We held a training camp for the third time at the estate of International Judge, Douglas Goodwin in British Columbia, Canada. Just one year ago, on behalf of the Master, Kassai Lajos, I handed over the official WFEA competition track here in the Columbia Valley, on which Doug organized his 6th competition during the training camp.
I received a surprising number of letters after my report about Transylvania, and I thank you for your kind letters. Two questions/requests were formulated in these emails and please allow me to answer them here. First, where I learned to write? You see, in 1998 at the famous Mészáros Lőrinc Catholic Primary School in Cegléd, under the hands of dear Mrs. Cili, literally, but as far as I remember, I deserved it. Secondly, could these reports be shorter, so more people would read them? Apart from the fact that this could be the basis of a very exciting and positive discussion, I thank you for the advice, and I accept it with respect.
There is already a nice little collection about these trips on our website, for this chapter it is worth "doing all about Canada" so that everything is understandable (North America I.-IV.):
In the camp, we continued our training with the metronome. Yes, it is very boring when described like this, but in my opinion, the enhancement and range of these rhythmic exercises is almost inexhaustible.
Given that this was an advanced camp with 12 equestrian archers, we took this particular shooting from horseback to new level with the exception of a few archers who struggled with technical challenges.
I have also received letters describing that the professional details from these articles are missing. Well, those would look strange in this type of travelogue. Tangentially, as a hint, it is worth making detours towards them; on the other hand, to learn such things, it is proven that we need more senses than we use to read.
Let's take a detour now.
This time, let's stick to the dimensions of the competition track, which is a specific 99-meter straight gallop line. Let's examine what happens to the equestrian archer under the ideal case of a 17-19.5 second run. Let's look at just one factor:
- Horse and rider do steady, cyclical movements.
What is needed to implement this?
- Sport-specific gymnastics.
It exists? Naturally. We call it the Beginner I. exam.
The Beginner I. exam is actually a sport-specific gymnastics developed by the founder of the sport, Master Kassai Lajos. We can find everything we need in this sport related to gymnastics in this exercise.
So we are given the basis on which we can build the movement, which must be emphatically cyclical. What do we adjust the time frame to, what cycles can we talk about?
- The cycles are adjusted to the number of canter jumps and the pace of the canter.
At this point, the metronome arrives; with its help the cycles and race performance can be measured.
I would like to ask the equestrian archers, how many of them know how many canter jumps they go through the 99-meter? Because this is extremely important data not only for measuring performance, but also for setting up a progressive training plan, also during ground archery! A horse's pace and the number of gallop jumps determine the execution of archery, depending on our plan and abilities, according to a,b,c, etc. variations. So it is possible, for example, to model an entire run or a series of runs on the ground, and then realize it all on horseback.
This could be continued, the exciting things will only follow after that, above is a very small piece of the metronome technique, all in all I hope that I managed to bring its essence closer.
So this is how our camps go, we take everything to pieces, then put it back together, fix it, replace it, change it and develop it.
Thanks again to Doug, Luraina, Tanya, and Joe for getting the horses ready and for the great hospitality. Since I wanted a less sentimental writing, I won't spoil it with chiseled experience reports at the end, there will be another time for that anyway.
Konkoly Merse
Budapest, 17.10.2022
