My first year is finally over! It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. It is hard to believe it’s summer already, time has gone by so quickly and even though school was fun, there is truly no place like home. 
It is a huge honour to be nominated for Best Sports Blog of the Year for 2013 by the Canadian Blog Awards. If you enjoy my blog please visit the voting site and cast your vote for me. Also I would appreciate you telling your friends. Voting closes on February 22nd.
It is an honour to share my experiences with everyone and I hope to continue to write from many years to come to help grow archery throughout the world.
On Thursday, I competed at Ontario High School Archery Invitational Tournament, a sanctioned Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) event. To my delight over 400 provincial high-school archers participated with over 100 in the Girls Olympic division.
Although, I finished 6th this year, my excitement came from meeting some of my blog followers. I love meeting my followers and discovering that they enjoy my blog and find it useful. I want to thank those people for coming up to me and introducing themselves to me. I hope I get the pleasure to meet more of you in the future.
One of the weekend’s highlights was finding out, Canadian national and Olympic coach Joan MacDonald has read my blog. While presenting me with my 6th place award she whispered to me “good job with your blog and keep up the good work”; high praise from some with over 30 years of archery experience.
In the future, I hope to personally meet more of my followers. I would also like to thank all of my other followers who have followed my blog for the past several years.
Happy Shooting
One of the main reasons I started this blog was to help beginner archers find archery information. The biggest challenge I found starting out was getting information about various tournaments, equipment, etc…. thankfully I have an extremely helpful and knowledgeable coach who helped me find the information I wanted.
A lot of my readers are beginner archers and utilize this blog and many others to find archery information. Do you know other locations to find reliable archery information besides blogs?
Worldwide the main governing body for archery is the World Archery Federation formerly known as Fédération Internationale de Tir à l’Arc (FITA). It is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is composed of 140 national archery associations, and is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Wikipedia
For Field Archery the Worldwide governing body is the International Field Archery Association. The IFAA is an archery association that was founded 1970 when a group of field archers from the USA, Sweden, England, Scotland, Wales and Canada agreed on a set of basic rules by which Field Archery tournaments would be run. The IFAA now represents over 50 000 field archers in over 40 member countries from all continents.
Additionally, the International Bowhunting Organization (IBO) that was created in 1984 by a dedicated group of bowhunters who shared the desire to ensure that bowhunting and the ideals of wildlife conservation will survive, expand and flourish to be shared, enjoyed and passed on to future generations.
For North Americans there are a couple of major archery associations including the Archery Canada (formerly known as the Federation of Canada Archers or FCA). Archery Canada is members of both the World Archery Association and International Field Archery Association and is composed of nine provincial archery associations including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Yukon. Archers who are members of the provincial clubs are automatically members of Archery Canada and are eligible to participate in national tournaments.
In the United States, there are separate associations that are affiliated with the two major organizations. USA Archery is the member of World Archery Federation and the National Field Archery Association is the member of International Field Archery Association. Each USA association are comprised of state archery associations. Additional USA Archery has a special Junior Development Program known as JOAD. 
The Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) is a program of USA Archery that teaches archery to young people, provides great opportunities for awarding achievement, and helps archers to enjoy the sport recreationally or progress to the excitement of competition!
At the local level, most archery clubs are affiliated with an Archery association and can provide information about national membership, opportunities for development, upcoming tournaments, and provide insight and order various archery equipment. To find an archery association in your area, start with the Wikipedia national members for World Archery Federation and for local clubs in your area try searching the web.
Please continue to visit my website for all kinds of information about archery, training, tips and tricks, upcoming tournaments and all things archery and continue to ask any questions you may have.
So far in this series, we started by discussing the basic Olympic recurve bow setup. We covered what tools you require for bow tuning and to basically setup your bow. This included limb alignment, how to measure, installing the arrow rest, nocking point and setting up your basic center shot.
Now that your bow is basically setup, you have been practicing with it and have a fairly consistent arrow group it is time to do some advanced tuning of your bow. Remember that basic step-up and tuning can be done quickly to get you started however advanced tuning is a time consuming task through trial and error. Proper shooting technique is always the first thing every archer should focus on. If you are still struggling with the basics then get your bow basically setup and work on consistency. To avoid massive amounts of frustration, it is very important to focus on changing and tuning one thing at a time. Read my earlier blog about Consistency and Change.
Next we will focus on individual areas for you to tune such as nocking points, bowstring fit, centering, clearance, brace height, sight alignment, tiller, clicker and plunger adjustment. Since I already created several blogs about tuning specific components your bow, you should start by reviewing the following…
Sight : Following the arrow and adjusting your sights
Clicker : Adjusting and shooting with a Clicker.
Arrows and various tuning methods : Arrow Series – Part 8 – Fine Tuning and Numbering
Remember, bow tuning is an advanced technique and if you can I recommend you employ the knowledge and experience of a trained coach, since another pair of eyes can really help make the difference between a good tuning and perfection. In the next part of the series we will continue and take a deeper dive into the remaining areas of your bow that can be tuned.
As many of you are aware I also have a Tumblr blog, this is to help publicize my WordPress blog and help reach more beginner archers. When I asked for questions here on my WordPress blog one of my Tumblr followers, tuchesuavae, asked the following…
I was wondering, what exercises do you do? What is your regiment with band work? Weight, tension, supply details, repetition, how long do you hold, how often, etc.
I initially responded …
I have a 6 day-a-week training schedule including weight training, shooting, walking, aerobic and Pilates. My training schedule varies depending on the time of year.
Sometimes I use a rowing machine or weights however I no longer add weight. Do not want to add mass; just lean strong muscles. I use bands for warm-up EVERY time I shoot. I shoot about 150-200 arrows a day.
However I thought I would answer the question in more detail and discuss the importance of training at your level. A training plan for any athlete is developed in conjunction with the athlete, their short and long-term goals and their current physical abilities and limitations. Before developing a training plan, you need to ask yourself, “What do I want out of archery?”, since the answer will dictate how you proceed.
Personally, until 2010 I practiced with a training plan fit for an intermediate level archer. In 2010, prior to the 2011 Canada Games, I met with my coach and expressed my desire to go to the games and compete. She developed a plan that increased the number of arrows progressively, weight training without mass gain and developed a higher level of core muscles. Although at the time, it seemed like a lot, my coach explained that if that was my goal that is what it would take to get there, and she was right.
Every level of competitive sports has a new level of commitment. Sometimes you need to make sacrifices to achieve your goals. If you are planning on practicing only in classes and expecting to be a world champion, you are sorely mistaken. For two straight years, I had a limited social life outside of the sport and the friends I had there.
My basic schedule included, taking into account time for studying, tournament schedules and travel.
My six-day a week plan was tailored specifically for me and became more involved and more difficult as the shooting season progressed. It was made this way because I wanted it to be and therefore I stuck to the plan and attained my goals. Remember my plan will probably not work for you, mainly because my strengths, limitations, and goals differ.
If you are ready to take it to the next level in archery or any sport, seek out a trained and qualified coach. Work together with your coach to understand where you want to go and together develop a plan on how to get you there.
Thanks to everyone voting for me, I am a finalist for Best Sports Blog of the Year for 2012 by the Canadian Blog Awards. I finished 2nd in the first round and managed to get approximately 19% of the votes. The final round is between the top four most popular blogs. My hope is that everyone will continue to support me in the final round.
If you enjoy my blog please visit the voting site and cast your vote. Also I would appreciate you telling your friends. Polls closes on December 1st.
Recently, several of my readers posted questions about various aspects of the sport of archery. I really enjoyed answering each of these questions and I hope that if anyone has any more questions about archery, they will post them for me to answer.
Jordan Sequillion – My Quest for Archery Gold has been a great opportunity for me to share my knowledge and experiences as I grow in the sport of archery. I have discussed a lot of topics including equipment, how to’s, tips, tournaments, events, etc… however I would love to hear more from my readers.
Do you have any questions?
Are there any topics you would like me to cover?
Although, I will continue to write articles about my experiences, I want to make sure I am engaging my readers and meeting your needs as archers. Everyone has questions, I would love to hear yours and I love answering them. I also encourage you to leave comments or share additional information on any article on my site. The primary goal of this blog is to share information about archery.
It is a huge honour that I won the best new sports blog for September 2012. However, I just found out that I have also have been nominated for Best Sports Blog of the Year for 2012 by the Canadian Blog Awards.
If you enjoy my blog please visit the voting site and cast your vote for me. Also I would appreciate you telling your friends. Voting closes on November 1st.
It is an honour to share my experiences with everyone and I hope to continue to write from many years to come to help grow archery throughout the world.
I am very pleased to announce that my blog “Jordan Sequillion – My Quest for Archery Gold” has been awarded the Sports Blog Award (SBA) Best New Sports Blog for September 2012.
I know there are lots of great sport blogs and I really want to thank all the judges who reviewed the site and found it worthy of winning.
As a recurve archer, your sight is a vital piece of your equipment. Recently, I had a request to do a blog about the anatomy of a sight and how to adjust it. Although every sight is different, they all have similar components. We will use the Cartel Mighty sight in this example.
A recurve sight is typically made of four components; the riser mount with knob, horizontal extension bar, vertical sight bar, and scope. The riser mount is used to attach the sight to the riser and the knob is used to hold one end of the horizontal extension bar. The vertical sight bar is mounted to the other end of horizontal extension bar with the scope attached to it. The vertical sight bar and scope have thumb screws that are used to adjust and micro-adjust the scope in relationship to the target.
Most sights have three knobs, one to adjust the length of the horizontal extension bar, one to adjust the height of the scope and one to adjust the left/right location of scope. The latter two usually have both large and micro-adjustments available. When you are ready to start adjusting your sight, remember the simple rule, “Follow the arrow”. Check out my earlier blog called Follow the Arrow: Adjust your sights.
To adjust the length of the horizontal extension bar simply loosen the knob and extend it to the desired length and tighten the knob to secure it. The marks on the bar to help you remember the length so you can set it up again.
To make an adjustment of the vertical location of the scope, loosen the thumb screw fastener and either depress the thumb lever for a large move or turn the micro-knob for small adjustment. Once complete then tighten the thumb screw fastener to secure it.
To make a left or right adjustment of the scope, loosen the thumb screw fastener and either twist the scope in or out for a large change, or twist the tension knob for micro-adjustments and then tighten the thumb screw fastener to secure it.
Once you have adjusted your sight make sure to shoot several arrows to confirm your adjustments. Once you are satisfied with the results, record the location of the sight marks on the vertical sight bar. Remember as you grow, develop muscle and change equipment your sight marks will move. One trick is to add a thin piece of white tape over the sight marks. This allows you to adjust the markings without permanently damaging the sight itself.
Jordan Sequillion 