California Centaurs

It was an enormous pleasure chatting with Tristan Hughes of Dan Snow's History Hit for this podcast about historical horse-archery. https://play.acast.com/s/the-ancients/horsearchery

CA CENTAURS ONLINE TRAINING So excited to share this cool product of countless hours and steep learning curves...and keep building on it! I don't have a track right now, but when I do again I will post lots more HBA exercises. More At-Home exercises and KIDS exercises on the way, for all those sheltering in place Click on the video FOR SOUND!! Photo credit: Kim Loades, Jerry Dodrill Website Wing-Woman Lindsay Marie Merget... Music: Boy Meets Girl Friend and Coach who's always there for me: Wojtek Osiecki See more

For the past several days I have been testing some new nocks from Custom Thumb Rings. In particular the Mughal Speed nock. This is a traditional Mughal bulbous nock design with just a little flare that makes it suitable for the speed-nocking techniques, required for horse archery and other high-speed burst shooting. Short answer I love them ! They are brilliant. They are a game changer. They are insert nocks that fit .246 inch internal diameter carbon shafts, such as Gold T...Continue reading

This historic footage shows that we weren't the first Centaurs in California. These Monteray debutantes were shooting longbows from the saddle in 1937! Watch the video! http://bit.ly/2Sq7Iom

Special on Centaurs hba lessons!!

CA Centaurs shirts and zip hoodie!!! Cotton poly blend feels great and stands up to horse archery workouts Huge thanks to Whitni Rader for design work and Hilary Marie Montana Hansen for signage! Could make a fantastic gift for your favorite horse archer

What do you do when your awesome Polish Track Competition gets rained out?? Bring the awesome indoors! Thanks to everyone for making the journey, helping out, a...nd supporting your fellow horse archers in negotiating Polish Track elements. I love seeing the CA Centaurs community growing - you guys are so wonderful Instead of focusing so much on points/placing results, participants had to choose a technique goal to accomplish during their rounds. Process before results That said, we did have a senior division tied win for Ondine Rangel and Paul Rangel, And a junior division win by MC Buechley. Thanks to Nathalie Guion for the cool rolling pumpkins! See more

A unique opportunity for those living in the Bay Area with an interest in Japanese archery and culture. A few last-minute spaces have become available. Contact Redwood Kyudojo for details - see registration link on the flier below.

Hilary and Cameron, the only US representatives in this prestigious event, are in a field of world greats. We wish them good horses and tremendous success. Follow the link below for updates.

It is very gratifying to receive this endorsement for my book War Bows from Peter Dekker of ATARN (Asian Traditional Archery Research Network). ATARN is the premiere scholarly site for historical archery cultures that use the composite bow - that of course, includes all horse-archery cultures. https://www.facebook.com/groups/asianarchery/permalink/1322413064564301/?__xts__[0]=68.ARAUdo1NV6pP3YezFCjpJ2F7BYz8b9qxgDEHLr7tGrWx5AEP73z07IbgDadXEqCbZ9w773ZywTEvMfv6qa0QjRztcJzS_JQwIZG9WXFDx-W1FoLj7DbIQgqnpwAw_jRdtPfk2yseNOB7ZBExAQedsqJ-nqvzjd9h6gwXbQrcr8CfDJY9_NO0RTTc3OlnIV20vx2frR3eY_BiCrdTpPZ0jE7FaXK6yX4M3H4rSx5ud_PL7dKqGuMF9H2pVhXzmcqGhqwsV7UxvfHsePamC1lc6qJXQxRa6xO5cRuM-TNnag8ZG6lBYUZJJxy_fVbf1KRpFNe4LM_lTgBiVhw3kQYkaK26cA&__tn__=CH-R

The below extremely interesting and intelligently argued post, about the jarmaki shot, appeared on the ATARN fb page (a tremendous resource for those with a serious interest in historical Asian archery). I agree with much of it but was sad to see that its author referred to my brief summary of this shot in my book ‘The Composite Bow’ (also in War Bows) as ‘lamentable’ on the basis of what he perceives is a conflation between the jarmaki as shot from the saddle and the downwar...Continue reading

Practicing over at Hilary's barn this evening and I shot a 'Robin Hood' -the name for when one arrow splits and embeds itself in another.

Great day at the California Centaurs yesterday with my club co-founder Hilary Merrill. We’ve had a lot of rain recently so all outside areas are currently unusable. However Hilary’s great indoor school was the perfect place to get in some winter practice. For those interested in Horse Archery, there is a fascinating book coming out this week that contains a great deal of horse archery history. It is called WAR BOWS by Mike Loades check it out on Amazon.

What a wonderful way to finish this year! The book that I finished writing in March has now manifested. A preview copy arrived in the post today. Receiving the first print of a book one has written is an unparalleled thrill. The first sensation, before even opening the package, is the weight of the thing. It is the first indicator that thoughts have been transferred into physical substance. A ‘thing’ now exists that previously lived only in my head. It is immensely gratify...ing. It is a substantial book but perfectly manageable for armchair reading. I had seen the designs online in PDF format but nothing prepared me for that first visual impact. My editor and Osprey’s designers have done a stunningly good job and I could not be more pleased with the design choices. The quality of the paper and the quality of the printing are superb; so much more so than I had expected. It is in a different visual league from the short-form books (Longbow, Crossbow and Composite Bow) where much of the material was published previously. That material has been lifted to a new level with text, drawings and photographic images looking stunning on the page. In addition to the re-packaging of previous work there is a great deal of additional material as well as an entirely new section on the Japanese yumi, following the same formula of Development, Use and Impact. Quite simply, it is a gorgeously produced book and I deeply grateful to all at Osprey for nurturing its long journey and for taking such care to create such a quality volume. As for the merits of the content, well that is for others to consider but I hope that those of like-mind will find something in its pages to interest them. It is not exclusively about horse-archery but there is a great deal about horse-archery within its pages. The book will published officially in February 2019