The photo sequencies

As mentioned in the book some of the photos illustrating the 11 points have been "made" to the purpose, but the main sequence of the 11 pictures of Michele's back have been taken "live" during an official competition.
In the reality, the picuters taken have been more than 11, but 11 only have been selected for the book.
Digital camera used has been a 5.1 MPixel Sony Cybershot T7 (yes, the very slim one) that only has a 3x optical zoom, but the result was excellent, for this sequence as well as for others that at the end have not been used for the book.
These pictures have been ocmmented in various ways by readers, were the prevalent comment has been that many of them look the same, and in any case do not give the feeling of the movement.
So, to help to understand them better, I have made a simple animated gif from them, that I have already used for some of my presentations of the book in Italy. You can find it here (please, do not link the gif directly to any other page, it is copyrighted). But if this won't be enough, by December you will get The Heretic Archer DVD, and then all will be much more evident.

Der Häretische Bogenschütze

Our friend Andreas Lorenz has informed me yeserday that he is confident to end the translation from Italian to German language by Easter. As around one month and half is needed from the first draft of the text to the printed book, we have agreed that a good date for the availability of the German Edition "Der Häretische Bogenschütze" is June, 12, 2006. Why? Because June 12 is Andreas' birthday, of course !!
Andreas has been a great archer and missed to participate to 1988 Olympic games not for technical reasons, but for some phisical problems that came out at the last minute. He has been Junior world field champion, and an old frined to me and Michele. Born in the Bolzano province in Italy, he his fully italian-german bilingual an since he married a daughter of Mr. Verner Beiter, he is living in Dauchingen , Germany were he handles sales of Beiter products. He is therefore the most perfect translator for our book .
Anyhow, as a lot of text in the book is quite complicated to express in different languages than the Italian one, he is anyhow insisting to find at least another proof reader to make sure to avoid (the majority of the) mistakes in the printed edition. Any reaader with good knowlege of German language would like to help? Please e-mail me .
Just to conclude the story of the German edition definitely it will have a dark yellow cover. So, the white will go to the Japanese edition, when ready.

Understanding the structure of the book - 1

The Heretic Archer is book that has been written in different times and under different conditions, were some chapters are made by articles about different aspects of archery, already published in the past by different magazines in Italy and around the world, while other chapters, namely those of part 4. , have ben written as a full text but over a 10 years period, and other chapters have been intentionally written to complete the various parts of the book in June and July 2005, only.
Considering also that several chapters /articles have ben written by Michele, it is quite normal that the final result could not be made perfectly homogeneous. Therefore, the final decision was to make intentionally all the new chapters under the form of an independent article, that may in future have independent publication on archery magazines.
Then, there was the problem of the updating of the old materials.
If Chapter 6.3, "Field Archery, why?", an article alredy published around the 1999, was quite easy to update (just adding latest Michele's top results in Field), chapter 2.4 has requested for instance a lot of work. "To tell limbs from limbs" is the title used by Archery Focus magazine when the original article was published in the year 2000, and I loved to keep it, nd keep it with the original title. But then, the maximum reference in limbs technology development for that year were the Hoyt FX limbs, while after 5 years things have changed quite a lot. So, there was the need to re-adjust some parts of the original article and specifically to update the comparison table itself to make it more related to today's limbs. But, as Michele did not have anymore the wide availability of different limbs from different manufacturers he had in 1999/2000, we had to choose a different solution: test limbs from one manufacturer, only, but comparing its own different technologies for both different limb structures and different limbs ages.
Michele spent therefore some days in testing all limbs he had available from that specific manufacturer (OK, everybody knows is Win&Win) reaching some times some "unexpected" results, as it happened in the previous test of 5 years before, too. i leave to the readers to understand why ...unexpected.
Updating the original article to make chapter 3.2, How to satbilize your Olympic Bow, was in fact quite easy. But unfortunately, photographs for the article had to be made again, as original pictures used for the article were showing vry old bows. And it was only after the publiction of the Italian edition that one of the first readers asked me "were are the TFC's " mentioned in the chapter?".....Ohhps.... There were a lot of them in the original pictures, none in the new one's .... Well, one of the "misteries" of the book is now revealed.........;-))

Sell in, sell out...

The Heretic Archer is the first archery book to be made available in three different languages almost at the same time. So, nor myself or others were having any idee about the potential market for it.
Surely, the market for the Italian language version was the smaller one, but in this extent FITARCO has helped a lot ordering 1000 copies to be distributed to the italian registerd coaches, and therefore, at present the Italian version has already reached a total of more than 1500 copies distributed.
But while I was betting on the English vrsion as the most selleable one, I have frankly to admit to have understimated the French version market.
Considering that English and French versions have been both introduced to the market around January 26, in less than one month, only, the Englis version is over 700 copies worldwide, but the French version is already over 500 in the France, only.
Even considering that the sales will of course slow down in the next months, I have already concluded that the first version that will need to be reprinted will be the French one!
Of course, these rough numebers are referred to sell in to dealers and distributors, but as everybody seems being ordering what is really selling, and repeat orders are already common, I have to guess that at least 700 copies of the book have already reached their final destination outside Italy: the international readers that I have already to thank for the warm welcome to my and Michele's work.

Dfferent way of reading The Heretic Archer

I can clearly see from comments around that many buyers of the book are reading it jumping between chapters, and not from Foreword to Chapter 7.3 as it was intended.
Someone jumps to the chapter about stabilizers, others are asking "why no conclusions about limbs comparison", others talk about my philosophy for training. Many are asking "why this" and "why that", while the reason why is clearly described in the text, sometime simply in the previous chapter.
Even more curious, some people that have declared to have bought my book, is asking here and there on the forums for comments about a specific point that is anyhow clearly explained in the book, without any reference to the content of said specific explanation. Have they read it, I question myself?
There is an history, in the book... the history of the development of tuning systems, materials choices and shooting technique during more than 10 years and more than a tons of medals. And how some solutions have been adopted in front of others is sometime clearly explained. If you read it for all the lines, and many times, in between the lines....
Some discussion around drop easily into the ridiculous. Stabilizing your Olympic Bow chapter, for instance, is based on an article published already on magazines many years ago. It means that the basic concepts for it are going back to at least 15 years ago, and are widely accepted in the world of archery. Is like if someone wants a clear explanation about the advantage of the wheel over the other ways for moving easily weights around. Of course we can go to the technical explanation about the wheel, but do we really need to do so? Surely also today we have some undeveloped populations that still will look to the wheel as something new, but we don't loose time to discuss about it with them. And if we really want to re-analyze the subject, than we have to use the resurces mentioned in chapter 7.3 ...
The book is for those that don't want to loose time re-inventing the wheel. And everybody will benefit much more from its content reading it from the beginning to the end, instead of viceversa. IMHO.

Heretic championship

Just back from 3 days in Reggio Emilia for the annual Italian Indoor Championships. During it, my club has established a new record of medals with a total of 14 for individuals and team (6 only in 2005 and 2004 as well, including the 2 top Italian titles in men and women recuve, and the top title for the women club as well.
So, Michele has been back to the top of the podium defeating in the final match Alessandro Rivolta, in a match that was supposed to happen before in Nimes. Elena Maffioli has defeted in the final Pia Lionetti, getting her first Senior indoor title. Then, Elena, Carla and Gaia Banchelli have defeted in the final match the team from Rovereto 254/252 in avery close match. But it has been really an Heretic champinship, as Michele has been able to access the finals also in the compound division. Coming from 3 days of illness, Michele has shot on saturday the qualification round with compound after 4 days of stop and after atotal of 60 arrows only with his new Hoyt compound (got it in inNimes). Bad start, 285 after 30 arrows, then a much better 292 for the other 30, and going to the shoot off for the 16th place against Daniele Bauro, won at the third arrow.
The morning after, qualificatin round for recurves, ending at 592 (295+297) and being second after Alessandro Rivolta 592 (297+295) for one gold. Then, the problem for the organizers started, as in the afternoon Michele was qualified for the finals (top 16) in both divisions. So, the decision to go on with the competition alternating men recurve and women compound to men compound and women recurve.
So, first match recurve for Micele, then the second one was a compound match.
Of course, nobody was expecting Michele to survive to his first compound match against Stefano Mazzi, leader of the board. But 175/174 has been the final score in favour of Michele, that then went on up to the final for the gold against Rivolta in recurve and for the bronze against Antonio Pompeo in compound, with top scores 118 in recurve and 119 in compound.
Of course, in chapter 7.1 of the book you can find my positive opinion about using the compound as a training device for recurve shooting, but frankly I never supposed before last Sunday that this was directly applicable during the finals of a Championship and without any training end during the switches from one bow to the other.
But it was one of those days when the Heretic can go far away from the normal paths... It does not happen often, of course, but in one of those heretic days... only.

First comments around

And people, finally, has been able to read it outside Italy.
Some comments from the various forums and e-mails received:

- J'adore ce livre !!!! ( I adore this book) ... French reader, woman
- Passionant comme un roman ( impassioning like a novel..) ... French rader, woman
- I really like the way it's sectioned - British reader, woman
- Fantastic!! I like the way it is written as if you are actually speaking to either Vittorio or Michele. - British reader, man
-I think the "heretic" part of the title was well chosen. - British reader, man
-I was also suprised to see so much space dedicated to tuning. - Bitish reader, man
-I like the book very much, and it is pretty much the opposite of the Total Archery - US reader, man
-You have confirmed some of the ideas that I have been trying to pass on to archers for a number of years - British reader, man

Well, the general reactions are expressing mainly what I was expecting: a large content of surprise.
People was expecting the usual, traditional archery book/manual, and they have found, first of all, a 20 years long novel inside it, then a quick reference guide to all specifica aspect of olympic archery and finally many answers. Too many answers, probably, I have to say.
One of the first readers of the Italian edition told me that what he liked in the Heretic Archer was the fact that I was not loosing time to explain too much, to give alternatives and to propose different solutions, like in typical archery manuals, but I was simply giving unique answers, with no frills and alternatives, to all common questions. My personal, sometime "heretic" answers, of course, but without any doubt, very difficult to be misunderstood. And all of them supported by the the international results of Michele, Carla, Elena Maffioli, Andrea Tarelli, Vittoria Martin and Manuela Mustafà, those from my club that have got at least one or more World or European medals in recurve archery in the years.

Of course, soon also negative comments will come, and surely someone will propose to burn the Heretic ... but in the mean time, enjoy reading our book like I'm enjoyng reading your comments about it!

Heretic Nimes

The tournament in Nimes , last weekend, has been the greatest ever, for number of participants and vlue of prizes. But it has also been the "Heretic" tournament!
I was expecting the book to be sold there by a couple of companies, only, then what a surperise to find it in several booths, already!. Surely, the French distributor has done a good promotional work, so the book was in display in not less than 5 booths for the French version and 2 for the English one.
But was it going to be sold, or not? Definitely, at the end of the compettion, the number of copies in display was reduced a lot, and the number of authograps myself and Michele have been asked for has been significant!
A success, I have to say, beyond any reasonable expectation!
Now, buyers have to read it, and this is the real final test!

Heretic days

This morning I have got info that the first shipments of The Heretic Archer has been received by both of the UK shops that have been ordering them first. At the same time, an e-mail has confirmed me that the very first copy of L'Archer Hérétique has been recived by the French Archery Federation in Paris.
Tomorrow, many other copies will be shipped to UK, France and Norway.
Yesterday in Perugia, during the annual FITARCO congress, FITARCO has started distributing L'Arciere Eretico to the technical representatives of all Italian clubs. So, I can say that these 2 days have been really "Heretic" intensive !!
Curious to here who will be the first one announcing to have bought (and read) it outside Italy !

The three books are on my desk

Finally, the three different editions are on my desk!
Today I have visited the editor, and seen all the copies of the English and French versions on their pallets. Really a fantastic spectacle! Then, I have picked up some copies of each language version, and come back to my office.
Just now, I have the 3 editions on my desk, and I'm comparing them. They look identical, apart from the red cover for the English one, the light blue cover for the French one and the dark green cover for the Italian one.
There are some other small differnces in them, mainly in chapter 7.3 and in the Credits (of course). In all other aspects, they can be cross-read keeping (almost) the same page number for each paragraph and picture, thus making easier to refer to any part of the book independently from the language you are reading.
From tomorrow the books will start to be shipped around, and within ten days I'm sure I'll start to receive questions and comments. This Blog is born to give answers to them, and I hope to be able to keep on with my commitment with it.

The book in Nimes 2006

My club is participating to the Nimes international Indoor tournament since its second edition, in 1999.
Michele was eliminated in the quarter of finals in that year, has won the 2000 and 2001 edition (with world record of 597), got second in the 2002 , 2004 and 2005 editions. My daughter Carla also was second in 2005.
Being there and on the top (that also includes the World Championship finals in 2003) for seven years already, has given to Michele and to me a lot of supporters and friends in France. So, it has been a logical choice to put a lot of effort to get out the French edition of the book on time to introduce it in Nimes, that will be the perfect show for it.
We will arrive in Nimes on the evening of the 27th, around 19:00, and I will deliver immediately the books in French to the dealers that already have ordered the book and have booths there. Also a limited quantity of the English and Italian editions will be made available at the same time. So, all friends there that have written to me to book a copy of the French edition wil be able to get it in the same evening.
Hope they will not waste that night in reading it, anyhow....

Color of the cover

The book is binded with hard back cover and plasticized full color over-cover.
The choice of the color for the cover of the Italian edition has been easy: green is my preferred color, so its color is dark green.
Some discussion has been neded to reach a decision about the colors of the French and English editions. At the end, the logical (?) choice has been dark blue for the French one and red for English one.
Now, a familiy discussion is running about the color of the cover for the German edition. Preference is going to a saturated dark yellow, but then what about the Japanese edition? Or gray for German and yellow for Japanese? Or white for Japanese? Still plenty of time for the final decision.
For sure, at the end nobody will be able to confuse the varius editions of the book even if on the same shelf without the over-cover.

Who has read it already outside Italy?

Curious, not so many have already read the book outside Italy., in my knowledge.
They can be counted on the fingers of one hand, only:
- Tom Dielen, General secretary of FITA, has read the Italian version.
- Yoshi Komatzu, editor of The Arcer magazine in Japan, has read the English version draft.
- Sandrine Vandionnant has read the Italian version, and the French draft as well
- Andreas Lorenz has read the Italian version (but he is Italian, only living in Germany)
- The president of archery federation of Malta has read the Italian version
Some other few have received the Italian version, but I doubt they have been able to read it.
So, to have up to today already booking for more than 500 copies in English and 300 in French is frankly a surprise to me. Such an expectation in the archery world was frankly .... unexpected.

Shooting for pictures

Someone has asked me how I have been able to synchronize the release of Michele, Carla and Elena in order to get their shooting sequence together.
Using a cliker, of course!
Well, using ONE clicker only, in the reality.
After trying all combinations, at the end has been Carla's cliker sound to command the release for Michele and Elena as well, and the result, after some tentatives, has been quite good, don't you think so?

Mistakes and Translations

The first edition has beenof course the Italian one. Because of the very tight schedule for the official presentation of the book, due for November 19, 2005, the fnal revision before printing has been left to the company making the impagination.
Unfortunately, this has left some typing mistakes in the text, as well as a paragraph duplication in Chapter 7.1, that has been handled by a small "errata corrige" paper inserted in all copies of the book.
By the way, there are no signifcant errors in the text, and the content is clearly undertandable in all its parts, even in presence of the already mentioned typing mistakes.

The second edition has been the English one. Translation has been handled by my friends and archers Stephen Avis, David Baron and Gaia Banchelli, as well as by myself. Stephen and David are British citizens living in Italy since many years, and have both learned to shoot (recurve) in Italy; Gaia is Italian but she works for a multinational american company and has lived in USA for a while. Dave (David) has also been the translator to English of several of my articles published in the past by Archery Focus magazine and others.
The final complete text has been assembled by myself and then revised in collegial session with all the four translators, were we have finalized chapter by chapter all the details and "real" interpretations of the various parts, with a lot of care to the transfer of the "meaning behind" to the English text, and to the respect of the two different ways of writing (Michele's and mine) . A lot of discussion, for instance, has been neded to finalize the so called "nehologism" (hope the english word is right) "sighters", supposed translation of the italian neholgism "miratori"...... Difficult to translate a previously unexisting word, believe me!
The text after impagination and before printing has been revised by all us again, so I had to suppose that the final printed book is as perfect as possible... But I have already found a couple of typing mistakes in the printing drafts, so I'm sure other will be found later, when more will read it. Sorry, but this is the best we have been able to do....

The third edition has been the French one. My French is just sufficient for simple conversation, but when I go to writing, I'm very far from an acceptable level, while anyhow I can read French quite well. Unfortunately, in my club there are no French mother tongue persons, so no way to follow the same procedure used for the English edition. Finally, because of the time very short, considering that the French edition had to be printed at the same time as the Englsh one, if I wanted to get it on sale during the Nimes 2006 international tournament on January 28, I have decided to use a professional translator.
I think that the lady that has made the translation has done a very good job, but of course the point was that she did not know anything about archery and archery terms in the French language. Fortunately, I have been able to get a fantastic help to finalize the French text by Sandrine Vandionnant, that has dedicated a lot of time to "re- translate" the translation form litteral one to an "archery" one, and I have for sure improved a lot my knowledge of the French specific terms for archery in the process. Believe me, "Band" for "Bracing" and "Lacher" for "Release" have been among the gretest surprises.... The final impagination has been then read again by myself, Sandrine and the original translator, so I hope what readers will get is a quite good reliable French version of the original Italian.

Few days ago our friend Andreas Lorenz has told me that he already has some pages translated to German Language. So from here the problem will start. For the German edition I will have much more troubles, as I don't speak or understand at all that language. I'll have therefore to find someone that will help Andreas to check the translation when done, and I'll have to trust those doing the job without possibility to intervene directly. Ok, this is the case for many other activities, so I will ave to deal with it in some ways... German edition will be probably on schedule, and in the market by the end of April.

Mr. Yoshi Komatzu, famous photographer and editor of the Japanese magazine "The Archer", will translate by himself the book starting from the English version. He has already translated in the past some of my articles from English to Japanese for his magazine, and I really trust his competence and passion in archery, so I'm sre the result will be good, even if of course I will never been able to read it. Japanese language is for my next life, not for the present one. Japanese version will be available just after the coming summer.

About the philosophy of the book

Already posted on the Sagi board on January, 5, 2006 (never rewrite the same things if you still have the original...)

There are different approches possible in writing an archery book. 90% of the books around are just introductory manuals repeating for the 90th time the same basic steps, just with different pictures. Not so many coaches or top level archers have up to now decided to really explain in writing what they believe to be the way of the success in competitive archery, and how they have reached their conclusions. In this respect, Archery in earnest, The simple way of winning and Total archery are quite unique. But while Roy Matthews and Rick McKinney have put a lot of personal experienc in their books, Total Archery is un uncomplete work. It generates more questions than anwers that is giving. But, it is the first look to the inside world of Korean modern archery, after "Avviamento alla Competizione", by Don Eum Suk, Spigarelli and Casorati, written on the early 90's using infos from korean manuals translated and explained by D.E.Suk (available in Italian language, only). K.S. Lee does justify with byomechanic a lot of things he says, but as chang is mentioning, there is no reference or explanation of the basic work used to reach such conclusions. In addition to this, surely some archers he is using as reference are NOT shooting in that way at all, including his pupils Tim and the late Dave, and Michele's picture as example of (good, I hope) way of reaching anchor has also nothing to do with the content... Anyhow, a lot of infos in that book are new and very usefull and justify 100% its price. May be the useful infos for me are not the same for others, but they are there.... My approach to assemble " The Heretic Archer" has been quite different. First, not a basic manual at all, but a collection of opinions, experiences and articles sometime already published about the various main aspects of our sport. Second, the full clear (I hope) explanation of the Michele's technique and how to teach/learn it. Third, a wide range explanation about how I have reached those conclusions and why, in my opinion, is just a waste of time to follow other paths. Fourth, the story of how Michele has become a champion by following the develpment of his technique and his results in 7 years fom 1989 to 1996. The key word about my book is "efficiency". No way, in our western world of almost pure amateurs to follow "unefficient" shooting techniques, as we do not have the numbers of professionals and the financial possibilities to follow them. We presently we are building up a good archer in 7 years starting from 100, when in Korea they can build up 30 good archers in 4 years starting from 1000.... no way to compete, if we do not find a more efficient and consistent way of producing top level archers. In my persona experience, I suppose to have found that way, and I hope my book will help other to follow the same path to the success. But, as already stated, all exeriences around can give additional bits to this path, and surely all the books I have mentioned have mor than one in them.


Vittorio

Why English only?

What about the other languages?
No meaning to start commenting the book in more than one language, only. Too much complicated, and open to too many repetitions and mistakes.
I can easily write in English, but I have some troubles with French, I dont know but few words in German and I can only identify a text as written in Japanese, but not read or write n this language.
As far as Italian is concerned, Italians have so many opportunities to talk to me directly or to ask infos in different ways, that it iss not worth at all to manage the answer by a blog.
So, as said already, let's start ere and in English only, and time will tell....

Vittorio

The beginning

I have had several doubt about starting this blog (my first one), but there were few other choices, all of them worse than this one.
As my and my son's book "The Heretic Archer" will surely generate a lot of questions, one of the possible solutions to answer to them was to start a dedicated forum...
But, a forum needs a lot of administration, filtering and so on... and in any case a full forum just for the book itself was too much over the needs...
Let's therefore try with a Blog, and if it wan't be OK, I'll reconsider other solutions.
I'll comment here about all aspects of the book, and try to answer to the questions that may come even from other blogs or forums...

Everything, of course, in an "Heretic" way ..

Vittorio