaped me has been 'how' to make it steady. So the last few days have been spent at close range getting a real feel for that shoulder position. It's not something someone can tell you how to feel. You really need to find it for yourself. Also upping the arrow count gradually again.
Really loving getting some of that steadiness back.... the main thing is when you get it right that bow shoulder should be strong without constantly fighting it. So the points I've been using to judge are the stability of the bow shoulder after i've settled, the strength of the shot pre, during and post release...whether there is bow arm contact... when I get it right I don't need the arm guard... and if i collapse there is a low left shot that gives it away even if i don't hit my arm. Yesterday was 110 shots with a strong shoulder, but only into blank bale. So hopefully it will translate onto target this week.
Loving having 24hr indoor range again.... plug in some tunes, block out the world. Just me and the bow and that perfect head space.