Preparing for the Thailand Princess Cup...

Preparing for the "Big One" in June...

Cikgu Lau, my archery buddy told me about the Thailand Princess Cup Archery tournament in Bangkok.
Curious, I went on to the organizer's website to do some research. 
I found that it was a professionally organized event hosted by the Thailand Outdoor Archery Club (TOAC).
Seems that they have been very popular to archers from around the region and Malaysia was represented in a few categories.

The new job and having weekends off...

I must say that life has been really good since August last year. I left my old workplace to take on new challenges and ended up in a multimedia department.
I left behind a group of conflicted bigots and some pretty insecure people to pursue a career in content development. So, the reward was having my weekends to myself.
That said, I used the time to stay in shape, build up my physical strength and live a clean life.
Now, I have some time to train and I picked Saturdays and Sundays to put some arrows downrange. 
Gone were the days when we had to drive half way across the Klang Valley to shoot at a club and a paid range.

Weekends are totally awsome at the range 

Working on my grouping

A happy camper!

Trying the traditional/barebow category in Thailand

The Princess Cup tournament is basically an indoor event. It's held at a shopping mall North of Bangkok.
Archers are given the choices to shoot either Recurve or Compound bows and my choice was the barebow category.
It is set at a distance of 18-meters and each archer has to shoot 10 ends with 3 arrows per end.
Points will be aggregated based on the best 5 sets.
I don't have any experience at all when it comes to indoor archery. But I do have a set of indoor arrows that were spined for my Martin Panther #45lb takedown recurve bow.
Basically, it's a hunting bow with enough power to put some arrows downrange at that distance.
So, that said, I have to work on my grouping.

My grouping

The Martin Panther Bow

The grouping with a set of Beman ICS Bowhunter arrows

The rules

I read the latest update on The Princess Cup Archery Facebook page which states that barebow archers would have to shoot 10 ends with 3 arrows on a 40cm single target face. Sound pretty fair at distance of 18 meters without any bow sights.
My bow of choice for this tournament is the Martin Panther #45 takedown recurve bow. I am very used to shooting this bow and most of my arrows are spined to its heavy poundage. In the months to come, my focus is also to build my upper body strength.This includes 50 push-ups daily and free weights training.

The Martin Panther is smooth and accurate

Sending arrows downrange

The video above is how we work on our groupings at the little range near our house. I take the opportunity to train every weekend unless if I have to work.
Apart from that, I would also have to get used to my Easton Platinum Plus 2315 arrows that were meant for indoor shoots...