The Ancient Art of Archery 3D: A Modern Sporting Tradition

For how many millennia has man used a bow and arrow to hunt? In the sporting field the direct consequence of this long “tradition” is the Archery 3D, a specialty in which the targets are three-dimensional silhouettes of animals made of plastic material and immersed in the most varied natural contexts. A competition resembles a hunting trip, in short, which obviously does not kill any prey; also for this reason the international federation has decided to make 3D official, to discourage bow hunting and bring it back into an exclusively recreational and sporting territory. The specialty has been practiced for several decades and in the early 2000s it saw the first competitions organized by World Archery. The first World “experimental” was held in 2003 in France, while the first official world championship event was held in 2005 in Comago, in the province of Genoa. On that occasion, Italy won the medal table and since then has always occupied one of the top three places in the national rankings at both the European Championships and the World Cup, also thanks to the many podiums won by the Turin and Piedmontese archers called to wear the blue jersey. Since 2008, at a national level, 3D has been regulated by the FITARCO.

There are four divisions – the types of bow – admitted: compound, bare bow, instinctive and longbow. The silhouettes depict a large number of domestic and wild animals: bears, chamois, deer, rabbits, roosters and turkeys, turtles and alligators, birds of prey, wild boars and even insects. The objective is to shoot the arrow near the “vital zone” of the animal; the perfect center is therefore worth 11 points, while the outermost concentric circles (or concentric irregular shapes) are worth 10 and 8 respectively. All the other parts of the shape are worth 5 points, while missing it is equivalent to a zero, indicated with M (missed , i.e. “missed”). There are various similarities between 3D shooting and campagna, first of all the holding of competitions on meadows and in the woods, between ditches and rocks, almost always in the midst of vegetation. The targets are placed higher or lower than the shooting stand, in the shade or illuminated by the sun; archers are often forced to shoot in precarious conditions of balance or against the light. Difficulties that are part of the game and make this specialty extremely varied and fun.

Another important unknown is the distance of the silhouettes, just like in the campaign, with the difference that in 3D this is unknown for all targets. It is therefore important to know how to determine it with good approximation, to adjust the bow accordingly before shooting the arrow. The first help is given by the templates themselves, because these are divided into four groups based on their size; the smallest belong to the first group, the largest to the fourth, and for each group there is an interval of distances within which the target is placed. Furthermore, according to the regulation, the shooting distances must be in proportion to the size of the animal (in other words a snail cannot be placed further away than an ox).

After this preliminary consideration, to improve the approximation it is important to be able to precisely establish a length of 5 meters and then easily move on to 10 and 15, “drawing” an imaginary grid on the ground until you see in which area of ​​this grid the silhouette falls. Obstacles and depressions between the shooting area and the target can complicate this operation, which is why training and experience are crucial. Even more important, however, is the shooting technique, the real starting point for any archery competition, be it on traditional targets or with animals scattered in a forest.

Luca Bianco

The photo above is by Alessandro Riva

2019-05-01 07:00:00
#Archery #fascinating #imaginary #hunt