The National Field Archery Society (NFAS) is a British organisation that exists to foster and promote field archery as a sport.
Information in this article is taken from items in newsletters of the NFAS. [1] [2]
Field archery was introduced to the United Kingdom by US armed forces personnel stationed in the UK during World War II and the subsequent Cold War period.
Archers wanting to practice field archery formed clubs such as the Severn Valley Field Archers and the Dunkery Field Bowmen.
In 1959 the British Field Archery Association (BFAA) was formed at Dunster in Somerset. The association held annual championships, and defined various rounds shot at unmarked distances in woodland. The BFAA did not require clear lanes between the shooting position and the target - the preference was for the course to be as natural as possible.
In 1970 the BFAA merged with the more recently formed English Field Archery Association (EFAA). The EFAA drew its membership largely from areas around US military bases in the UK, and followed the US practice of shooting at marked distances through cleared lanes.
The merged organisation followed the EFAA's preferences for marked distances and cleared lanes.
Many archers who had been members of the BFAA were dissatisfied with the changes to the character of field archery. In 1972 a group of archers drafted a constitution and a set of rules that enshrined their preferred style of shooting unmarked distances in natural conditions. This led to the formation of the National Field Archery Society, whose first Annual General Meeting took place on the 10th of March 1973 at Clayton Community Centre, Norwood Lane, Clayton, Newcastle, Staffordshire.
The NFAS has grown to become the largest field archery organisation in the UK. The NFAS is not affiliated to any international organisation.
The NFAS recognises 12 styles of bow:
The general rules are determined by a committee and ratified or rejected by the membership. Specific rules applying to each bow style are determined by votes cast only by archers who shoot that bow style.
Rounds are shot at unmarked distances, predominantly using 2D and 3D animal targets.
Two championship events are held every year:
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus, meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity. A person who practices archery is typically called an archer, bowman, or toxophilite.
A quiver is a container for holding arrows or bolts. It can be carried on an archer's body, the bow, or the ground, depending on the type of shooting and the archer's personal preference. Quivers were traditionally made of leather, wood, furs, and other natural materials, but are now often made of metal or plastic.
Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms and bows/crossbows.
In modern archery, a compound bow is a bow that uses a levering system, usually of cables and pulleys, to bend the limbs. The compound bow was first developed in 1966 by Holless Wilbur Allen in North Kansas City, Missouri, and a US patent was granted in 1969. Compound bows are widely used in target practice and hunting.
The World Archery Federation is the governing body of the sport of archery. It is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is composed of 156 national federations and other archery associations, and is recognised by the International Olympic Committee.
Bowhunting is the practice of hunting game animals by archery. Many indigenous peoples have employed the technique as their primary hunting method for thousands of years, and it has survived into contemporary use for sport and hunting.
Turkish archery is a tradition of archery which became highly developed in the Ottoman Empire, although its origins date back to the Eurasian Steppe in the second millennium BC.
The National Field Archery Association is a field archery organization in the United States. Founded in 1939, it is a non-profit organization. It consists of 49 chartered state organizations and nearly 1,000 affiliated clubs. It is also a member of the International Field Archery Association and an allied organization of USA Archery. Members receive its quarterly magazine, Archery.
Howard Hill was an expert bowman who for over two decades, from the early 1930s into the 1950s, was often introduced or billed as "The World's Greatest Archer". He established the record for winning the most bow-and-arrow field tournaments in succession, a total of 196 competitions. In addition, Hill served as a supporting actor, trick-shot performer, and technical adviser on archery for Hollywood shorts and feature films. He also produced and directed documentaries and instructional films on bowhunting, and in the 1950s published two books on the subject, Hunting the Hard Way and Wild Adventure.
Target archery is the most popular form of archery, in which members shoot at stationary circular targets at varying distances. All types of bow – longbow, barebow, recurve and compound – can be used. In Great Britain, imperial rounds, measured in yards, are still used for many tournaments and these have slightly different rules to metric (WA) rounds, which are used internationally. Archers are divided into seniors and juniors, with juniors being those under the age of 21.
Field archery is any archery discipline that involves shooting at outdoor targets of varying and often unmarked distance, typically in woodland and rough terrain.
Popinjay or papingo, also called pole archery, is a shooting sport that can be performed with either rifles or archery equipment. The object of popinjay is to knock artificial birds off their perches. The rifle form is a popular diversion in Denmark; a Scottish variant is also known. The archery form, called staande wip in Dutch language and papegai in French, is popular in Belgium, and in Canada among descendants of 20th-century Belgian emigrants; it is shot occasionally in the United Kingdom under the governance of the Grand National Archery Society. In Germany a traditional shooting at wooden birds placed on a high pole is called "Vogelschießen". These are carried out either with small bore rifles or crossbows.
The Archery Trade Association (ATA), is the trade group representing manufacturers, retailers, distributors, sales representatives and others working in the archery and bowhunting industry. The ATA has served its members since 1953. It is dedicated to making the industry profitable by decreasing business overhead, reducing taxes and government regulation, and increasing participation in archery and bowhunting.
This is a list of archery terms, including both the equipment and the practice. A brief description for each word or phrase is also included.
Clout archery is a form of archery in which archers shoot arrows at a flag from a relatively long distance and score points depending on how close each arrow lands to the flag.
Mounted archery is a form of archery that involves shooting arrows while on horseback. A horse archer is a person who does mounted archery. Archery has occasionally been used from the backs of other riding animals. In large open areas, it was a highly successful technique for hunting, for protecting herds, and for war. It was a defining characteristic of the Eurasian nomads during antiquity and the medieval period, as well as the Iranian peoples such as the Alans, Sarmatians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Massagetae, Parthians, and Persians in Antiquity, and by the Hungarians, Mongols, Chinese, and Turkic peoples during the Middle Ages. The expansion of these cultures have had a great influence on other geographical regions including Eastern Europe, West Asia, and East Asia. In East Asia, horse archery came to be particularly honored in the samurai tradition of Japan, where horse archery is called Yabusame.
The Welsh Field Archery Association (WFAA) is the governing body of field archery in Wales. The WFAA is affiliated to the world governing body, the International Field Archery Association (IFAA). which is a member of the leading World Sport for all association TAFISA. The WFAA manages all aspects of the sport in Wales, including governance, national teams, organisation and administration of national and international tournaments.
Modern competitive archery involves shooting arrows at a target for accuracy and precision from a set distance or distances. This is the most popular form of competitive archery worldwide and is called target archery. A form particularly popular in Europe, North America, and South America is field archery, shot at targets generally set at various distances in a wooded setting. There are also several other lesser-known and historical forms, as well as archery novelty games.
Amy Oliver is an archer from Great Britain. A competitor at the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, a bronze medal at the 2011 World Archery Championships, and was the women's individual recurve champion at the World Field Archery Championships in 2016. Oliver announced her retirement from the British national archery team in 2017.
The mixed team archery event was one of five archery events to take place at the 2020 Summer Olympics. It was held at Yumenoshima Park, with the ranking rounds taking place on 23 July and match play on 24 July. 16 teams competed in the knockout rounds, with the qualifying teams determined by the ranking rounds in which 29 different nations had at least one archer in each of the men's and women's divisions.