2026 - What I did today.

Dashed out between the rain and pruned the roses.

Well I'll be dammed! After six weeks of shooting a right handed bow badly, I have just found out I am more suited to a left hand bow! 

I am going tomorrow to an archery shop where I intend buying a longbow and arrows. Luckily, a longbow can be used either left or right handed. If I stick to being a 'lefty' I am going to have to beef my muscles up on my left arm to match my right arm, as I am right handed!

Looking forward to my my distant visit tomorrow and hopefully I will come away with a bow and arrows that suit me?

^^^ Maybe you could do lefty arm pressups for a month?

How did you find out you're a lefty in archery, trial and error?

You say lefty , I say normal

How did you find out you're a lefty in archery, trial and error?

It's to do with my eyesiight? I am left eye dominant (which I new) but can only close one eye when sighting which is my right eye! This means that when shooting right handed with the bow in my left hand I had problems hitting the target, unless I aimed at another point away from the bullseye?

If I shoot left handed with bow in right hand (which goes against the grain!) I can close my right eye and get a 'truer' shot on target. As I am right handed my right arm is stronger so I need to beef up my left arm to hopefully draw a 40lb longbow more accurately for 100 shots, than if I was using my dominant arm to draw string!

I apologise as this is probably as clear as mud.

My instructor after watching my failing efforts rigged up a lefty recurve bow for me to try and reckons after roughly 24 shots I should stick with the lefty stance when I get my longbow.

^^^ Maybe you could do lefty  arm pressups for a month?

I am still doing press ups each day (only 20 or 30) which is probably why I am able to utilise my left arm for drawing the 40lb bow? When weight training I use a 20kg kettlebell on my right arm and only a 16kg on my left arm. I am going to have to try and get my left arm up to the same strength as my right arm in the future, which will be a big ask? 

You say lefty , I say normal

First outing in the garden for 2 weeks. Yesterday planted out a conference pear bought from a supermarket. We had one before but it grew too big for where it was. This time it has plenty of room to grow as big as it wants to. Today sowed some seeds, harvested a bit and weeded some autumn planted onions. We have both had the dreaded lurgy and it can't have been man flu as Chris went down with it before me and is still not recovered yet. So at a guess - flu or covid though I don't think there is much difference.

Travelled to Bishop Aukland Archery shop to find they didn't have  the bow I had seen on their website in stock!   It wasn't a totally wasted journey though as I was shown a similar priced left handed flat bow which I tried out.
I didn't buy it though as I feel I want to practice a little bit more with the left hand recurve bow I am borrowing to make sure I deffinately want to go for a left hand bow. It feels so strange at the moment so hopefully I will get used to it as I can't hit a barn door if I was sitting on the latch with the right hand version!  I will be practicing Mondays, Wednesday & Fridays for a few weeks before I am ready to commit!