Understanding Winning Archery

Rating:
Summary: Al has coached gold medal winners for the US. nuff said
Review: Al understands the mind of the serious archer and puts his coaching techniques in print. Many books talk about the mechanics of archery but this book was unique at the time since it dealt with the mind. I've read it several times and get something out of it every time I read it... Highly recomended for all levels of archers.

Rating:
Summary: Mental side important
Review: This book is not for the person who doesn't know how to shoot. It's for the experianced competitive shooter who wants to win, hence the title Understanding WINNING archery. Archery is full of advise on equipment and form so it's great to read something from another point of view. Henderson coached some of the best recurve olympic shooters in Pace and McKinney so unless you are winning everything I would buy this book if I was you.

Rating:
Summary: Mental side important
Review: This book is not for the person who doesn't know how to shoot. It's for the experianced competitive shooter who wants to win, hence the title Understanding WINNING archery. Archery is full of advise on equipment and form so it's great to read something from another point of view. Henderson coached some of the best recurve olympic shooters in Pace and McKinney so unless you are winning everything I would buy this book if I was you.

Rating:
Summary: Not about Understanding Archery, rather amateur psychology.
Review: This book was highly recommended to me by a top British Archer when I asked if there was a book that would help me understand the Physics of the sport. Neither he nor Al Henderson, the author, seem to know what Physics is, because this book is about the amateur psychology of archery. It's the kind of thing that will be popular in the US, but is probably not a lot of help to the rest of us, except if you find this kind of work funny. I roared all the way through it: "When I get a chance to talk about that great human game called "passing the buck", I get get right up on a soapbox and cut loose."

The book is just crammed with anecdotal advice from this old boy, whose English comes with the twang and syntax of upstate Arizona: "It takes backbone, not wishbone, to succeed at anything."

Al tries to prepare the prospective archer for the possibility that they may not win (mere participation not being the object of sport for many in the US), and even quotes that pillar of American society, OJ Simpson, who advises, "Give it your best. If it doesn't work, it just wasn't your day that time."

To be fair, although there's nothing at all in the book about understanding archery, it might help you understand your own approach to any sport, and has, in fact, helped me improve my groupings by getting me to look at myself a little closer. For this alone, it was worth the asking price, and if you can get through it without flinging it in the fire, then you just might find that Al's annoying advice will help you , too